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With the new year on its way, it is just the right time to set new goals for your well being as well as your health. In order to be healthy, one must know how to sleep better and improve their cognitive abilities.
Maintaining a proper sleep schedule is thus very crucial for our health, as it not only helps recover our body from all the stress but also keeps our mood light. But worry not as we will discuss eight ways to sleep better that elevate your cognitive health in the upcoming year.
Different ways to sleep better
As it is very crucial to sleep better for overall health, these are some ways mentioned below for you to sleep better and improve your cognitive health:
Increasing light around you
As we all know, our sleep is regulated by circadian rhythm. It is a natural clock that monitors the sleep cycle. It usually affects the brain, body, hormones, and controls the sleep-wake cycle. During the day, exposure to bright sunlight improves the health of the circadian rhythm, and it ultimately elevates your energy levels during the day, thus improving the quality of sleep at night.
It is said that exposure to bright daylight increases the duration of sleep. For people with serious sleeping issues and insomnia, this is a viable way to sleep better. With better sleep, you'll be able to perform daily tasks with better efficiency, in turn improving your cognitive health.
Reducing blue light exposure
Avoiding blue light exposure during the night, which is typically emitted by devices such as phones, laptops, and TVs, can positively impact your circadian rhythm. Blue light makes your brain think it is still daylight, which results in decreased production of melatonin.
Melatonin is a hormone responsible for resting and quality sleep. To avoid blue light, wear glasses that block blue light, download apps to reduce screen blue light, and you can avoid screens at least two hours before bedtime.
Caffeine consumption
It is important to notice the time you are consuming caffeine because taking it late can surely affect your sleep. It is crucial to take care of both, in moderation and timing it to restore your sleep cycle.
Excessive caffeine consumption, that too late in the evening, can increase the time for you to fall asleep, affecting your sleep cycle entirely. Try avoiding too much caffeine to sleep better or maybe find different beverages that do not contain caffeine.
Reduced naps during the day
Naps during the day provide sudden energy in the body, but taking long naps at irregular timings negatively impacts your sleep cycle. Long, irregular naps often confuse the circadian rhythm that controls your sleep-wake cycle. It results in daytime sleepiness and difficulty falling asleep at night.
Issues like insomnia usually occur due to these irregular naps. To avoid these sleeping conditions, cut down on these naps and make them short daytime naps.
Maintain constant sleep-wake cycle
Keep in mind that your sleep-wake cycle should align with the circadian rhythm of the body in order to provide quality sleep time to the body. Irregular sleeping, mostly on weekends, can disturb your sleep-wake cycle and confuse your brain.
Being persistent with your sleep and wake timings enhances the circadian rhythm and levels of melatonin, a hormone that regulates quality sleep. A sleep routine should be followed in order to sleep better, and being consistent with routine will contribute to overall well-being as well as your cognitive health.
Using melatonin supplements
Melatonin is a hormone that regulates relaxation and deep sleep. There are melatonin supplements available in the market that help mitigate insomnia and can be helpful in elevating the quality of sleep and decreasing the time you take to fall asleep.
It is suggested to take small doses of melatonin supplements such as 1-5 mg around an hour before bedtime. Take recommendations from a healthcare professional before consuming these melatonin supplements regularly.
Enhance bedroom environment
Creating a quality bedroom environment might help sleep better. Setting a moderate temperature, using good-quality mattresses and pillows, as low noise as possible, a clean room, no or at least dim lighting, and good furniture arrangement will help you in improving sleep quality.
It is suggested that avoiding screentime and listening to soft music can enhance the quality of sleep and can make you fall asleep faster.
Avoid alcohol consumption
Alcohol intake before bedtime can disrupt your sleeping patterns and hormones. Alcohol consumption often causes sleep apnea, snoring, disturbed sleep, decreased production of melatonin, and many more. To avoid all these causes and sleep better, do not consume alcohol before bedtime.
Consumption of alcohol can also hinder your cognitive abilities. Thus, consumption of it should be avoided to sleep in a better way as well as for your cognitive health.
Follow these different above-mentioned ways to sleep better and improve your cognitive health, which will automatically enhance your performance, lifestyle, and overall well-being.
