How to improve sleep quality?

Many peo­ple think about improv­ing the qual­i­ty of sleep. And this is no coin­ci­dence, since it is healthy, sweet sleep that helps the body recov­er and helps strength­en the immune sys­tem.

Sleep is the key to good health. When a per­son sleeps, vital hor­mones are pro­duced in his body, phys­i­cal strength is restored, tis­sue regen­er­a­tion occurs. It is worth not­ing that some areas of the brain work much more active­ly dur­ing sleep than dur­ing day­time wake­ful­ness.

In order to feel active and able to work all day, a per­son tries by any means to improve the qual­i­ty of sleep and rest for at least eight hours a day. But it turns out that not all peo­ple need exact­ly this amount of time to restore their strength. The main thing here is prepa­ra­tion and the right atti­tude.

What can lack of sleep lead to?

But before mov­ing on to learn­ing tips that will help you fall asleep faster and wake up in a great mood and with envi­able per­for­mance, you need to deal with the con­se­quences of con­stant lack of sleep.

• Decreased immu­ni­ty. While you sleep sweet­ly, the process of syn­the­sis of cytokines, spe­cif­ic pro­teins, whose main pur­pose is to fight infec­tions, takes place in the immune sys­tem. Inad­e­quate sleep of a per­son, as well as its absence, can be com­pared with phys­i­cal stress. Stud­ies by sci­en­tists have shown that a per­son who reg­u­lar­ly denies him­self the plea­sure of get­ting enough sleep increas­es the risk of var­i­ous dis­eases by 3 times.
• Dete­ri­o­ra­tion of high­er brain func­tions: coor­di­na­tion, atten­tion, mem­o­ry, speech, con­trol, think­ing, etc. In a drowsy state, it is dif­fi­cult to make impor­tant deci­sions, work pro­duc­tive­ly, and man­age trans­port. If we turn to the sta­tis­tics, the cause of every fifth traf­fic acci­dent is the dri­ver falling asleep at the wheel of a vehi­cle.
• Decrease in labor pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. It is very dif­fi­cult for a tired, sleepy per­son to con­cen­trate on work. And even if he gets down to busi­ness, then, most like­ly, he will do it poor­ly, and he will spend much more time than after 6–8 hours of sweet sleep. In addi­tion, often the work has to be redone, that is, the effi­cien­cy (effi­cien­cy fac­tor) can be equat­ed to zero.
• Accu­mu­la­tion of bad habits. Build­ing good habits takes a lot of time and effort. When we put so much effort into this, we for­get that lack of sleep is a seri­ous obsta­cle to achiev­ing a pos­i­tive result. At the same time, it is a pow­er­ful cat­a­lyst for bad habits. Every­thing is very sim­ple: to cope with a break­down, a per­son uses exter­nal stim­u­lants. Cig­a­rettes, alco­hol, ener­gy drinks, caf­feine in a huge con­cen­tra­tion allow you to cheer up, but not for long. In addi­tion, they are addic­tive and have a neg­a­tive impact on the func­tion­ing of inter­nal organs.
• Bad mood and appear­ance. Reg­u­lar­ly lack­ing sleep, a per­son turns into a grumpy dis­sat­is­fied with life. He is quick-tem­pered and offend­ed by the whole world, the peo­ple around him irri­tate him and cause neg­a­tive emo­tions.

And the most impor­tant thing, espe­cial­ly for women, is that lack of sleep is the cause of ear­ly aging. Sys­tem­at­ic lack of sleep leaves marks on the face: bruis­es and dark cir­cles appear under the eyes, the skin becomes flab­by and acquires a gray­ish tint, and the eyes cease to radi­ate radi­ance and bril­liance.

Stress reduces the quality of a person’s sleep: relaxing the body and mind

There are many fac­tors that reduce the qual­i­ty of sleep. The main of them can be called the ten­sion of the body and the work­load of the brain. The feel­ing of anx­i­ety, an excess of adren­a­line are pow­er­ful stim­u­lants of brain activ­i­ty and acti­vate it. These fac­tors have a neg­a­tive impact on a per­son­’s night­time sleep.

Yoga class­es or exer­cis­es aimed at stretch­ing the mus­cles, per­formed at a calm, mea­sured pace, help relieve stress after a hard day.

Before falling into a sweet dream, do the fol­low­ing:

• Ven­ti­late the bed­room, and if it’s warm out­side, leave the win­dow open all night.
• Make sure your bed is com­fort­able and you feel com­fort­able in it.
• Straight­en the crum­pled sheet, knock down and straight­en the pil­low.
• Think about whether you are hot under the cov­ers. Don’t for­get to change your duvet accord­ing to the sea­son.

You must do every­thing nec­es­sary for your com­fort. Now lie down in bed, make your­self as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble and try to relax com­plete­ly. First, feel and become aware of each part of your body, think about their exis­tence. Dur­ing this time, you may feel warmth or a slight tin­gle in your body. Relax the scalp, fore­head, eyes, mouth, jaws, neck, shoul­ders, etc. Be aware of the rest of the body and relax them one by one. This step can take about 5 min­utes, then take a deep breath and exhale. As you exhale, try to feel the ten­sion leav­ing your body along with the air. Repeat sev­er­al times. Then relax and breathe calm­ly and even­ly for 1–2 min­utes. Think about the pleas­ant, men­tal­ly say grat­i­tude for every­thing that hap­pened to you dur­ing the day. Fall asleep! The sleep of a per­son who man­aged to com­plete­ly relax will be strong and deep.

Why is sweet sleep not energizing?

If you are con­vinced of the qual­i­ty of sleep, but still feel fatigued through­out the day and feel squeezed out like a lemon, think about your state of mind. Per­haps you are over­come by fears and wor­ries. Try to imag­ine your future. Maybe you are afraid of tomor­row, and this pre­vents you from focus­ing on the cur­rent moment?

Our men­tal state also deter­mines our phys­i­cal health. If you are unable to cope with your anx­i­eties and fears on your own, seek pro­fes­sion­al help. An expe­ri­enced psy­chol­o­gist will find the caus­es of your state of mind and help you over­come life’s dif­fi­cul­ties. After psy­chother­a­py ses­sions, you will again feel the joy of life, and a sweet dream will be a com­pen­sa­tion for your efforts.