Do you ever wake up in the mornings and wish you were able to get better sleep? Maybe you feel like you toss and turn all night or your brain just doesn’t shut off.
One of the worst things that can happen when you know you have a busy day ahead of you is to feel tired, fatigued, and unenergized. If you work at a performance-based job where you always need to be on your A-game, getting no sleep can be so detrimental to your career because it could mean getting fired!
Along with that, always being tired affects your energy levels which ultimately affects your productivity. If you’re a busy person and you have a million things to do in a day, you know how important it is to feel awake and ready to work to get stuff done!
14 Ways To Get Better Sleep
Sleep is so important so if you’re having trouble sleeping, here are 14 tips to get better sleep at night so you can feel more energized, focused, and ready to take on the day, every day!
1. Get Daily Exercise
A great way to set yourself up for sleep time is to get enough exercise during the daytime. When your body is exhausted and tired, you’ll have a much easier time getting more restful and deeper sleep.
If you work at a 9-5 desk job where you aren’t very active and you sit all day, that means making extra effort that you slot in enough time to exercise during the day.
Whether it’s going to the gym at lunch, walking around the block during your breaks, or going to the gym before or after work, it’s important to make exercise a priority in your life.
Just make sure you avoid exercising a few hours before sleeping. Working out too close to your bedtime will actually keep you up instead of making you more tired.
2. Take A Warm Shower Or Bath
Another great way to fall asleep faster is to take a nice, warm shower or bath to help yourself feel more at ease, relaxed, and comfortable. This little ritual of mine always helps me get better sleep and I also fall asleep so much faster.
Taking a nice hot bath is also so helpful if you live in a cold place because taking one can really help to warm you up. It’s a lot harder to go to sleep when your feet and hands feel cold!
3. Read A Book
Do you ever start reading a book and end up drifting off because it’s either so boring or it makes you want to just fall asleep?
Use this to your advantage!
Start reading a book right before bedtime so it can help you expand your knowledge at the same time as aiding you to fall asleep.
4. Stop All Electronic Use 1 Hour Before Bed
A big reason why many of us are sleeping later and later these days and getting lower sleep quality is due to our extensive electronic use before bed.
We are so connected nowadays with social media and the internet that we just can’t put our phones and laptops away and this negatively affects us in so many ways. Not only does it affect our sleep, it also affects our body posture and eyes.
If you want to feel more sleepy, try to put your electronics away an hour or so before bed so your body has enough time to wind down and feel tired.
F.lux is also a great app to install on your laptop and phone which changes the screen’s display to adapt to the current time of day.
5. Use Essential Oils & Aromatherapy
If you have trouble falling sleeping at night, using essential oils to relax might be right up your alley. I always enjoy spraying some Bath & Body Works Aromatherapy Pillow Mist in Eucalyptus Spearmint on my pillow before I head to bed and this helps me get ready to slip into dreamland.
Another great product you can check out is this Essential Oil Diffuser & Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier. This is a great dual purpose product that acts as both an essential oil diffuser as well as a cool mist humidifier. If you live in a dry climate and find your skin gets really dry or you get nose bleeds often, this is a great 2-in-1 product that can help you relax and keep your skin hydrated!
6. Avoid Alcohol
A sure way to get light, disrupted sleep is to drink alcohol before bed so avoid alcohol if you want better sleep.
You might feel super tired after that bottle of beer or shot of tequila but your actual quality of sleep you’ll get that night won’t be deep and restful. I personally find I often sleep a lot less after drinking and also constantly wake up during the night.
7. Keep Your Bedroom Dark
Another thing that’s often overlooked that might be disrupting your sleep is if your room isn’t dark enough.
Being in a dark room that is almost pitch black can help promote deeper sleep and you’ll feel more energized and ready to take on the day in the morning.
If you have curtain or blinds that you leave open overnight, the light that seeps into the room both at night and in the mornings can be really disruptive to your sleep. And if you’re not an early riser, having to experience the sun shining on your face at 6 am can be just downright annoying especially when you’re not ready to get up yet!
If your mornings are always interrupted, a great way to counter this is to install blackout curtains in your bedroom to help keep the unwanted light out. You can also try wearing a sleeping mask to cover your eyes. For myself, blackout curtains are such a home essential!
