What are the benefits of having good sleep hygiene?

Practising good sleep hygiene can help us get good quality sleep every night. So, how does this affect us?

1. If our bodies are well rested, we’ll feel more alert, and be more focussed and productive.

2. Sleep helps us to learn more and make more memories. As you sleep, your brain begins to organise and process all the information you’ve taken on during the day, converting short-term memories into long-term ones.

3. Good sleep can help you maintain a healthy weight. If you’re sleeping less and awake for longer, you may eat more, or make unhealthy food choices. There’s also some evidence to suggest that a lack of sleep interferes with our body’s hunger-regulating hormones.

4. A lack of sleep can increase your risk of developing long-term health conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

5. A lack of sleep can also disrupt your immune system, making you less able to fight off illnesses.

6. Sleep helps reduce your stress levels as it relaxes the systems in your body that are responsible for releasing your fight or flight stress hormones.

7. Relaxing and restorative sleep can help you take care of your mental health, too. A lack of sleep can cause anxiety, low mood and stress which can affect your relationships at home and work. Regularly enjoying good sleep can help you feel more positive and more confident.

Getting on a sleep schedule to improve your sleep hygiene

By making these small changes and getting on a sleep schedule, you can improve your overall wellbeing.

1. Pick a bedtime and a wake up time and stick to them as much as possible. By having consistent sleeping and waking hours that follow its natural circadian rhythms, your body will promote feelings of sleepiness and drowsiness when it’s in need of sleep, as well as feelings of alertness when you have had enough sleep.

2. When you wake up, go into natural light as soon possible, preferably at the same time each day. Seeing natural daylight helps us reset our internal clocks which helps us to get over the feeling of grogginess that often comes with waking up.

3. Do some exercise in the daytime. Although exercising too close to bedtime can keep you awake, exercise in the daytime can promote deeper and more restorative high-quality sleep at night.

4. Avoid caffeine and stimulants in the evenings or at night. While caffeine and stimulants affect everyone differently, it’s important to ensure you leave enough time between that cup of coffee and your bed time to avoid impacting your quality of sleep. Read about our top 5 foods to avoid before bed.

5. Be cautious about how much you eat and drink in the evenings. Being hungry or thirsty at night time will have an effect on the quality of your sleep, as will drinking too much since you will likely wake up to go to the bathroom. Being too full may make it too uncomfortable to sleep. Ensure you eat your last meal of the day at least three hours before bed.

6. Make sure your room is dark, quiet and cool. Temperature, light and noise can impact our ability to get to sleep and increase the chance that we wake up in the night.

7. Have a wind-down routine before bed and avoid electronic devices for an hour before sleep.

What should a bedtime routine look like?

A bedtime routine can be as long or as short as you feel it takes you to unwind and forget about the busy day you’ve just had. It can take just 15 minutes or as much as an hour.

But what should be included in your bedtime routine?

1. Switch off electronic devices at least an hour before bed. Whether it’s a television, computer, tablet, smartphone or games console, the blue light emitted by screens can easily erode our precious sleep time as well as make us feel more alert.

2. Have a warm drink. It’s best to avoid food in your bedtime routine as well as caffeine, so why not try a herbal tea or malted milk drink?

3. Keep to an evening ritual, whether it’s reading a book, having a bath before bed or listening to music. Turn off that TV and associate a different task with winding down.

4. Let yourself decompress from the day. This is your time so don’t spend it loading the dishwasher or sending a work email. Try a relaxation exercise or meditation and, if you’re worried or stressed, writing down your thoughts can help stop them swimming around in your head.

5. Create a comfy sleep environment. Make sure your mattress is comfortable and your pillow is just right. But don’t get into bed until you are ready to sleep.