Sleep Naked And Other Expert Tips (That Will Actually Help You Get Some Shut Eye)
[Photo: Flickr]
Sleep. We all need it, but it seems that hardly any of us are any good at it. With people leading busier than ever lives, it can be increasingly hard to switch off. Especially when our working day never ends and there is always one more email to check and one more tweet to send before we can shut ourselves off form the world for the night.
However, help is at hand – and we don’t mean the usual ‘spritz your pillow liberally with calming lavender’ talk. No, instead we’ve talked to a whole range of sleep experts who have promised to get you some real decent shut eye as soon as tonight.
Everyone knows not to watch telly in bed and we’ve all heard the ‘have a warm drink’ talk a hundred times before and frankly, unless if a warm mug of gin it’s still not working for us.
So with this in mind, Yahoo Style set out to find some real tips and advice to get us snoozing fast and this is what we uncovered.
Firstly, did you know that in general, if you’re sleeping well, you are sleeping silently - no snoring, teeth grinding, tossing and turning, adjusting the pillow.
We spoke to Dr Mark Burhenne – author of The 8-Hour Sleep Paradox – recommends using a ‘sleep app’ to record the noises you make in the night and says you might just surprise yourself.
All of these interruptions are indications of reduced sleep ability, which is something you should be concerned with.
[Photo: Flickr]
Monitor yourself
Without a baseline of your sleep ability, you’ll never know what you could be missing out on – energy, willpower, and happiness are things that can result from the repairing, stage four sleep that many people never reach because of slight disturbances at night.
So how can you improve this quality if you find out once and for all that your aren’t getting the restful night’s sleep you thought you were?
We contacted the sleep experts at Natural Mat – who offer bespoke mattresses – who talked us through how to recognise poor sleep hygiene and how to adapt your daytime routine to get more sleep.
Good sleep preparation
They stressed the importance of exercising in the day – using up all that excess energy that can leave you feeling restless at night.
Getting enough sunlight during the day is also essential to good sleep patterns. Melatonin promotes a healthy circadian rhythm. Sunlight can also get you more vitamin D which has been linked to better sleep quality.
Although when you’re tired, they can be the most delicious prospect ever, the experts say to avoid the temptation to take a nap. Any nap over 20 minutes can seriously disrupt that all important circadian rhythm and harm your chances at night.
Nutrition is a key of sleep hygiene – that’s the technical term for a good kip – and foods high in an amino acid called tryptophan all promote melatonin which regulates your sleep patterns. These foods include pumpkin seeds, cheese, nuts, lentils, oats and beans. And who said you shouldn’t have cheese before bedtime?
[Photo: Flickr]
The experts add that in the hours leading up to bed time, don’t engage with anything too emotionally taxing – if someone wants a deep conversation ask them politely if they mind waiting until morning.
You’ve heard it before, but they also stressed that you should try not to eat a thing up to three hours before bed time – the argument being that your body needs to replenish and restore – not be busy digesting food.
They pointed out that nicotine is a stimulant so if you do smoke make sure you have your last cigarette up to three hours before bed – the same goes for alcohol and caffeine. Alchohol might make you drop off but once metabolised the withdrawal symptoms will wake you up.
[Photo: Rex]
They even pointed to evidence which suggests that going to bed NAKED can promote better sleep – we kid you not – it helps your body regulate it’s own temperature so that you don’t get too hot.
It’s recommended that you clear your room of gadgetry and plug your iPhone in downstairs to avoid the temptation to use it in bed or worse, in the middle of the night.
When you go to bed you need to leave your problems at the bedroom door. Experts suggest clearing your mind by taking 10 minutes a day to write your worries down and alongside them ways you plan to deal with them.
Still can’t sleep? Relax
But what happens when you are trying so desperately to doze off that you just can’t? Well, the sleep experts reckons there ARE ways of coping.
As hard as it sounds, forget about trying to fall asleep and just try and conjure up pleasant things in your mind’s eye instead. As we all know, forcing sleep never works.
[Photo: Flickr]
They urge you to forget the clock. As obvious as it sounds, clock watching will just make your anxiety worse. Maybe just remove it from the room altogether.
Just resign yourself to the fact it’s late and you won’t be having enough sleep tonight – you’ll be surprised how effective this is!
However, if you do try everything that is recommended here and still aren’t sleeping it might be worth popping in to see your GP.
Sweet dreams!
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