8. Log Your Sleep
If you’re still having a really hard time getting good sleep every night, a good way to keep track of your sleep and constantly improve on it is to keep a log of your sleep quality.
Every day, quickly jot down the details of how your sleep was from the night before so you can see how external factors may have affected how well you slept. Try to change things up and test new methods to see what works and what doesn’t work for you.
9. Beware Of Your Caffeine Intake
If you’re caffeine sensitive, you’ll know what I mean when I say to avoid intaking anything that as a lot of caffeine well before you to go sleep. This includes sodas, tea, coffee, and even chocolate!
For me, I need to have finished my coffee or black tea by 2 or 3 pm or I risk rolling around the entire night. Everyone is different though so find a time that ultimately works for you!
Stick to drinking decaf coffee or herbal teas like the Twinnings Chamomile, Honey & Vanilla Tea (this is my favorite bedtime tea!) instead and skip out on caffeinated teas and coffees when it’s late in the afternoon or night.
10 Relax & Meditate
A great way to get better sleep is to meditate and refocus your thoughts.
Sometimes our minds can start racing from one thought to another because we’re always so busy, stressed about our jobs, and there’s just too much going on at once during the day. Because we’re always in ‘go’ mode during the day, it’s so important to take some time out of your night to clear your mind and slow things down.
You can use techniques such as mindfulness or practice yoga to help clear your head and relax your body. When you’re alone in your own space, close your eyes and try to put all of your focus on your breathing.
11. Don’t Eat Before You Sleep
Have you ever had a huge meal right before you went to bed and then felt awful because your stomach didn’t seem to sit right or you were extremely bloated?
An easy way to avoid this is to stay away from eating before you go to sleep so that your stomach has enough time to digest the food properly. You’ll also avoid adding on pounds because you aren’t hibernating right after you eat.
So keep the late-night meals and snacks away and your sleep schedule and body will thank you in more ways than one!
Doing all of these things can definitely help you feel more relaxed so that you’ll be ready for bed and you’ll have a better night’s sleep.
12. Use A White Noise Machine
Do they have trouble sleeping without having at least some noise in the background? Or if you live right in the heart of the city where it’s really noisy or in an apartment where the walls are thin, a white noise machine can be super helpful to help you fall asleep faster.
This white noise machine plays 6 different natural sounds and even comes with a handy timer so that it’ll shut off after a certain time period if you don’t want it running all night.
13. Get Comfortable
Overall, you need to feel super comfortable in order to have a good night’s sleep. If you find that you’re not sleeping well, it could mean that your mattress or pillow may need to be changed because it doesn’t fit well with your body or it’s getting old. I find a memory foam mattress topper really helps make my mattress a lot more comfortable and I usually get a really solid night’s sleep with it.
If you’re looking for a company mattress, I recommend these mattress companies because you can 100% try them out and see if they’re right for you:
- Nectar
- Layla Sleep
- Casper
- Helix Sleep
- Avocado Mattress
- Bear Mattress
- DreamCloud (Bonus: Use code SHOP200 to get $200 off any size mattress and also sign up for Ebates to get an extra cashback of $75 when you purchase from Dreamcloud – that’s a total of $275 in savings!)
Another way to get more comfortable and create an optimal sleep environment is to lower your room temperature. When the room is too hot, it can be hard to fall asleep and no one wants to toss and turn in a sticky, hot bed!
14. Don’t Take Naps
Lastly, don’t take naps even when you’re dead tired.
Napping disrupts your sleep and you’ll end up having a much harder time going to sleep at night and getting deep, uninterrupted sleep. And plus, sometimes when you tell yourself that you’re just going to take a 20-minute nap, you end up feeling groggy after and even worse than before you took the nap.
If you’re always really tired after work or halfway through the day, try your best to avoid taking naps so you can get better sleep at night.
Conclusion
Sleep is so important if you want to be productive and energized during the day so I recommend trying different things out to see what helps you sleep better and what deters sleep from happening.
I hope some of my tips helped you but if you find that you’re still having a lot of trouble sleeping, it would probably be best to go see a sleep professional to get it checked out!
What are some techniques you use to get better sleep? Feel free to share with me in the comments!