A significant amount of our time is spent in sleep, where we are physically paralysed. There are many mysteries of sleep including dreams, twitches, snoring. There is no doubt that sleep or rest is a critical aspect of our life where healing, immunity build-up, physical repair and memory-learning clean-up is done on a daily basis.
Timing: Six to eight hours of sleep is generally required for most people. The ideal routine to get into is to start and end sleep everyday at almost the same time. Even if you sleep late on a day due to any social or personal reason try to get up at the same time everyday. A 24 hour daily cycle is noticed in people called circadian cycle and as per this cycle our wakefulness generally increases for most people in the morning hours and our sleepiness generally increases post sunset. Thus it is beneficial to sleep after sunset and before sunrise when it is naturally dark.
Quality: Sleep quality can be improved by sleeping in a dark and quiet environment. Sleep quality also improves if we are exposed to enough sunlight during the waking hours. Ideally expose yourself to sunlight in the first one hour after waking up. This sets in motion different processes in our body that helps in hormonal balance. Things to avoid for better quality sleep are
- Ideally caffeine is not to be consumed about 8 hours before bedtime till bedtime. If you go to bed at 11 pm, it is best to avoid caffeine containing food (Coffee, Tea, Soft drinks etc.) from 3 pm onwards
- Bright lights to be avoided during sleeping hours and possible 1-2 hours before sleep. If you had to get up in the night for any reason, better to not switch on those overhead lights.
- Heavy meals and alcohol to be avoided in the last 2-3 hours before bedtime. Avoid oily food in the night if prone to acid reflex.
- While up to a 90 minutes afternoon nap may be beneficial for most people, too much sleeping during the day will reduce the quality of night time sleep
- Best to avoid high dopamine activities close to bedtime such as playing video games, watching a thrilling movie etc.
- Having a warm bath before going to bed will help the body to reduce its temperature and calm down the senses. These mechanism aid in sleep.
- Exercising during the day, specifically cardio activities such as running or cycling, helps with improving sleep quality.
Environment: The bedroom is expected to be dark and cool. The bed and the pillow are important ingredients. The bed is supposed to be firm while the pillow is expected to be of appropriate height.
Posture: Pillow height and firmness is also a function of our sleep posture. Ideal sleep posture is side sleeping. For people with acid reflex side sleeping with our left hand being closer to the bed is ideal as stomach will be well placed. Also ideal to place a thin pillow between our legs and the legs contracted/folded comfortably. This position is also called
But life happens and we may not be able to avoid exciting activities close to bedtime and may not be able to fix the environment specifically while travelling. The moot point is to stick to these as much as possible and not to be over-whelmed about your sleep quality. Lately many of us are prone to measure every aspect of our life and consequently sleep analysers including rings, watches and phone apps are getting popular. While it is wonderful that we have such information about the quality of our sleep and we can possibly experiment with different behaviours to improve our sleep quality, we need to keep in mind that we don’t get obsessed with measuring.
If you feel well rested while you get up in the morning without a set alarm, most probably you had a good night sleep and that’s all that matters.
