When learning to implement the best ways to improve sleep, sometimes it’s what you do before your head even hits the pillow that ends up making the biggest difference.
Sound sleep is essential for your overall mental, physical, and emotional health, and directly affects your daytime energy levels. So, if you’ve been struggling to catch quality shut-eye, you know firsthand how a bad night of sleep can make your morning even worse.
Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take if you’re interested in discovering more about how to sleep better at night, naturally. This includes easy changes to your bedtime routine that will allow you to prepare the body and mind for sleep and gradually transition into a more restful state.
Below, we’re sharing some of our best bedtime routine tips so that you can hopefully fall asleep faster and wake up feeling more rested.
4 Tips for Quality Sleep and an Improved Bedtime Routine
If you’re dealing with poor sleep, your bedtime routine (or lack thereof) could be to blame. Give it a makeover with these tips, and discover the difference that a better sleep routine can make.
Tip #1: Avoid Bright Lights
You might already know that the blue light emitted by electronics is a no-go before bed, since it interferes with your natural melatonin production. But, in truth, any bright light can post an issue, including the overhead lights in your bathroom and bedroom. Use dimmers or lamps instead to darken the rooms and ease yourself into a more relaxed state. You can also replace bright white bulbs with amber bulbs for a calmer overall effect.
Tip #2: Enjoy Sleep-Enhancing Foods and Drinks
It’s totally okay to include food or drinks in your bedtime routine, but avoid anything that can impact your ability to fall asleep, such as coffee, alcohol, chocolate, fried foods, or energy drinks. Instead, enjoy something that’s been shown to actually help promote sleep—such as chamomile or passionflower tea, nuts, kiwi, or tart cherry juice.
Tip #3: Try a Relaxing Activity
There’s more to a good bedtime routine than just brushing your teeth and putting on your pjs. Try adding in an activity that you find calming and relaxing, such as meditation, yoga, reading, a warm bath, or an indulgent face mask. This should be an activity that you can do all or most nights, and that you find yourself looking forward to. Not only will it help you settle down to sleep, but it will also be an extra incentive to put down any electronics and focus on something else.
Tip #4: Don’t Get Into Bed Until You’re Ready to Sleep
Watching TV or scrolling through your phone in bed sends the wrong message to your brain about what’s going on when you hit the sheets. To ensure that the connection is made between getting into bed and actually going to sleep, limit the amount of awake time you spend in bed and move any pre-sleep activities to the couch or another non-bed location.
Other must-have tips for improving your sleep include making sure to get in some physical activity during the day and limiting naps as much as you can. Also key may be adding a good night syrup to your bedtime routine, which is a simple change that can help you drift off to sleep sooner and sleep more deeply throughout the night.