Getting eight hours of restful, uninterrupted sleep each night is essential for your optimal mental and physical health. Sleep provides a foundation for all your daily activities and decisions. However, in the increasingly stressful world we live in, many people struggle to maintain a healthy sleeping routine.
Sleep Deprivation Isn’t Only the Lack of Sleep
When tackling the issue of the relationship between sleep and health, it’s common to focus on sleep quantity and whether you’re getting the right number of hours of sleep each night. While total sleep time is undoubtedly important, sleep experts emphasize that the ability to avoid interrupted sleep and have restful sleep is also crucial. A great body of research points to the ill effects of disturbed sleep even when sleep quantity isn’t reduced.
Sleep deprivation has many adverse consequences on all aspects of your daily life, including your safety, relationships, cognitive health, memory, and mental health, as well as your school and work performance. Sleep deprivation can leave you exhausted and unable to concentrate on even the most significant decisions and life events.
This is why the importance of having a proper sleep routine that ensures both the quantity and the quality of your sleep can hardly be overstated. What does such a routine entail? Read on to learn what sleep experts say.
Tips from Sleep Experts
Here are the most important tips sleep experts recommend in order to get peaceful, uninterrupted sleep:
Set a sleep schedule and stick to it. Aim to get at least seven hours of sleep each night to meet your everyday energy demands. Set aside no more than eight hours each day. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Try to limit the difference in your sleep schedule on weeknights and weekends to no more than one hour. Being consistent reinforces your body’s sleep-wake cycle.
Pay attention to what you eat. Don’t go to bed hungry or stuffed. In particular, avoid heavy or large meals within a couple of hours of bedtime. Your discomfort might keep you up. Don’t mistake your fatigue or emotions for hunger.
Limit daytime naps. Long daytime naps can interfere with nighttime sleep. Limit your nap to only 30 minutes and avoid napping late in the day.
Include physical activity in your daily routine. Regular physical activity can promote better sleep. Spending time outside every day might be helpful, as well.
Manage worries and stress. Try to resolve your worries or concerns before bedtime. Write down what’s on your mind and then set it aside for tomorrow.
Create a restful environment. If you don’t fall asleep within about 20 minutes, leave your bedroom and do something relaxing. Read or listen to soothing music. Go back to bed when you’re tired. Repeat as needed.
Stop using your smartphone as an alarm and use a special alarm device. Keep your phone away from your bed or side table. This will reduce the urge to be on your phone at night.
Seek Professional Help
Nearly everyone has an occasional sleepless night, but if you have trouble sleeping often, contact your doctor. Identifying and treating any underlying causes can help you get the restful sleep you deserve.
Sleep Medicine Specialists in Weatherford, Texas
If you live in or near Weatherford, Texas, and are having difficulty sleeping, the experts at Lung & Sleep Specialists of North Texas are happy to help. We are proud to have Dr. Olusegun Oseni, who is board-certified in sleep medicine, as well as pulmonary medicine and critical care. His approach to sleep medicine is holistic. He looks at the whole person to see how their life is affected by their sleep problem and vice versa. His expertise will help restore your overall health and sleep in no time.
The services we offer include at-home and in-office sleep studies to diagnose sleep disorders, ongoing treatment, and follow-up care, and patient education for sleep conditions, as well as pulmonary and allergy problems that may affect sleep. Our on-site sleep center testing area is state-of-the-art with all of the comforts of home.
Learn more about the sleep disorders we treat and the treatments we offer in our Weatherford office. Call us at (817) 594-9993 today to begin your journey to better sleep, or request an appointment online.