If you sleep long enough but still wake up feeling unrested, your sleep quality is not optimal. To start the day feeling refreshed, you should follow these eight simple tips for restful nights.
Many people often lie awake at night – and are correspondingly tired the next morning. Here are eight tips that will help you sleep better and be fitter in the morning.
It sounds obvious, but it isn’t: to recharge your batteries at night, you should feel comfortable. Make sure your bedroom is neither too cold nor too warm.
Around 18 degrees Celsius is ideal for a relaxed sleep. Don’t forget to air the room regularly. Things that are useless for sleeping, such as a clothes rack, don’t belong in the bedroom.
Instead, invest in a comfortable bed and a good mattress and buy bed linen that you and your skin like.
Many of us tend to scroll through social media or read emails before going to sleep. The problem is that the blue light emitted by devices such as smartphones and tablets inhibits the production of the hormone melatonin. And this is important for restful sleep. It is therefore best to banish your cell phone from the room completely and use the good old alarm clock instead so that you don’t get up too late in the morning.
Light prevents us from sleeping well. If you cannot completely darken your bedroom, perhaps because you do not have blinds, you should use a sleeping mask.
It gives your eyes extra space, reduces the appearance of wrinkles and pillow marks on your face. It also ensures that you don’t notice any possible light sources. Even the small strip of light that comes into your bedroom from under the crack in the door is no longer a problem.
Aren’t we being a bit petty here? Absolutely not. Study results show that sleeping with a sleeping mask can not only lead to deeper sleep, but also to more energy during the day. You can look forward to better memory performance and faster reaction times, for example.
No surprise: you sleep best when you are relaxed. So introduce an evening ritual that calms you down, such as taking a hot bath just before going to bed. Suitable bath additives – such as essential oils of lavender or lemon balm – also ensure relaxed moments and help you to get tired.
Important: Do not bathe in water that is too hot, as this stresses the body. Your bath water should not be warmer than 38 degrees Celsius.
An evening coffee for more energy in the morning? Even if you drink a few cups of coffee during the day and hardly feel any effect on your body, you should avoid caffeine before going to bed. It wakes you up and stimulates your brain’s activity. This prevents your brain from relaxing at night, which means you lack energy in the morning.
Instead, drink a hot tea with a calming effect. Chamomile tea, for example, can help you relax.
Exercising before bed can not only boost your cardiovascular system, but also ensure deeper sleep. Study results have shown that around two and a half hours of exercise per week is enough to increase the number of deep sleep phases. This allows your body to regenerate better and you have more energy in the morning.
Important: Keep enough time between exercise and sleep. If you go straight from the gym to bed, your body won’t be able to switch off as quickly.
A burger in the evening? It’s delicious, but not ideal for a restful sleep. If you eat too much, your body will be busy digesting the heavy food at night and will use up energy that you could have put to much better use the next day. So opt for light meals with lots of vegetables.
Tip for food cravings: A banana is filling and contains, among other things, a lot of potassium, which regulates blood pressure and can therefore ensure a good night’s sleep. The individual microbiome in the intestine, which consists of around a million bacteria, should also not be underestimated. It controls physical and mental balance and can be influenced by the right diet.
The right nutritional supplements can boost your well-being – and ensure good sleep and more energy. For example, take a nutritional supplement with magnesium. This lowers cortisol levels and thus stress.
Basically, vitamin B6 also helps to increase the serotonin level, which is important for a relaxed sleep. Melatonin can also make you more tired. As a tablet or spray, it helps you to fall asleep better and be more alert in the morning.
The original of this article “8 tips to get maximum energy at night” comes from Playboy.