1. Find your own sleep optimum
Sometimes you can sleep for two hours, but every day it doesn’t. The time was right when you feel balanced, powerful and awake during day, except at noon. Most adults need about seven to eight hours of sleep every day, few longer, little shorter. In sleep research, six hours a day are already considered “short” (Sleep Medicine reviews, Vgontzas et al., 2014). Who stays under four is probably sick or will. You will sleep properly if you do not sleep much longer on days off than usual and if you wake up daily about same time. You will find your own optimum in a relaxed, party-free holiday without an alarm clock. The real challenge would n be to match your habit to your professional life (see 6th routine life).
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Sleep is flexible: we can keep awake even though we are tired, and get up when we are awakened to time. But flexibility has limits: those who sleep too little for days or even weeks will accumulate a sleep deficit. This makes you tired, affects your thinking and, in long run, health again. Those who cannot sleep should take care of professional help, preferably ask doctor first. Often, however, deficit only builds up because TV, arguing, relaxing, smartphones, going out or partying are more exciting and you just don’t go to bed. Bedtime Procrastination means that in science. Therefore: just calculate how you divide time. Presleep does not work.
3. Turn off Screens
Each screen has a backlight, and this usually comes from LEDs. Now LED light sources have many beautiful properties, but one of m can be biologically damaging. The usual LED light spectrum contains much more short-wave, i.e. blue, portions than spectrum of sunlight. We perceive this as a cold light, our inner clock interprets it even as brightest light of day. It keeps us awake because no melatonin is distributed. Even OLEDs LEDs in bathroom impede falling asleep (int. J. Mol. Sci., Delusion et al., 2013). Prevention: a while before bedtime no more bright light, smartphone and tablet aside, TV off to escape LED adjusts behind screens.
4. Tune in to sleep
Sleep is an autonomous process. He can’t be forced. But it can be disturbed, especially by keeping yourself at full speed in evening. Before brain can fall asleep, it has to shut down its activity, gradually. So head is still humming when you drop proverbial pencil. That’s why almost no one sleeps directly after work or stress. Anyone who tries it regularly develops a sleep disorder easily. Take at least one hour of time in evening. Stress-free time in which you can relax mentally and physically. And do a few things every day before going to bed – every ritual is a signal for inner clock (Zulley-Knab, 2017).
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Alcohol should be absent in this ritual. It is easier to sleep with it, because it relaxes mentally and physically. But one sleeps even more shallow, wakes up more frequently and is worse in morning (addiction, Jähne et al., 2013). This is why wine and beer are in moderation for enjoyment, but not as a nightcap. Strong smokers like to calm down with last cigarette, yet nicotine worsens sleep quality, just like most drugs. Sleeping remedies make you tired and easy to fall asleep. However, y change brain activity and make it addictive. Therefore, y are only an emergency option for a maximum of three weeks (neuro-physician, Nissen et al., 2014).
6. Routine Life
The brain prefers it if you sleep regularly and wake up, not so today and tomorrow orwise. It responds to how people spread ir activities over day: Good sleepers live after more routines than people with sleep disorders (Chronobiology International, Moss et al., 2015). Regularity is one of factors that hinders internal clock on 24 hours of oak, time chaos obstructs calibration. That’s why a nine to five o’clock job is good for sleep. Doing nothing hurts, overtime too, but above all shift work. Light is even more important: as much daylight as possible, indoors it should be bright during day, quiet even white. In evening n Dark Program, also technical (see 3. Turn offscreens).
7. And last but not least: love your sleep!
Sufficient and good sleep keeps you smart and healthy. Neverless, millions of people do not sleep enough, many have to work too much, ors are sick. But often too little sleep happens voluntarily. That’s not just because you’re going to bed too late. Often idea is that sleeping is basically a waste of time. Who thinks like this, not only likes to take smartphone to bed, which diminishes recovery (social Science Medicine, Exelmans, 2016), but also works emotionally against needs of one’s own body. But he sometimes strikes. So, love your sleep. It’s going to get him. And with that: Sleep well and dream beautiful!
