Sleep is an essential part to good health and body development. It’s a time when your body gets to relax, replenish and grow. Easy as it may appear, quite a number of people suffer from sleeping disorders. This can easily develop to serious health complications and easily lead to low productivity during the day. Here are a few effective tips to get quality sleep;

 

1. Keep a Regular Sleep Schedule
The idea here is to let your brain get accustomed to a specific sleeping cycle so that it can self regulate. This way in a short time you will not be struggling with your waking up and sleeping times. To start with, get to bed the same time each day and apply this to your waking up time even on weekends and holidays. A good pointer that the schedule is working is that you will not need an alarm clock after long. If you have to adjust the system do it in small increments.

 

2. Create a Sleep Inducing Bedtime Routine
To improve the ease with which you fall asleep, a relaxing bedtime routine will work. This includes eliminating or reducing noise and replacing it with soothing sounds, a fan or any source of white noise. Aside from noise you have to consider the room temperature, a cool room of about 18°C is convenient for most people. Make sure you have a comfortable bed, dimmer lights towards sleeping time and you can also engage in a winding down light activity like stretching or yoga. This way your brain knows it’s time to sleep and will respond accordingly.

 

3. Watch your Diet and Eating Schedule
Your sleep is affected greatly by what you eat and when you eat it. Caffeine is known to affect your sleep even 12hrs after you have taken it. Fatty foods and heavy meals at supper will take time to be broken down and this will keep you up at night. Spicy and acidic foods over dinner can cause heartburns. It is better to have your dinner early enough. Avoid the temptation of a nightcap since while it may make you sleep earlier, alcohol will reduce the quality of your sleep waking you up later in the night. you should also quit smoking since it has adverse effects on your sleep. Aside from its stimulating effects smokers suffer from withdrawal symptoms at night interfering with the quality of sleep.

Much of these tips will require trying out a couple of times until you find what works for you.