Sleep Smarter: 5 Science-Based Habits for Deep, Restful Sleep Tonight
Top 5 Sleep Science-Backed Habits
We’ve found to know from the experts at Sleep Science to bring you the latest, evidence-based advice on how to improve your sleep quality. We’re passionate about holistic wellness, and that includes getting a good night’s sleep. Sleep is fundamental to your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, playing a vital role in recovery and overall health. Here are 5 key habits, backed by sleep scientists, that can significantly enhance your rest:
1. Maintain a Consistent Sleep Schedule:
One of the cornerstones of quality sleep is consistency. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, even on weekends, helps regulate your body’s internal clock, known as your circadian rhythm. This consistency allows your body to anticipate sleep, promoting better sleep quality.
2. Create a Sleep-Friendly Environment:
Your sleep environment plays a crucial role in how well you rest. Aim for a bedroom that is cool, dark, and quiet. As Sleep Science SA advises, a cool (but not cold) room is ideal. Consider using blackout curtains, blinds, or an eye mask, and earplugs to minimize light and noise disruptions. It’s also important to keep electronic devices outside the bedroom to avoid distractions.
3. Limit Exposure to Electronic Devices Before Bed:
In our tech-driven world, this can be challenging, but it’s essential. The blue light emitted by smartphones, tablets, and computers interferes with the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep. Sleep Science recommends limiting screen time for at least an hour before bed. Dimming overhead lights in your home can also help your body transition into sleep mode.
4. Establish a Relaxing Bedtime Routine:
Signal to your body that it’s time to relax and prepare for sleep with a calming bedtime routine. Activities such as reading a book, taking a warm bath or shower, practicing relaxation techniques (like deep breathing or meditation), chatting with loved ones, or listening to calming music can all promote relaxation and improve sleep quality.
5. Avoid Stimulants, Alcohol, and Heavy Meals Before Bed:
What you consume before bed can significantly impact your sleep. Stimulants like caffeine and nicotine send “wake” signals to your body, making it harder to fall and stay asleep. Heavy meals or spicy foods can lead to discomfort and indigestion. Sleep Science SA suggests avoiding caffeine in the early afternoon and opting for a lighter, easily digestible meal in the evening. While alcohol may initially induce drowsiness, it disrupts sleep quality. Reducing fluid intake before bed can also minimize nighttime awakenings.
How to Improve Sleep Quality
We have heard about aiming for a solid eight hours of sleep a night. But sufficient sleep is about more than quantity.
The quality of our sleep is just as important, if not more important, than the number of hours of sleep. Getting high-quality, restorative sleep — one of the six pillars of lifestyle medicine — can improve your cognition (thinking abilities), reduce pain, decrease stress and give you more energy.
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| Better Sleep Better Health |
How much sleep should I be getting?
The general recommendation is seven or eight hours. There's a mantra in our society that it is stoic to go without sleep and push through to get things done. However, this can really take a toll on your health over the long term.
It is also important to understand how many of the hours you are lying in bed are actually spent going through the four stages of the sleep cycle to attain restorative sleep. Wearable devices can help do this by measuring both the quantity and quality of your sleep. If you're spending nine or 10 hours asleep at night but you're tired the next day, there may be something else going on-such as obstructive sleep apnea, when you actually stop breathing for short spells several times a night.
What are the stages of sleep?
You'll have the best sleep quality if you experience all four stages of sleep. If you miss even one stage, you won't feel your best the next day. The four sleep stages are:
- Falling asleep. This is when your body prepares for sleep and releases melatonin, the hormone your brain produces to regulate your sleep-wake cycles. Rising melatonin levels make you feel drowsy. Your body also starts to cool down in preparation for sleep.
- Early onset. This middle stage is vital because it is when your body repairs its cells.
- Late sleep. Cell repair continues during this stage and rapid eye movement (REM) increases. Your body also takes up leptin, a hormone that helps us manage our emotions. Low levels of leptin can increase your feeling of fear. Leptin is also an appetite suppressant, which explains why getting sufficient sleep is important for weight management. During late sleep, the neurotransmitter serotonin is reabsorbed, which helps us feel good the next day and think clearly and also regenerates our muscles.
- Gradual awakening. Your body makes less melatonin and begins to warm up to prepare you to awaken.
What happens if you don't get enough high-quality sleep?
There is ample research reporting the adverse health effects of poor sleep, including:
- Not being able to think clearly or perform tasks well the next day
- Feeling chronically tired
- Increased risk of cognitive issues, such as dementia
- Higher perception of pain
- Greater risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension (high blood pressure) and metabolic disorders (such as type 2 diabetes)
What can I do to create better sleep habits?
You can begin by establishing a consistent bedtime routine within 30 to 60 minutes of the time you want to sleep that prepares your body to wind down. I often advise patients to reduce their exposure to sleep-inhibiting stimuli such as:
- Light. Many of us are on our phones or tablets right up until bedtime. Dial back the light by putting your phone away (ideally not in your bedroom), dimming the lights before bed and avoiding any other screen time (such as television or computers) within an hour of bedtime. Natural light during the day, however, has a beneficial effect, so it's a good idea to take a 10 to 15 minute walk outside each afternoon if you can, which helps regulate melatonin release.
- Heat. If your bedroom is too warm, it can make it challenging for your body to cool down. Reduce the temperature in your room by lowering the thermostat in the cool weather, turning up the air conditioner in the summer or opening a window.
- Caffeine, sugar and alcohol. You should limit these substances in your diet anyway, but especially within a couple of hours of bedtime. Also avoid eating right before bed.
