5 Tips To Have The Best Sleep Of Your Life

Sleep is the healing elixir of life. From a bad mood to body aches, sleep has the power to eliminate them all. But if your sleep is broken, you end up feeling jaded. Lack of good quality sleep may cause concentration levels to dip, the body to hurt and a general feeling of ill health.

Try these 5 tips for great sleep every night:

#1 Buy a new mattress topper.

Do this today and thank us later. It might seem like a trivial thing to do – after all, how is adding a topper going to help you sleep better? But that’s the whole point of a thick mattress topper: it not only protects your mattress from contamination by germs and food spills, but it provides an additional layer of padding for your body. If your mattress is sagging and lumpy, the mattress topper can ‘even out’ the bad parts of the mattress so that your body gets the cushioning it deserves. Invest in a new foamed mattress topper from a leading mattress store in the UAE to note the difference it makes to your sleep.

#2 Eat early and keep it light.

A big culprit for disturbed sleep is the dinner you’ve had. It might seem tempting to tuck into a cheese burger with fried chips, or a loaded pizza with the family. Some people eat while watching TV and go to sleep right after. But heavy, spicy food is known to cause the digestive system some amount of distress, since it must work doubly hard to process the food for nutrients and digest it. Not to mention that the metabolism slows down considerably post-7 pm, so heavy food loaded with salt, sugar, oil, trans fats, etc. ends up forcing the system to work hard when it needs to rest. In turn, your sleep gets disturbed and you might even face bouts of acidity. Here’s how you turn this situation around: eat an early dinner (at least two hours before sleeping) and consume a light portion of salad and soup, or a single whole wheat bread sandwich with fresh juice.

#3 Exercise regularly.

Those with sedentary lifestyles often find their sleep disturbed during the night. In contrast, those who exercise regularly and maintain an active lifestyle find themselves sleeping deeply and often waking up refreshed. This is because exercise boosts the body’s serotonin levels and increases endorphin activity – both are responsible for inducing calmness in the mind. Besides, the fatigue of exercise slows down all major systems, prompting the brain to rest and send the appropriate signals to the body – this induces sleep, and the body gets to work on healing and repairing work wherever needed.

#4 Detach from all gadgets.

The white light emanating from your gadgets – mobile phone, laptop, TV, e-book reader, PlayStation – tricks the brain into thinking that it is still daylight when it might actually be night time. This means that the brain takes much longer to process the information that it is actually night and not day, and you end up being awake instead of falling asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow. Give your brain the help it needs – switch off all gadgets at least one hour before your sleep time, and instead, listen to soothing music or read a book to relax the mind and get ready for bed. Draw the curtains to cut out light from the outside. Soon, your brain will adjust to these new ‘settings’ and you can sleep better and much earlier than before.

#5 Change your mattress.

You look forward to sleeping early, you exercise and eat right, and follow a ‘clean’ lifestyle – but your mattress gives you aches and pains. In fact, your mattress could be disturbing your sleep more often than you realise it. You can either buy a new mattress, or simply flip your existing one for better weight distribution. If you are looking to buy a new mattress, we suggest going for a latex or memory foam one. If your back pain has been around for quite a while, then an orthopaedic mattress will be better, but ask your doctor about it first.

Were these tips helpful? Let us know.