Waking up tired? Check out 7 ways to improve your sleep hygiene

Waking up tired might be a sign of poor sleep hygiene. Good sleep hygiene means having a routine or lifestyle that improves the quality of your sleep and overall well-being. 

Life can get busy, and subtle habits like using phones or computer screens before bed can impair the quality of your sleep and daily functionality. The following are ways to improve your sleep hygiene: 

1. Form healthy pre-bedtime habits

Habits such as putting away phones and gadgets before bedtime, ensuring that your room is properly ventilated, avoiding alcohol and activities like rigorous exercise, and having heavy late-night meals before sleeping will improve the quality of your sleep. 

2. Create a sleep schedule

If having a work schedule is possible, then a sleep schedule also is important. Create a workable schedule for your daily life and include time for sleeping. You could also create alarms to ensure consistency.

3. Optimise your environment

You can do this by building or creating physically appealing structures that will make your room conducive to sleeping. Also, avoid sleeping with books or gadgets. This simple hack will aid a good sleep hygiene.

4. Avoid long naps

You need to avoid long naps to get a quality night’s sleep. Keep them short and limited so your sleep isn’t altered at night. 

5. Eat right and early

Keep your meals as simple and balanced as possible during the day. Avoid having heavy meals at night, especially a few hours before bedtime. 

6. Shut down your gadgets

Don’t sleep off on your phone, and do well to shut down your gadgets before retiring to bed. This will help to keep your mind in a relaxed state, even while you’re asleep. 

7. Reflections and to-do lists

You can aid a healthy sleep hygiene by reflecting on how your day went, evaluating your to-do list, and settling on the activities for tomorrow will keep your mind at rest and pause the mental calculations that could occur in your sleep. 

Above all, maintain a healthy lifestyle by having quality daily routines. This will positively impact not only your sleep hygiene, but your overall wellbeing.