A good night’s sleep is crucial for overall health and productivity. When you aren’t getting quality sleep, your days can seem long and unmanageable. Achieving a night of quality sleep can be easier than you might think.
Here are some simple tips for helping you achieve a quality night of sleep.
Declutter Your Space
An abundance of things in your space can be a surprising hindrance to falling asleep and staying asleep. Your subconscious mind will focus on the clutter as a task that needs to be completed. Removing the distraction will help your mind relax and rest.
A variety of furnishings are available to help you organize the things you need in your space. Traditional options include dressers, bookshelves, and trunks. Today, the largest item in your room, the bed, can be both the focal point of the space and a storage solution for keeping your room clutter free.
Arrange Your Furniture to Promote Relaxation
According to the principles of feng shui, the way you place your furnishings can either bring harmony to your space or chaos. The position of your bed in the room can affect your ability to fall asleep. It’s believed that facing your bed in a Westward position is the best for achieving a good night’s sleep, but be careful, as that positioning can also be attributed to promoting laziness. Southwest positioning seems to promote a calm, peaceful feeling.
While some positions of the bed have been shown to be beneficial to sleep, others are believed to be detrimental. Facing your bed toward the North is thought to hinder sleep, and even possibly prolong disorders such as insomnia. Northeast is thought to provoke nightmares. Taking care with the position of your bed could be an easy way to alleviate issues with sleep.
Decorate With Calming Elements
When you decorate your space, you set the tone for the room. The colors and design elements you choose can either promote a calm relaxing space, or a busy stressful area. Usually, cool colors and natural elements promote relaxation, while bright, vibrant, harsh colors promote activity.
There’s a reason fast food restaurants choose bright oranges, reds and yellows for their decor. Those colors have a tendency to make you want to rush. Cool, calming colors like blues, greens and lavenders tend to promote relaxation and rest. That isn’t to say that you have to choose pastels for your sleeping space. Cool colors are available in bright shades as well. Let your color wheel work for you.
Eliminate Electronics From Your Bedroom
In our world of technology, it’s easy to fall asleep with a phone or tablet in your hand or with the television running. This isn’t a good habit to have because our brains need to rest before falling asleep. For a better night’s sleep, try disconnecting from technology at least an hour prior to going to bed for the night.
Devices like smartphones, tablets, and televisions emit blue light. The blue light is a deterrent to sleep. It tricks the brain into thinking that it’s daylight. Our brains need darkness to properly move through the stages of sleep.
Set a Sleep Schedule
While we don’t necessarily want our days to be so structured we can’t be spontaneous, some structure is beneficial. Setting a time to go to bed and wake up daily is a structural element that can help improve our sleep overall. If we know what time we’ll be going to bed each day our bodies will begin to fall into a natural sleep rhythm around that time.
All adults need approximately six to eight hours of sleep daily. Setting an alarm for the morning helps to keep us from getting too much sleep, which can cause us to feel overly tired throughout our day. It also helps our body to recognize a pattern to our sleeping and waking hours.
Limit Caffeine Intake
Caffeine is found in sodas, tea, and coffee. The caffeine in your afternoon can of soda might just be the thing that’s keeping you awake at night. Many of us rely on caffeine to keep us going through the day when what we really need is restful, quality sleep on a regular basis.
Often, limiting caffeine, particularly in the afternoon and evening hours, can help the body’s natural circadian rhythm kick in and promote better sleep. The stimulant nature of caffeine can keep the body from relaxing and falling asleep. While it doesn’t affect everyone the same, it’s a good idea to limit the use of caffeine to morning usage.
Final Thoughts
Sleep is our body’s way to recharge after the stress of the day. When we have difficulty with sleep, our entire life can be affected. Making simple adjustments can help us achieve a better night’s sleep.
