How can I sleep better and benefit from restful sleep? To find restful sleep and successfully sleep well, there are a few tips that we all know: Avoid caffeine before going to bed, avoid overly rich meals in the evening, limit screens, etc.
When you suffer from insomnia or sleep disorders and we are looking for solutions to fight against them, we only find tips to control and promote the sleep phase.
And then, come what may… What if we could also control our sleep all night long? Are there any solutions? How to sleep better and benefit from a sleep that regenerates your body?
Also, read: How To Improve Your Sleep Hygiene?
let’s go.
Why Is Getting Restful Sleep So Important?
73% of French people say they wake up at least once during the night. These interruptions last from 10 minutes to 30 minutes or more, and this is called insomnia.
Maybe you have woken up in the morning and felt tired. You feel that your night has not brought all the benefits it should have, and you know that your day is going to be complicated.
But sometimes you don’t physically feel the devastating effects of poor sleep directly. However, it acts on our whole body!
Sleep Well To Be In Shape (Obviously)
Before understanding how to sleep better, let’s take a look at the benefits of sweet nights on your body!
Yes, you don’t have to be very smart to understand that poor sleep does not allow you to rest properly.
But do you know the real effects of lack of sleep on your body?
To begin with, here is an alarming figure: less than 5 hours of sleep per night would increase the risk of heart attack by 48%, and that of suffering a stroke by 15%.
Sleep therefore keeps your heart healthy, but it also strengthens your immune system! During the different stages of your sleep, your body is full of energy.
It is also the time when he stores the information he has received during the day.
As you sleep and enjoy deep sleep, your body restores itself. He is not the only one…
Sleep Better For A Healthy Brain
By learning how to sleep better, you will succeed in taking care of your brain! Because yes, in addition to having a regenerated body, while sleeping, you also pamper your brain.
During your sleep, in reality, you clean it. You eliminate the waste products (toxins) that accumulate during your periods of wakefulness.
When you sleep, you also allow your brain to facilitate learning.
To consolidate the memories you have accumulated during the day, the brain must sort this information: during the night, it stores the important elements and gets rid of the unnecessary details.
When you sleep, your memory is then boosted!
Better Sleep To Regulate Your Mood
How to sleep better and benefit from restful sleep? You have probably already noticed it… When you are tired, your emotions overwhelm you a little.
You are sometimes a little grumpy, stressed, frustrated, you cry for insignificant details, you laugh nervously…
In short, your body is more vulnerable and mood swings punctuate your daily life. Well, that’s simply because sleep regulates mood!
So when you get enough sleep, avoid nocturnal awakenings and your sleep is regenerating, the body is full of energy, which allows you to be positive.
Restorative Sleep To Combat Stress And Anxiety
During your sleep, you evacuate the stress and anxiety that you experience during your day. And there are many causes of stress: work, family, daily rhythms…
There are plenty of reasons to worry, and they keep piling up and hurting your brain and your body. To understand how to sleep better, you will therefore have to act on this level of stress.
To make matters worse, anxiety tires and depletes your resources and sometimes gives rise to headaches and migraines.
Toxins and cellular waste fill your body and need to be emptied during sleep. And what’s more, lack of sleep exhausts the body and strongly promotes stress.
It’s the snake biting its tail! So, you absolutely must find solutions to succeed in benefiting from a truly restorative sleep. And do not panic, you will see that the tips can be numerous.
Give Yourself Every Chance To Fall Asleep
Before benefiting from a restful sleep, it is necessary to succeed in falling asleep easily. And for that, many techniques can help you.
Relaxation Exercises For Restful Sleep
If you are a stressed and anxious person, sleep usually takes longer to come to you. Before going to bed, you can relax with a warm bath and breathing exercises.
Test abdominal breathing and focus only on your breath for 5-10 minutes. Against stress and anxiety, you can also try certain plants, such as ginseng, chamomile, or linden, which promote sleep.
Exercise To Sleep Better, But Not Just Anytime!
To find sleep easily, it is essential to note that physical exercise has a role to play.
You must practice regular physical activity so that your body is ready to receive the energy that sleep will give you.
You should try to find a sport or activity that you can do every day. And that can sometimes come from details: going to get bread on your bike, going for a walk, avoiding the elevator…
In this way, when you go to bed, you feel what is called “good fatigue”, and the chances to enjoy restful sleep are greater.
On the other hand, to facilitate the production of the sleep hormone (melatonin), it is not recommended to practice physical activity late in the day.
