How to Get Healthy Sleep Habits

Healthy sleep habits are a really important behaviour for your wellbeing. Research suggests that good quality sleep is a vital need for us as human beings to function well. It’s therefore important that engaging in regular and healthy sleep is considered a priority, rather than a luxury. Despite sleep being so important, so many of us struggle with our sleeping habits, especially with the busy pace of modern life. To help, we have listed some healthy and easy habits below to help you to engage in the good quality sleep you deserve.

Work on your routine for healthier sleep habits

When it comes to sleep, your body has a natural internal process called your circadian rhythm. This helps you wake every morning and makes you drift off to sleep each night. Your circadian rhythm will reset approximately every 24 hours and works off routine. Many people don’t recognise the importance of giving this cycle routine to help with sleep. If you are often changing your sleep and wake times, it can confuse your circadian rhythm and can impact on your ability to sleep as well.

A healthy sleep habit to get into is to set yourself a sleep routine and try to stick to a similar waking and sleep time each day, even on weekends. This will help your body’s circadian rhythm become familiar to its routine and natural cycle. If your body knows the set times it normally wakes and goes to sleep, it will begin to get ready to do this naturally. Your body will do this by releasing hormones to prepare your body so that it’s ready for a restful night’s sleep.

Meditate before you sleep

Our busy minds can sometimes be none-stop in modern day life. We often have that never-ending to do list and it’s common to have a lot on our mind, especially before bed. This can sometimes prevent us from sleeping because it stimulates our mind when the mind needs to feel rested to feel ready for bed. Meditation is a brilliant healthy sleep habit to get into to wind down and clear your mind before bed.

Meditation focuses on your breath work. When we focus on slow breathing, it activates our parasympathetic nervous system. This is the system that makes your body and mind feel relaxed. If you make it a habit to meditate before you sleep, your brain will feel much more ready for sleep. There are lots of great apps that you can download for free to help you meditate.

Work on relaxation before bed

If meditation isn’t for you, try to do something else you find relaxing before bed. Relaxation can sometimes be at the bottom of our to do list. We may spend lots of time before bed using technology, which can also stimulate our brains. A calm mind and body will be much more likely to drift off to a good quality sleep.

If possible, try to dedicate half an hour before bed to doing something you find relaxing. We know everyone is different and what people find relaxing will differ from person to person, but some good ideas are to listen to relaxing music, have a bath, or read a book. Make this a habit and part of your routine so that you feel in a nice, relaxed place to drift off.

Tackle sleeplessness

If you find you are struggling to sleep some nights, it can become a common habit to toss and turn and clock watch throughout the night. You may think it is best to stay in bed in an attempt to try to get back to sleep. However, research has shown that remaining in bed for long periods when we can’t sleep can actually be unhelpful. The more we clock watch and stress about our struggles to sleep, the less likely our mind will feel relaxed enough to drift off.

A healthy habit is to give yourself a 20-to-30-minute window of lying in bed throughout the night. If you are still struggling to sleep after this time, get up and out of bed. This is so your body associates your bedroom with sleep. It’s a good habit to leave your bedroom when struggling to sleep and go somewhere quiet to do something relaxing. This takes the pressure off you to sleep and gives you a separate focus. When you start to feel sleepy again, you can then try going back to bed. To add to this habit, you could create a sleep box in your designated place with a blanket and relaxing activities for easy access.

Ely Mattress for the best sleep

Here at Ely mattress, we take the wellbeing and relaxation of our customers seriously. We have created the very best mattresses with a whole range of benefits to give you the greatest chance of improving your sleep. Feel free to check out our mattresses and their amazing benefits through our website.