Each new year offers a fresh start and new opportunities to improve and focus on yourself. Want to eat healthier? Exercise more? Nurture new or old relationships? Trying to alleviate stress at home or at work?
All of these efforts can bring long- and short-term health benefits. But to be successful at this, there is one key to success: sleeping better. According to experts interviewed by CNN, being up to date with your rest improves your mood and energy, which is necessary to start 2024 and achieve your New Year's goals.
The golden rule for you, in fact, to rest is to be able to sleep through the four phases of sleep four to six times during the night. Each cycle lasts 90 minutes, meaning most people need seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep to achieve this goal.
It seems difficult and, in fact, it is for many people. The good news is that you can train your brain to get the right sleep.
Check out five science-based steps to sleep better in 2024:
Create a routine and don't leave it aside
Establish a time to wake up, even on weekends, on vacation or after having had a bad night's sleep. The tip comes from clinical psychologist and sleep specialist Michael Grandner, who spoke to CNN . According to Grandner, if your wake-up time changes from day to day, your sleep rhythm will not be predictable and, therefore, your body will not know how to respond when you try to sleep “on time”.
“The brain likes regularity and predictable things,” explains Grandner, who directs sleep and health research at the University of Arizona and a sleep behavior clinic at Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson. “Waking up at the same time every day, opening the window and moving as soon as you wake up will give you a rhythm for the day and increase your energy.”
Avoid some types of food and drink
Don't think that a glass of wine before bed will improve your sleep. Alcohol may help you sleep, but it will keep you stuck in the shallower stages of sleep. Your body needs to experience all three stages of sleep – light sleep, REM or dream phase, and deep sleep – to fully recover.
Avoiding caffeine during the mid-afternoon and very heavy or spicy foods can also help.
Practice good sleep hygiene
There are several ways to train your brain to sleep and stay asleep. Good habits include eliminating screen lights and noise, taking a hot bath, or even doing some yoga to relax. It's also a good idea to keep the room cool and free of electronic devices. This includes avoiding leaving the TV on to fall asleep. Lights emitted by notebooks, cell phones and televisions interfere with the production of melatonin, which is the sleep hormone.
Science says that it is better for us to rest in freezing temperatures, between 15 and 20ºC.
Make the bedroom a sacred place
The bed should be used for rest and sex. Although some people think it's normal to work in bed (especially with so many people working from home) or even play video games in bed, doing so doesn't teach your brain that you're in a place to rest. This makes it more difficult to plan your sleep.
The golden rule to sleep better
There is one more recommendation that Grandner guarantees is as effective in his clinic as sleep doctors: “The golden rule for better sleep that you can give to anyone is don't lie in bed to stay awake instead of sleeping.”
“If it's the middle of the night or a few hours before your alarm goes off, if you've been awake for 20 or 30 minutes, get up and try again,” explains Grandner. “Maybe you only need five minutes doing something else to make you sleepy, or maybe an hour, but don't spend that time lying awake in bed.”
Why is that so important? According to the expert, when you lie in bed awake, your brain creates this association that lying in bed means staying awake – not sleeping. This can even lead to cases of chronic insomnia. Instead of becoming a place to rest, the bed then becomes a place that makes you feel anxious, that doesn't allow you to rest and that makes you wake up more tired than when you went to sleep.
If, even after following these tips, you still have trouble sleeping, see a specialized doctor.
Source: CNN Brasil
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