How to get a better night’s sleep

Sleep is fundamental in our lives. It influences your energy, productivity, happiness and patience. It also has an impact on more serious conditions like obesity, heart disease, diabetes and even shortening your life expectancy.

In order to get a good night’s sleep there are two areas you can look at. The first are your bedtime routines and the second is your sleeping environment.

Bedtime rituals to aid sleep

Decide on a time to go to bed and stick to it! This helps to regulate your body’s clock and could help you fall asleep and stay asleep all night long. Before going to bed, you can create a routine that allows you to wind down. Read a book, listen to some relaxing music or do some gentle stretches conducted away from bright lights.

Yoga can help you sleep

A Harvard study on insomnia found that people who consistently practiced yoga for just eight weeks slept better and longer than those who didn’t practice. The good news is you can improve your sleep with just one pose: Legs-Up-The-Wall (Viparita Karani).* This pose or asana is considered very restorative and deeply relaxing for the mind and body. You can do this for as little as 5 minutes before bed.

Improve your sleep with Legs-Up-The-Wall (Viparita Karani)
Photo: mindbodygreen.com

* https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-20516/the-only-yoga-pose-you-need-for-great-sleep.html

Creating the right environment for sleep

The first thing you need to do is evaluate your room’s temperature and acoustics to create the conditions you need for optimum sleep. Ideally, your room’s temperature needs to be between 16-18 degrees Celsius. This will allow your body’s core temperature to drop by about 2-3 degrees to assist sleep. If your core temperature is too hot, your brain cannot easily switch from being awake to being asleep.

Keep cool for a better sleep

There are several ways you can do this, you can use fans, air conditioning or install window insulation such as energy efficient glass. Fans take a long time to bring the room temperature down and rely on outside air temperatures coming down too. Air conditioning can be set to the correct temperature, however, many people don’t like the dryness that air conditioning creates not to mention the cost. The other option is focusing on the structure of the room and ensuring the insulation is the best it can be. Focusing on your windows, in particular, will help as these generate a lot of heat gain during summer and heat loss during winter.

Energy efficient bedroom windows

It is highly likely that the glass in your windows is only 3mm or 4mm in thickness which isn’t a lot separating you from the outside environment. If you replace this type of glass with an energy efficient glass your home will be more comfortable and better able to support you in getting to sleep.

Your bedroom should also be absent from any noise that can disturb your sleep like traffic or your neighbours. Earplugs might be able to assist you but a better option would be to install sound reducing glass. This type of glass can reduce outside noise by up to 34% over ordinary glass, which is the equivalent of moving your home twice as far from the source.

Energy efficient and sound reduction glass

The good news is you can actually get a combination of the energy efficient glass and the sound reducing acoustic glass to help create the optimum environment for your bedroom.

What bedtime rituals do you have? How have you noticed your environment impacting your ability to sleep? Tell us in the comments below.