2024-05-14
Most of us don’t get enough rest. Between work, juggling a social life and family, it’s impossible to get a recommended 8 hours of rest each night. Either you spend time thinking in bed, tossing and turning, playing with your gadgets or you’re just up working late. We’ve put together some hacks to help you — because our treatments go the extra mile when your body is in top form!
Stick to a schedule
Babies are taught to keep to a schedule from get go, to get to a routine sleeping schedule. Likewise, the human body is a creature of habit. Stick to a consistent sleep schedule so your body knows when to be in sleep mode, and not.
Nap Between 1pm – 3pm
Your circadian rhythm makes you feel alert in the morning, peaking between 7am and 9am, but after 11am your alertness levels start to drop, reaching a low between 1 and 3pm. That means your lunch can’t be blamed entirely for your mid-afternoon lethargy. It’s the perfect time to take a quick nap, if you’re able to.
Shut off your devices a few hours before bed
Our circadian rhythms are very much affected by light. Light makes our bodies tell us to wake, while darkness makes our bodies think it’s time to sleep. Even small amounts of light — like,say, the glow of a cell phone or tablet screen — can disrupt these rhythms and make sleeping difficult. Make it a habit to disconnect a few hours before bed, and read from a book instead for example.
Avoid heavy meals before bedtime
Spicy or heavy foods can be difficult to digest and can, therefore, disrupt sleep. If you want a late-night snack, aim for foods that contain the sleep-aiding amino acid tryptophan, like nuts, bananas, and dairy products.
If you wake up in the middle of the night and don’t fall asleep within 20 min, get up.
Find something to do to distract yourself – but nothing involving bright screens. Many people read, but it’s better to do something that uses your hands as well as your brain.
And before you start worrying about losing sleep, remember that getting up in the middle of the night used to be perfectly normal. In pre-industrial times, people took a “first” and “second” sleep. Each lasted around four hours and was punctuated by a period of about an hour.
Switch to decaf in the afternoons
Caffeine is a stimulant, so it’s no surprise that it can disrupt your sleep if you consume it too close to bedtime. A 2013 study found that caffeine consumed six hours before bedtime was still enough to significantly disrupt sleep — so in the afternoons and evenings, be sure to switch over to decaf coffee or herbal teas.
If these sleep hacks don’t work and it’s affecting your skin, you can also check out any of facial treatments that will take your sleepless skin from sallow to super!