Sleeping hacks for better ZZZs
In two days it is World Sleep Day! So what better time to share some of my favourite sleeping hacks with you, so you can get some high-quality Zs in?
If I would get £1 every time I heard (or said myself!) the sentence “I am tired”, I would be a millionaire. Despite me being tired too from time to time, I would consider myself having pretty good sleep hygiene, and I truly enjoy getting a good amount of rest in, no matter when I go to bed. Even if that means 9 PM which surprisingly seems like a very rare thing to do.
But sleep is important to me, and so it should! There are many reasons why we spend around a third of our lifetime in dreamland. It not only helps us recharge and be ready for a new day ahead, but we also need to give our body time for general maintenance after all the work we put it through during the day, it affects our mood, ability to focus, and perform at our best as well as to keep us simply sane. I highly recommend the book “Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker.
As for me over the years I have found several sleeping hacks that help me get a good but more importantly consistent amount of sleep almost every night.
Here are my top 5:
Get into bed and stand up at the same time, also on weekends.
>> The more you can do so, the better and easier it will be for you to get up and fall asleep. Our body and mind LOVE routine, This also includes your sleep routine. You basically condition and reprogram your body to know subconsciously when it is time to sleep. Having other parts in your sleep routine that helps it prepare for it, will contribute to the effectiveness of this hack. If your sleep schedule varies every day, it is no surprise it might be messed up and you struggle to fall asleep. To fix it try to get closer to your preferred sleeping schedule step by step, and give it time! You will not be able to do this within a week or two. Try this for at least a month. I personally aim to get to bed and fall asleep around 9:30 PM and get up at 5. AM. (This schedule is partially dominated by our cat’s feeding schedule, she is a failproof alarm clock).
No screen time before you go sleep and right after getting up.
>> Our phones are highly efficient at keeping us awake and entertained, and with today’s fast-pacing world it is hard to stay up to speed at all times, hence we are often stuck to our screens like glue. Keeping our body in that kind of state right before we want to sleep can be detrimental to the quality of sleep we get and even just falling asleep. Stop flooding your brain with the absurd amount of information available these days and allow your mind to slow down, and ease into the land of Zs. Same when you wake up, give it time to wake up, allow yourself the grace of a slow morning, and don’t take a morning shower in adrenalin. Instead read, journal, draw or meditate (which brings us to numero 3)
Practice mindfulness (add lavender for a boost of cozy calmness)
>> When you are ready to go to sleep, take a little bit of time to take care of your mind and spirit in form of meditation, breathing exercises, PQ reps, body scans, white noise, and more. Anything that allows you to get in touch with your 5 senses brings you into the present moment and takes you away from chasing thoughts about the day in the past or the day to come. You can find some meditations and visualisations in my shop for you to download and listen to whenever needed. Calming smells like lavender or sandalwood may even level up your sleepy experience and make it that little bit extra special. If you are with a partner and he/she doesn’t want to listen to anything, you can treat yourself to a sleeping mask that also has headphones, so you can drift off peacefully with ocean sounds or subconscious programming through affirmations, whilst your partner can enjoy the silence of the night.
Sleep until you wake up naturally
>> Now this may not be possible for you if your sleeping schedule is messed up right now, but it is one of the best ways to get exactly the amount of sleep your body needs. What is absolutely crucial to this hack is that once you wake up in the morning, you get up. Do not press the snooze button, ever (kind of a side rule that applies to all others too!). Humans are animals that function best in daylight, so we are designed to wake up with the dawn. However, society and 9-5 work schedules messed this up. You may think at first, if I try this I will always oversleep. My answer to this is: go to bed earlier and have one emergency alarm for the first couple weeks of practicing.
Write anything that is left on your mind down BEFORE you go to bed
>> Pre-empt your brain before your head hits the pillow so your brain doesn’t go into racing mode about what is left to do or that’s just still on your mind. You can do this on your phone, tablet, or laptop. However I would highly recommend doing this on good old paper, simply to decrease screen time, unless you have a nighttime filter on or blue light glasses to reduce its impact. It's a nice brain dump exercise to let go of anything that could keep you awake and you won’t forget because you wrote it down and therefore will have a chance to think about it the next day with a fresh mind and eyes.
I hope this article has helped you rethink your sleeping hygiene and given you some inspiration on how you too can improve the quality of your sleep. Because again, don’t underestimate the power of rest. You can only perform at your greatest when you know how to take care of yourself. Otherwise, you will burn out in no time and your body is going to force rest onto you.
So instead of mind over body, how about hey body let’s do this together?
NamaStay SLEEPING
JD
