You may have felt this way before the first day of school growing up, before a vacation, or just randomly when anxiety and stress puts a damper on your sleep schedule. We’ve all heard the golden rule about how we should be striving to get eight hours of sleep each night. However, we’ve also had life get too hectic and sacrificed our sleep for a few more waking hours.

Skipping out on sleep can not only make you less productive during the day, it can harm your health. Here’s how to take charge of your physical and mental health with a few habits to start incorporating into your life. Finally follow that golden rule of sleep and avoid those nights of tossing and turning!

How Sleep Improves Your Physical Health

Sleep and Blood Pressure and Heart Health

One of the biggest concerns that can occur from lack of sleep is a decline in your heart health. The American Heart Association¹ found a correlation between lack of sleep and increased calcium in the heart’s arteries. This increase of calcium can produce harmful plaque that can lead to a heart attack. Increased calcium is only one way that the heart is harmed from lack of sleep. 

Lack of sleep can contribute to a number of conditions that decrease your heart’s health². For one, high blood pressure can be increased due to lack of sleep. When you’re asleep, your blood pressure is lowered, so skipping out on restful sleep can increase your chance of high blood pressure, thus increasing your chance of heart disease. 

Other conditions, like type 2 diabetes and obesity, can be propelled from lack of sleep. Sleep helps regulate our blood sugar levels, a simple way to help prevent type 2 diabetes. Sleep also helps manage our appetite-suppressing hormones. Without proper sleep, even those not genetically inclined toward weight gain risk an increased chance of obesity. 

Sleep and the Immune System

Missing out on quality sleep can clearly affect your health long-term, but can it affect your health now? The unfortunate truth is yes; your bad sleeping habits can have an affect on your current health. You may have heard that sleep is important when you’re sick—well it is also important to keep you from becoming sick in the first place. 

Sleep and the immune system affect one another. Your sleep may be altered when you have a cold which, in turn, could be brought on by lack of sleep³. During sleep, your immune system gets to work. Without it, you aren’t fully equipped to fight off all infections that you may encounter.

How Sleep Improves Your Mental Health

Beyond sleep’s powerful effects on the body, the mind is also affected by sleep. Similar to sleep and the immune system, your mental health can be affected by sleep and vice versa. A mental health condition may cause you to lose sleep or sleep too much, yet sleeping in extremes can potentially cause mental health concerns. 

A direct correlation between declining mental health and sleep can be found in sleep apnea patients. Often, depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions are found in those with the condition. Sleep apnea has also been found more often in people who already have mental health conditions⁴. While research is always evolving, it’s hard to deny the findings around sleep and mental health. 

Why Can’t You Fall Asleep/Stay Asleep?

These tips primarily apply to those who can’t sleep because of stress and anxiety. These stressors can contribute to insomnia and suddenly waking up in the middle of the night. It’s ironic because what you often need when you’re feeling stressed or anxious is actually a good night’s sleep.

If you can’t get yourself to bed because of your high stress levels, you’ve come to the right place. These habits will help you to calm your body and mind to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. However, there are a number of other reasons that you may not be able to effortlessly fix by simply adjusting your sleep habits.

Common reasons for bad sleep hygiene include:

1. Medication: Some medications can make falling and staying asleep more difficult. For example, starting a new antidepressant may cause you to have less deep sleep, which can make you more likely to wake up in the middle of the night from slight disturbances. 

2. Sleep Apnea: Sleep apnea occurs when your breathing stops and starts throughout the night. If sleep apnea is causing your interrupted sleep, seek medical advice. 

3. Various Medical Conditions: Medical conditions, such as arthritis, asthma, restless leg syndrome, and other conditions can make it difficult to fall or stay asleep. Taking care of these conditions by following your doctor’s advice can help you to improve your sleeping habits.

These Habits Can Transform Your Sleep

If a medical condition or treatment for that medical condition isn’t the reason you’re losing precious sleep, then it’s a good idea to start implementing these habits into your daily and nightly routine to achieve a more restful slumber without tossing around for hours beforehand. 

Workout in the Day

If you lounge around all day and don’t move your body, you may find it more difficult to fall asleep when nighttime rolls around. Moving your body for 30-60 minutes each day can help tire your body out and prepare you for a night of deep sleep. Various medical studies support the claim that exercise during the day can help you achieve more restful sleep at night.

