This article will show you four things you shouldn’t do before bed to help you sleep deeper and wake up earlier.
Having a deeper sleep in a short time is so far better than having long hours to sleep but you are easy to be awake in the middle of the night just by tiny voices.
But to have a deeper sleep is not what we always have, especially if you don’t know the factors that can impact the quality of your sleep.
Therefore, I want to share with you the 5 crucial things that I try to quit to improve my sleeping time and make me feel better and more energetic in the morning.
These are the things that the majority of young generations like Millenials (me included) and Gen Z are doing frequently before sleeping time without notice of the negative impacts on them.
But luckily for me, after spending nearly a year to learn my “Master of Trainer”, I get a better understanding of the value of deep sleep to a healthy body and know what I shouldn’t do to protect the precious sleeping time.
And these are what I want to share with you about what I learned and apply for myself in the last 10 months.
No.1 You shouldn’t do before bed: Don’t use electric devices before sleeping
Stop using electronic devices 30 minutes before bed.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends that you should stop using electronic devices, like your cellphone, at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
Because the electric devices will delay your body’s internal clock (a.k.a., your circadian rhythm), and reduce the time to release of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin that leads to the result that your brain keeps working and feel more difficult to fall asleep.
How to do it
- Leave your electric device outside of reach in the bedroom
- Replace with a book to read and listen to deep music
Adding deep music to your pre-sleeping time will be one of the best ways to increase the quality of your sleep.
A 2014 study out of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland found that subjects who listened to sleep-promoting audio recordings containing hypnotic suggestions spent as much as 80 percent more time in deep sleep compared to those who did not listen to the recordings.
And in the study about “Effects of Relaxing Music on Healthy Sleep” that be published in Scientific Reports, the experts evidenced that
Music consistently improves subjective sleep quality, whereas results for objective sleep parameters diverge
So this is the reason why I keep the habit of reading books while listening to deep music for sleep for the last couple of years.
It makes my mind feel calmer and being fresher the next morning when I wake up rather than feeling tired and exhausted as I used to when I spent the time checking social media accounts until exhausted to sleep.
And if you want to know more about how to reduce your screen time effectively with 3 simple ways, let check this blog.
No.2 You shouldn’t do before bed: Don’t eat before going to sleep
You don’t need a full stomach to go to bed. This will ruin you instead of making you feel comfortable.
As the study from the Sleep Foundation points out that what you eat and drink before bed can affect your sleep.
Foods containing the amino acid tryptophan — a building block of the sleep-related chemical serotonin — could potentially make you drowsy, although evidence is mixed as to whether the amount in food is enough to change your sleep.
Foods that tax or upset your stomach, such as fatty, fried, or spicy foods, are best avoided before sleep.
It is recommended that we should finish the meal at least 2–3 hours before going to bed.
This is a reasonable time for the stomach to release the necessary chemicals to digest the foods effectively.
No.3 You shouldn’t do before bed: Don’t make your bed tobe your office desk
Your bed should only use for 2 exclusive purposes: Sleep and having sex.
This is the advice from experts recommended by Harvard’s magazine.
Because when you use your bed as a place to work as well, your conscious mind will not equal the bed as “the resting place” anymore.
And it makes you feel harder to fall asleep.
This is a mistake that I used to do for years. When I was still in University, I normally work in bed until 1,2 a.m until my eyes feel so tired to turn off the computer.
But I still can’t sleep for the next 1 to 2 hours because I didn’t feel the change in the environment to encourage me to have a rest.
After that, when I decide to change to work only in the studying room, and my bed only for sleeping purposes. Whenever I reach my bed, my mind knows that this is the time for a rest.
And thank for that, nowadays, I can fall into sleep so easily and quit insomnia that I have for years when I was a student.
No.4 You shouldn’t do before bed: Don’t check your clock when you prepare to sleep or wake up at the midnight
Because it will make you feel awake and hard to have a deep sleep.
Dr. Nerina Ramlakhan, asleep and stress management expert and also a psychologist suggests that
Never check the time if you wake during the night — it is completely normal to wake during the night but if you’re a sensitive sleeper then checking the time can send you into a whirl of calculations and worry about how much sleep you will or won’t be getting.
Because when you spend too much time thinking about how many hours you can sleep, you actually can’t sleep.
Many people do it when they prepare to go to sleep to check what time they on the bed, and the second time (for some, not all people) they check again at midnight after going to the toilet or drinking water.
The best way to make your deep sleep keep going after you wake up for these purposes is by quitting your clock. Don’t check it and just simply back to your bed and keep your dream going.
You already set the alarm for the morning to wake up, don’t need to waste your time to check how long you still have on the bed. It’s not necessary or makes your night be fulfilled.
Final thoughts
While you can find a lot of things to add extra to your schedule to make you have a better sleeping time.
In my mind, I believe that minimal the things you need to add to your “To-do list” will make you can do everything more effectively and get a better result.
And having better sleep is also not an exception.
Why do you need to add more things to make you sleep better while you can easily extract these 4 simple things you normally do — And that already makes you have a great night and wake up energetically.
1. Don’t use the electric devices before sleeping
2. Don’t eat before going to sleep
3. Don’t make your bed into your office desk
4. Don’t check your clock when you prepare to sleep or wake up at the midnight
P/s:
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