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The eas­i­est way to sleep is to wear a sleep mask. Accord­ing to Cleve­land Clin­ic, it cre­ates a black­out that makes it eas­i­er to fall asleep and helps you sleep bet­ter. And as a bonus, we get tone and vig­or in the morn­ing.

What oth­er hacks work? Med­AboutMe has col­lect­ed the best rec­om­men­da­tions from sci­en­tists and doc­tors.

1. Add more light

You need to pre­pare for a night’s sleep imme­di­ate­ly after you … woke up. Accord­ing to Ph.D., sleep expert Michael J. Breusin the morn­ing you need to devote 15 min­utes to “sat­u­rate” the body with sun­light.

“Sun­light nor­mal­izes the pro­duc­tion of the sleep hor­mone mela­tonin,” explains the expert.

2. Skip the glass of wine

While many peo­ple believe that alco­hol before bed is the best sleep aid, it real­ly isn’t. Experts Nation­al Sleep Foun­da­tion warn that although alco­hol makes you feel tired and sleepy, it makes you sleep super­fi­cial, rest­less, and also con­tributes to snor­ing.

3. Eat fish before bed

3. Eat fish before bed

In a 2017 study by experts Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, Eat­ing fish before bed has been found to help you fall asleep faster and sleep bet­ter at night. This is due to the fact that fish is rich in omega‑3 fat­ty acids, which increase the pro­duc­tion of the sleep hor­mone mela­tonin.

For those who do not like fish, experts advise get­ting healthy fats from oth­er foods, such as veg­etable oils and nuts, or tak­ing sup­ple­ments from a phar­ma­cy.

Did you know?

Poor sleep qual­i­ty and chron­ic lack of sleep has a neg­a­tive impact on a per­son­’s hor­mon­al back­ground, his phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and brain func­tion.

4. Rethink your relationship with caffeine

Who among us does­n’t love cof­fee? We drink it so often that we imper­cep­ti­bly suf­fer from its excess. Spe­cial­ists Nation­al Sleep Foun­da­tion they say that caf­feine lingers in the body for a much longer time than a per­son assumes.

So, 6 hours after con­sum­ing caf­feinat­ed foods or drinks, only half of the total amount is absorbed. That is, if you drank a cup of cof­fee at 3–4 pm, at 9–10 pm you may feel more alert and active, which will pre­vent you from falling asleep.

5. Get a good book

Whether you like sci­ence fic­tion or romance nov­els, try to read a good book every night before bed. A study con­duct­ed in 2009 by experts Uni­ver­si­ty of Sus­sex found that read­ing reduced stress lev­els by a record 68%. And the less a per­son is tense, the eas­i­er he falls asleep.

6. Listen to binaural beats

Dr. Michael Breus explains that it is a com­bi­na­tion of two dif­fer­ent sound fre­quen­cies to cre­ate one melody that affects the human brain in a spe­cial way.

“It slows down brain activ­i­ty, helps the body to relax, and there­fore get a bet­ter night’s rest.” It is best to lis­ten to bin­au­r­al beats 15–20 min­utes before bed­time.

On a note!

Those who do not get enough sleep are at high­er risk of devel­op­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, becom­ing over­weight and devel­op­ing obe­si­ty.

7. Let clean air into the room

7. Let clean air into the room

2017 study pub­lished in the jour­nal indoor Air, ana­lyzed the data of 17 par­tic­i­pants in the exper­i­ment. They were asked to open the win­dow before going to bed, which they did for 5 days.

It turned out that peo­ple who had a light breeze in their bed­room had less car­bon diox­ide, which in turn improved the qual­i­ty of their sleep.

8. Call your pet

If you have a pet, that’s great! 2017 study pub­lished in the jour­nal Mayo Clin­ic Pro­ceed­ingsshowed that peo­ple who slept with their dog in the bed­room had bet­ter sleep than those who did­n’t have a pet. Next to the dog, the par­tic­i­pants in the exper­i­ment felt safe, so they quick­ly relaxed and fell asleep. But there is a small lim­i­ta­tion: the pet must sleep in the same room as you, but not in the same bed. There­fore, arrange for him a sep­a­rate place to sleep, and in the morn­ing call for hugs.

9. Try not to fall asleep

An oft-cit­ed 2003 study sug­gests that when peo­ple go to bed with the inten­tion of stay­ing awake, they fall asleep eas­i­er and faster. The pub­li­ca­tion writes about it Behav­ioral and Cog­ni­tive Psy­chother­a­py.

So if you’re hav­ing trou­ble falling asleep, tell your body to “Stay awake!”.

Fact!