However, a few questions remain unanswered. The connection between why you can achieve better sleep with exercise isn’t entirely clear; there also isn’t a clear consensus about when the best time to exercise is to maximize sleeping benefits. Overall, make sure to not exercise right before bed as the endorphins that are released can keep you awake for an hour or two after the exercise is over.  

Maintain a Consistent Schedule

When you were a kid, your parents would tell you to go to bed at a certain time and ensure that you were actually asleep. As an adult, you don’t have someone controlling your sleep schedule. (Besides your boss setting hours you have to be at work, that is!)

While this freedom is nice, it can also cause you to not maintain a consistent sleep schedule. Getting to bed and waking up at a set time can inform your body and mind of when it’s time to wake up and when it’s time to go to bed. This can give you a more consistent nightly routine that will make dozing off to sleep easier.

Put Your Phone to Sleep

Put your phone away approximately an hour or two before you go to bed. If you can put it away earlier, even better! The blue light that’s emitted from your phone or other electronic devices can mess with your circadian rhythm by tricking your brain into thinking it’s still daylight hours, even when it’s pitch-black outside. Putting your phone away at a set time can also give you the opportunity to wind down without the presence of a constantly beeping or buzzing device filled with notifications. 

If you do need to be on your phone, laptop, or watching television, it's a good idea to wear blue-light blocking glasses at night. However, don’t shy away from white light (which also contains blue light) during the day. During your waking hours, white light can actually help to boost your mood and make you feel more alert—just avoid it right before bedtime. 

Control Your Environment

If you tend to be a light sleeper who’s awakened throughout the night by environmental factors, such as light and sound, prep your bedroom environment to account for these factors before you fall asleep. This may mean getting blackout curtains to avoid light pollution seeping into your bedroom or wearing a sleeping mask. Soft earplugs can help to tune out noise if you’re extra sensitive to sounds throughout the night. Also, a noise machine can help create an ambient environment for sleeping. Many white noise apps are free on your phone and have different soundscapes to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. 

Have a Night Routine

If you don’t have one already, start building a night routine that helps you relax. This begins with putting your phone on Do Not Disturb and doing activities that help you wind down, rather than wake you up. Put on relaxing music, dabble in meditation, and slowly do all of your self-care practices to help you feel less anxious and more ready to fall asleep. For best results, your night routine shouldn’t be rushed. Think about starting your routine an hour before your actual set bedtime to get the most out of this wind-down period. 

Limit Caffeine

Have you ever had an afternoon coffee that verged on a night-time cocktail? These late-night caffeine drinks can wreak havoc on your sleep schedule. Try to have your last caffeinated drink no later than five hours before you go to bed. This gives your body enough time to digest the drink and still wind down for the night. 

Limit Water

Drinking water is especially important throughout the day to hydrate your body, but it can interrupt your sleep if you drink too much at night. Throughout the day, your body is using your water intake to fuel its natural cellular processes or converting it to sweat as you expend energy. However, when you drink too much water at night, you may find you need to use the bathroom multiple times before bed to completely empty your bladder. Even then, you might still wake in the middle of the night needing to relieve yourself. 

If you find that you haven’t met your daily intake of water for the day—and it’s nearing your bedtime—call it quits for the night. While it might feel disappointing to know you didn’t get the number of ounces you wanted to consume, you’ll be able to fall asleep and stay asleep more efficiently on an empty bladder.

Use Your Bed for Sleep

Now that so many jobs are remote, you may find yourself using your bed for sleep, rest, and work. When you use your bed for these unintended purposes, your brain begins to associate being in bed with working and being awake, not sleep. This can lead to long, restless nights of insomnia.

Instead, set up a separate workstation in your home, even if you live in a studio apartment. Leaving your bed for its intended use as a place of rest can signal to your mind and body that when you’re tucked in, it’s time for sleep, rather than work.

Write Down Your Thoughts

When your mind is filled with stressful and anxious thoughts, sleeping may be the last thing that you’re able to do. Do a brain dump of all of your thoughts before heading to bed. Take a sheet of paper and write down every worry you have that’s keeping you alert. Getting these thoughts out on paper will clear them from your mind, helping you fall asleep. 

Nighttime Tips to Help You Fall Sleep & Rest Well

If you’re still a restless sleeper, fear not—there’s hope for a full night’s sleep in your future. Here are some tips to create a space that aids in sleep and prepare your body and mind for a full night’s rest:

Use a Weighted Blanket

If you’re someone who loses sleep over worries for tomorrow, tosses and turns to find the right sleeping position, and stays up late counting sheep, a weighted blanket may be just what you need. The recommended weight is 10% of your body weight and all types of weighted blankets can be found online.

