How to Have a Refreshing Sleep

How to Have a Refreshing Sleep

ways to sleep better

Sleep is one of the most important activities for the human body. This is the time when the body rejuvenates and prepares us for the vagaries of daily life. Recent years have shown a huge spike in the number of patients who complain about insomnia and other sleep disorders. A refreshing sleep paves way for bodily balance of al metabolic, catabolic and anabolic activities.


Understand The Concept of Refreshing Sleep

To understand the above, one needs to check if the quality of sleep is less than expectations and requirements. Rather than understanding what it is, let us examine what indications reveal lack of refreshing sleep. Typically, the below symptoms are generally causes for lack of refreshing sleep:

  • Difficulty falling asleep as well as difficulty staying asleep
  • Waking up prior to sunrise even when sleeping late in the night
  • Regularly feeling tired and unrefreshed after waking up for the day

What’s Stopping Me From Sleeping Well?

Doctors claim that most of the patients self-reported heavy smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, psychiatric issues and severe stress levels at work. In addition, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and excessive indulgence in physical activity without supplementing diet are also attributed.


How Can I Sleep Better?

Good question! Presenting few tips straight from the experts which have been time tested. Following these will help you function at an optimal level throughout the day,

  • Accept that you have a sleep issue: this is important because the mind plays a key role in sleep. Acceptance releases any tension of the mind and prepares you for what lies ahead. One should also accept the fact that caffeine comes to rescue during a bad sleepless day as well as one needs alarm to wake us up. Doctors go to the extent of saying that youngsters treat sleep as luxury. This gives a feeling of privilege to the brain. The baseline is to consider sleep as natural

  • Increase hours gradually: we usually experience that hitting the bed an hour early will not let us sleep. Instead, the mind wanders and we remain awake. The best way to beat that is to sleep 15 minutes early every day. Once a week, add another 15 minutes. In a month, you realize that you are getting an hour of surplus sleep. This technique has the highest success rate among all tips

  • Create the right environment: doing this right readily calms the nerves and prepares the body for deep sleep. Lower the temperature in the room by few degrees. The body naturally dips in temperature during sleep, if the surrounding is conducive, one does not wake up. Try a spray of either jasmine or lavender as they calm the mind and nerves. Dim the lights in the bedroom as this reduces the amount of melatonin secretion from the glands. This naturally calms the activity in the body and regulates sleep cycle.

  • Stay away from the junk box: Not only television, but also your cell phones, laptops and other innovative devices that rob you of sleep. It is proven that constant staring at results in tricking the brain that it is still not the time to close the eyes, but it is time for activity. This state of alertness is the enemy of refreshing sleep

  • Don’t gulp down lot of liquids during night: If you do this, you will require to wake up in the night to empty the bladders and this break in sleep does not do good. Same goes with boozing, though it makes one initially drowsy, when the body finally works on reducing the alcohol content in the blood, one tends to feel disturbed and fatigued. Remember the ‘hangover’ effect?

Reviewed By:

Dr. Kaushal M. Bhavsar (MBBS, MD)

Assistant Professor in Pulmonary Medicine, GMERS Medical College, Ahmedabad