Over the past 10 years, the qual­i­ty of sleep in chil­dren and adults has dete­ri­o­rat­ed. Many peo­ple began to sleep less and worse.

10. Take Meditation Lessons

There are many tech­niques for falling asleep faster, and many of them work great. But a 2015 study pub­lished in the jour­nal JAMA Inter­nal Med­i­cine, showed that peo­ple who prac­ticed med­i­ta­tion end­ed up falling asleep faster and sleep­ing bet­ter com­pared to those who stud­ied sleep tech­niques. So maybe you should­n’t waste your time!

11. Enrich your diet with magnesium

11. Enrich your diet with magnesium

Sure­ly, you have heard more than once that mag­ne­sium gives won­der­ful dreams and restores lost peace of mind. There­fore, prod­ucts with it should be more often includ­ed in the diet of those who have dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep.

A study pub­lished in Jour­nal of Research in Med­ical Sci­enceshas shown that tak­ing mag­ne­sium before bed can help you fall asleep faster and sleep more sound­ly. True, if you take it on a reg­u­lar basis.

12. Eat nuts for a snack

The list of healthy foods to eat before bed also includes nuts. And all their vari­eties. Stud­ies have shown that reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of them pro­vides the body with valu­able nutri­ents — mag­ne­sium and sele­ni­um. Doc­tors say that these two sub­stances con­tribute to the acti­va­tion of brain waves asso­ci­at­ed with bet­ter sleep. In oth­er words, nuts help you sleep like a baby!

On a note!

Day­time sleep can dis­rupt cir­ca­di­an rhythms and inter­rupt night­time sleep. In one study, par­tic­i­pants were even more sleepy after tak­ing a mid-after­noon nap.

To pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing, the researchers sug­gest sleep­ing no more than 30 min­utes dur­ing the day.

13. Sleep on your side.

There are three com­fort­able posi­tions dur­ing sleep: on the back, stom­ach and side. Sleep Expert Ter­ry Kralle says that the best option for those who have dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep is sleep­ing on their side.

“While there are many options for sleep­ing on your side, they are all good for com­bat­ing insom­nia. And with chron­ic lack of sleep, it is best to choose a posi­tion in which the legs, bent at the knees, are slight­ly raised to the chest. This posi­tion reduces the like­li­hood of inter­rupt­ed sleep and allows you to sleep bet­ter.”

14. Blow bubbles

MD, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Depart­ment of Neu­rol­o­gy at Johns Hop­kin Rachel Salas advis­es every­one who can­not sleep to blow bub­bles. This sim­ple child’s play helps to relax.

“When you see bub­bles fly away and burst, you relax at the sub­con­scious lev­el and free your­self from prob­lems.”

15. Put Your Gadgets Away Early

15. Put Your Gadgets Away Early

While the idea of ​​watch­ing movies until drowsi­ness sets in sounds very tempt­ing, it’s best not to. Research by experts from Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute showed that the use of gad­gets two hours before bed­time reduces the pro­duc­tion of the hor­mone mela­tonin by about 22%, there­by caus­ing seri­ous dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep.

Fact!

In one study, researchers from Lab­o­ra­toire de Phys­i­olo­gie et de Psy­cholo­gie Envi­ron­nemen­tales found that the tem­per­a­ture in the bed­room affects the qual­i­ty of sleep even more than the noise. At ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­tures, many peo­ple can­not sleep.

For most peo­ple, the most com­fort­able room tem­per­a­ture is 20°C.

16. Set an alarm

MD, Sleep Spe­cial­ist Christo­pher Win­ter advis­es any­one who has dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep to set an alarm for bed­time. This is nec­es­sary so that after it is trig­gered, regard­less of what you were doing at the cur­rent moment, you went to bed.

“It helps to estab­lish a sleep-wake pat­tern and brings you back into the prac­tice of mind­ful­ness,” the expert con­cludes.

Expert com­ment

Melis­sa Con­rad Stop­pler, MD, Pathol­o­gist

Peo­ple who suf­fer from insom­nia often report that prac­tic­ing pro­gres­sive mus­cle relax­ation helps them. What it is? How to con­duct it?

After you get into bed, try to focus on each indi­vid­ual mus­cle group. To do this, strain it for ten sec­onds, then release the ten­sion and move on to the next group.

Start with the leg mus­cles. Tight­en the mus­cles of the ankle and hold the ten­sion, count­ing to 10. Then rise up, strain­ing the mus­cles of the calves, thighs, but­tocks, abs, and so on until you reach the mus­cles of the face.

This prac­tice will help your body relax and you will fall asleep soon­er.

От Yraa

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