Your body must be soothed when you go to sleep, and sport does not allow it to reach this state of tranquility.
To take care of your biological clock, and ensure that your body temperature accompanies your sleep, this is an essential rule. So, sport, yes, but not late!
Controlling Your Sleep At Night, Is It Possible?
This is the real question to ask when you want to know how to sleep better and enjoy restful sleep.
Generally, to sleep well, we explain to you that everything is played in the phase before falling asleep.
And while that’s true, there are other secrets to help you sleep peacefully throughout the night, and avoid disruptions in your sleep cycle.
Choosing The Right Position For Restful Sleep
When we talk about choosing the right position, it’s not about rethinking the way you sleep.
To have a better quality of sleep, whether you sleep on your stomach, on your back, or on your side, here is the goal you must have:
Always Align Your Spine To Your Neck.
And for that, the secret is the pillow. You must choose it of quality and adapt it to your sleeping position.
If you sleep on your stomach, turn to ergonomic pillows that fit the shape of your head and are rather thin.
To sleep enough hours per night, and thus avoid dozing off during the day, it is essential.
If you sleep on your side, choose larger pillows (at least 9 centimeters thick) to keep your spine aligned with your neck.
If you are used to sleeping on your back, you can choose your ergonomic pillow lower than if you sleep on your side, but it should still be thick enough.
Help The Production Of Sleep Hormones
To pamper your internet clock and ward off poor-quality sleep, you’re going to need to regulate your sleep pattern, and go to bed and get up at the same time every day!
Thanks to this good habit, the secretion of sleep hormones will occur naturally, every evening at the same time.
To help you create these hormones, you will also need to get as far away from the blue light of screens as possible and opt for more calming activities in the evening.
In addition, you can count on food to promote sleep: opt for foods rich in tryptophan! Before going to sleep, a valerian or chamomile tea will help you relax even more.
Pamper Your Neck To Enjoy A Restful Sleep
We think little about it… And yet! This is the key to enjoying regular and undisturbed sleep cycles. You need to be successful in taking care of your entire upper body at night.
Your cervicals have probably already been victims of a bad mattress or a bad pillow (and sometimes even both). If you happen to get up with neck pain in the morning, it is high time to take care of it:
Since it is your cervical vertebrae that hold your head, you must choose a pillow that supports it perfectly.
Otherwise, it’s up to your cervicals to do all the work, and they won’t be able to relax properly… Because we’re still not going to let the cervicals work at night too!
During your sleep, and to benefit from a restful night, your whole body must relax and release the pressure.
Succeed In Relaxing To Promote Sleep
To fall asleep, and sleep perfectly all night long, you have to relax, you have to be able to relax to release stress.
Easy to say, isn’t it? The objective is that the muscles of the skull, neck, and shoulders are relaxed, relaxed, and soothed.
No pressure point (also called trigger point) should be felt! Take the test when you are lying in your usual sleeping position.
Close your eyes, and let every muscle in your body go, from head to toe. In general, pressure points occur in the lower back, shoulders, or neck. If you feel one, you must act!
To sleep peacefully, ergonomic pillows, by offering shape memory foam, eliminate these pressure points.
They allow your head to be wrapped in the pillow as they adapt to the shapes of the head and neck.
Seek Comfort To Have A Restful Sleep
Yes, again, that seems logical. But the reflex, when we talk about comfort for sleepers, is to think that it is essentially due to the flexibility of the mattress and the pillow.
Well, it’s a bit more complex than that! It’s a good combination of both.
And since it is easier to change a pillow than a mattress, you will have to analyze the flexibility of your mattress, to choose the right pillow that will adapt to it, and will give you a restful sleep.
Because the softer your mattress, the more your body will tend to sink into it.
And on a firmer mattress, your shoulders will sink a little: you will therefore need a pillow that will be thicker to fill a larger space between the shoulder and the neck.
The arms of Morpheus are waiting for you!
To sleep well and benefit from restful sleep, the solutions are not limited to promoting the sleep phase.
In reality, getting quality sleep is a combination of several factors that play a role before and during sleep.
The choice of pillow therefore has a central place in the appeasement of your nights.
Take the test to determine which pillow will improve your sleep so that you can choose it wisely and avoid becoming overwhelmed by the wealth of information on ergonomic pillows.
Morphology, sleep habits, appreciated comfort: every detail counts!
I have an extended article stating: What Are The Benefits Of Melatonin On Sleep? Benefits, Uses, Side Effects and Dosage