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We spend a good chunk of our lifetime asleep – basically, 1/3 of our life time. Whilst some people are happy with less than the average of 8 hours sleep during the night, some might need a little bit more. But one thing we can all agree on: those ours should be spent in comfort, security and relaxed, so that you can maximise the benefits of those hours spent asleep. As a parent of two small children, I too went trough a lot of sleepless hours when they were just babies and even now every other night they wake up and I have to get up and see them. Nevertheless, I consider myself very lucky, because they are both pretty good at sleeping through and have no sleep problems. I, however, noticed that I need some help with getting better quality sleep, which is weird, because before the children I had no problems at all. I think I’m not the only one, who after becoming a parent, finds it hard to wind down, switch my brain off and relax – which of course results in a poor quality sleep and less sleep in general. So, I tried to make conscious effort to get better sleep and so get to most out of my days and life. Feeling tired all the time is not fun.
These are the things that helped:
Proper, quality mattress
This is probably the most important point: a good sleep starts with a comfy bed. Everyone’s requirements are different, but a good mattress should ease the pressure on your body, provide support, good bounce and cooling. Just like with a lot of other things in life you pay for the quality, only that in case of a mattress you probably pay with your comfort and good night sleep if you choose ultra-cheap. Check out these mattresses from Bed Guru.
Black out curtains
Whilst I used to love waking up to a sun soaked room and had no problem with the early lights – this has changed too, for the worse: light bothers me and I sleep better in the darkness. So black out curtains definitely helped.
Winding down routine
Being with the children often past 8pm, doesn’t help with switching my brain off, or at least on am autopilot mode. after they have gone to bed, I do no house chores, not trying to catch up on emails and I take the last 2-3 hours of my day to do something relaxing or uplifting: watch a movie, knit, read a book, apply organic CBD oils for relaxation, anything, that is not work or a chore.
No electronics in the bedroom
Well, there are electronics around like our phones, of course, but we’re . not looking at them, not playing with them and not watching films or television from bed (not that we have a TV in the bedroom, for this reason) because the brain can be very confused with those activities when in bed – which is meant to be for sleeping mainly. The more we watch television from bed, the more we train our brain to anticipate that sort of excitement instead of sleeping.
Don’t eat late and don’t work out before bedtime
I’m just like my children: exercising late gets me too high on epinephrine and adrenaline. This will then keep me awake. However, exercise during the day is very good for treating sleeping problems for many people. Consuming a large meal before bed can lead to poor sleep and this is definitely the case with me. Since we switched to early dinners because of the children, I sleep better – just need to resist the late evening snack or movie snack!