- Anxiety and rumination. Dwelling on stressful thoughts is a common cause of insomnia. Introduce a calming ritual into your wind-down time, such as listening to peaceful music, reading a book or doing a gentle yoga, meditation and rhythmic breathing practice.
- Exercise. Physical activity is very important for health, but exercising within one to two hours of sleep boosts production of the hormone cortisol, which delays the release of melatonin. Try to finish your workout earlier in the day or in the early evening.
Sleep and Mental Health
How can mental health problems affect sleep?
Mental health problems can affect your sleep in different ways.
- Anxiety can cause your thoughts to race, which can make it hard to sleep
- Depression can lead to oversleeping: sleeping late or a lot during the day. It can also cause insomnia if you have troubling thoughts
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can cause nightmares or night terrors. These may wake you up and/or make you feel anxious about falling asleep
- Mania can make you feel elated or energetic, so you might not feel tired or want to sleep. You may also have racing thoughts that make it hard to sleep
- Medication can have side effects, including insomnia, nightmares or oversleeping. Coming off medication can also cause sleep problems
Sleep Hygiene Tips
Developing certain habits, like keeping a consistent schedule and limiting blue light exposure before bed, can improve your sleep hygiene and promote quality sleep.
Do you ever find yourself staring at the ceiling, wondering if you’ll ever fall asleep? Or maybe you wake up thinking it’s time to get up, but it’s actually 2 a.m.?
If you’re in need of better sleep, it may be time to consider your sleep hygiene-and how your habits may be preventing you from getting the quality sleep you need.
Let’s get into what sleep hygiene is and the changes you can make to your daytime and bedtime habits to improve your sleep.
What is sleep hygiene?
Sleep hygiene refers to healthy sleep habits that help you get a good night’s sleep.
Good sleep hygiene is important because of how crucial getting good sleep is for your mental and physical health, as well as your overall quality of life.
Your behaviors during the day-not just before you go to bed-can affect how well you sleep. This can include:
- food and drink choices
- schedule
- evening routine
If you don’t sleep well, you can take several steps, both during the day and before you go to bed, to improve your sleep.
Why Is Sleep Hygiene Important?
Obtaining healthy sleep is important for both physical and mental health, improving productivity and overall quality of life. Everyone, from children to older adults, can benefit from better sleep, and sleep hygiene can play a key part in achieving that goal.
Research has demonstrated that forming good habits is a central part of health. Crafting sustainable and beneficial routines makes healthy behaviors feel almost automatic, creating an ongoing process of positive reinforcement. On the flip side, bad habits can become engrained even as they cause negative consequences.
Thankfully, humans have an impressive ability to make our habits serve our long-term interests. Building an environment and set of routines that promote our goals can really pay off.
Sleep hygiene encompasses both environment and habits, and it can pave the way for higher-quality sleep and better overall health. Improving sleep hygiene has little cost and virtually no risk, making it an important part of a public health strategy to counteract the serious problems of insufficient sleep and insomnia in America.
How Do You Practice Good Sleep Hygiene?
Good sleep hygiene is all about putting yourself in the best position to sleep well each and every night.
Optimizing your sleep schedule, pre-bed routine, and daily routines is part of harnessing habits to make quality sleep feel more automatic. At the same time, creating a pleasant bedroom environment can be an invitation to relax and doze off.
A handful of tips can help in each of these areas, they aren’t rigid requirements. You can adapt them to fit your circumstances and create your own sleep hygiene checklist to help get the best sleep possible.
Set Your Sleep Schedule
Having a set schedule normalizes sleep as an essential part of your day and gets your brain and body accustomed to getting the full amount of sleep that you need.
- Have a Fixed Wake-Up Time: Regardless of whether it’s a weekday or weekend, try to wake up at the same time since a fluctuating schedule keeps you from getting into a rhythm of consistent sleep.
- Prioritize Sleep: It might be tempting to skip sleep in order to work, study, socialize, or exercise, but it’s vital to treat sleep as a priority. Calculate a target bedtime based on your fixed wake-up time and do your best to be ready for bed around that time each night.
- Make Gradual Adjustments: If you want to shift your sleep times, don’t try to do it all in one fell swoop because that can throw your schedule out of whack. Instead, make small, step-by-step adjustments of up to an hour or two so that you can get adjusted and settle into a new schedule.
- Don’t Overdo It With Naps: Naps can be a handy way to regain energy during the day, but they can throw off sleep at night. To avoid this, try to keep naps relatively short and limited to the early afternoon.
Scientific Evidence Supporting Good Sleep Habits
Scientific literature consistently underscores the importance of good sleep hygiene in promoting overall health. The AASM has emphasized that adequate sleep is critical for mental, cardiovascular, cognitive, and metabolic health.
Additionally, a systematic review of behavioral sleep interventions found that simple lifestyle modifications, such as maintaining a consistent sleep schedule and reducing pre-bedtime screen exposure, significantly enhanced sleep quality and duration.
Studies that analyzed data from wearable devices also found that moderate to vigorous levels of physical activity during the day were associated with increased non-rapid eye movement or NREM sleep, which is a restful sleep stage that helps the body repair tissues, build muscle, and strengthen the immune system.
These findings highlight the necessity of integrating evidence-based sleep habits into daily routines to improve sleep health and prevent long-term health complications.
Conclusion
These findings emphasize that unlocking deeper, more restorative sleep does not require radical lifestyle changes-just a commitment to simple, science-backed habits.
By maintaining a regular sleep schedule, reducing screen time before bed, fine-tuning the sleep environment, embracing relaxation techniques, and making smart choices in diet and exercise, sleep quality and overall well-being can be improved significantly.
Since sleep is a cornerstone of health and disease prevention, prioritizing these habits is a powerful step toward a healthier, more energized life.
