Wellness Practices: Sleep

Tossing and turning, you can’t seem to find the rest you need. Every other night, it’s the same story. You go to bed, close your eyes, and sleep seems to be the last thing you’re able to do.

You’re thinking about everything and anything, you can’t seem to get comfortable, and you’re either too cold or too hot. Sleep seems impossible.

While we all know how important sleep is for our health, it can sometimes be difficult to do. In this article, we’ll be sharing:

• Why sleeps important
• The benefits of sleep
• How you can get a better sleep

Keep reading to learn more!

Why is sleep important?

Sleep is essentially the state we enter to recharge. It’s the place we go to when we need to rest, refresh and get ready for tomorrow.

You might think your brain is inactive when you’re sleeping, but it’s the opposite. During sleep, your brain is very active, and it takes care of many responsibilities and carries out important functions.

It affects our mental and physical functioning the next day - think about how you feel when you get a poor night’s rest? You’re usually very cloudy in thought, and your energy is next to none.

However, it doesn’t just affect our energy levels. Sleep is an important part of the process for every aspect of our body. It affects the development of your immunity, and your ability to fight disease, even affecting your metabolism and risk of chronic disease.

The benefits of sleep

Knowing the fundamental importance of sleep is a great motivator to push you to get the best rest possible. But there are also many other benefits to good sleep:

• It could strengthen your heart
• It may decrease inflammation
• It may help you regulate emotions better
• It may lower your risk of type 2 diabetes
• It may help you maintain a healthy weight
• It may improve concentration, productivity, and athletic performance
• Bad sleeping habits are linked to depression. Getting an adequate amount of sleep could help counteract this.

How to get a better sleep

You might be having difficulty getting a good night’s sleep. It’s pretty common and most of us experience some sort of difficulty in sleeping at some point in our lives.

The reasons for this can vary, but it’s important to know the steps you can take to give yourself the best chance of getting a good night’s rest.

The recommended hoursof sleep for a healthy adult is 7 hours. It’s best to maintain a consistent sleep schedule that has you waking up at the same time and going to bed at the same time every night.

This helps support your sleep-wake cycle, and it allows you to get the same amount of hours of sleep every night.

A couple more ideas to help with your sleep include:

• Getting regular exercise
• Avoiding and limiting daytime naps
• Creating a restful sleep environment
• Avoiding alcohol and caffeine before bedtime
• Doing calming activities before bed like meditating or journaling
• Avoiding blue light before bed from your cell phone, TV, or laptop
• Optimizing your sleep environment by keeping the temperature cool, the lights dark, and the noise quiet

As we mentioned doing calmful exercises is a great way to help you relax and get a good sleep. BetterSleep offers a wide range of sounds you can listen to to help you sleep. Avoid a poor night’s sleep with BetterSleep for free today!