Use Herbal Aids

Herbal aids, such as melatonin, magnesium, or sleepy-time tea can help you fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night.

Read

For some people, reading is just the thing they need to lull themselves into a deep sleep. If that’s you, create a space for reading that relaxes you. Buy a book lamp to have enough light where your eyes aren’t straining to read the page, but not too much light to where your mind continues to stay alert. If you find that reading wakes you up more than calms you down, choose a classic. The extra brain power it takes to read the book will help distract from your thoughts and calm your mind.

Take a Bath

Winding down for the night with the help of a bath can relax your body, and in turn, your mind. In one study⁵, taking a 90-minute bath before bed helped patients sleep better.

Listen to Relaxing Music

While you go about your nightly routine, turn on some relaxing music to help you relax.

Meditate

Meditating may sound intimidating, but the best part about doing it before bed is you can do it from bed. Lie down, put on a guided meditation, and slow your heart rate and drift to sleep with a meditation.

Change Into Pajamas

Even if you lounge in big T-shirts, sweatpants, and other lounge clothes that act like pajamas, actually changing into pajamas can signal to your mind that it’s time for bed.

Avoid Sleep Harming Substances

Stop drinking caffeine at least five hours before your bedtime, or even earlier if you can. Also, don’t drink alcohol right before bed. You may think it helps you fall asleep, but once you’re asleep, the liver continues to process the alcohol in your system, inhibiting REM sleep and causing disruptions in your sleep patterns that can leave you feeling more drowsy the next day.

Daytime Tips to Help You Fall Asleep

Starting habits to aid in sleep doesn’t start only at night. Habits during the day can affect your sleep both positively and negatively. Here are some tips you can do during the day to help you sleep at night:

Don’t Take Long Naps

Short naps can be a great way to recharge in the middle of a long day. However, a nap that is too long can cause your body and mind to have trouble falling asleep at night.

Increase Sun Exposure

Just like how you should limit your blue light exposure at night, you should increase your sun and light exposure during the day to get your circadian rhythm on track.

Exercise

Moving your body during the day can help aid in a more peaceful slumber at night. Make sure not to exercise right before bed, though, as those extra endorphins may keep you awake.

How to Create a Night Routine to Be Well-Rested Every Day

Most of us can’t fix our insomniac habits by just choosing to go to sleep; we have to consciously make the effort to relax our bodies and mind. Creating a night routine can help you unwind. Follow these steps and personalize your nightly routine to work for you:

Create a Bedtime

There’s a reason you had a bedtime growing up. Your parents knew that in order for you to be ready for school in the morning, you had to be well-rested. Assign yourself a standard bedtime that works for your routine. It doesn’t matter when this bedtime is, just as long as it’s consistent and meets your need of 7-8 hours of sleep. This bedtime will help your body develop a sleep routine to follow.

Turn Off Your Phone

Our phones are designed to stimulate us and keep us engaged. As such, it’s hard to turn off your brain and prepare for sleep while also checking apps on your phone. Turn your phone off a few hours before bed to unwind and reduce the blue light that’s keeping you awake.

Create Rituals

Using the tips for sleeping listed above, create your perfect night routine centered around those habits. You may enjoy reading before bed, or drinking a cup of tea. Establish these healthy habits and perform them each night to signal to your mind and body that you’re ready for sleep.

Catch Some Zzz’s

Sleep has been proven to affect nearly all functions of the body. Without it, we can suffer long and short-term health consequences⁶. You may think that you’re being more productive by skipping out on a full night of sleep, but you’re only harming your body and reducing your brain and body’s efficiency. Take these small habits and start applying them to your life to help you to achieve a more peaceful night of sleep. Keep track of which changes work best for your sleep routine and soon ,you’ll be dozing off in two minutes and staying asleep for eight hours.  Your body will thank you. 

Citations: 

¹Short Sleep Duration, Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Shiftwork, and the Risk of Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Patients After an Acute Coronary Syndrome - PubMed (nih.gov)

 ²How Does Sleep Affect Your Heart Health? | cdc.gov

 ³The Sleep-Immune Crosstalk in Health and Disease - PubMed (nih.gov)

 ⁴Clinical Characteristics of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Psychiatric Disease - PubMed (nih.gov)

 ⁵Bathing before sleep in the young and in the elderly - PubMed (nih.gov)

⁶Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep | National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke - PubMed (nih.gov)