(Family
Features) It’s no secret that finding time for the recommended eight hours of
sleep is easier said than done. More often than not, your time asleep is limited
by your busy schedule. If you are lucky enough to squeeze in a full eight hours
of shuteye, you are still not guaranteed to wake up feeling refreshed.
While some responsibilities are hard to shake, setting
yourself up with the right routine can vastly improve your quality of sleep and
combat the issues keeping you up at night:
1. Lighten
up: If it’s never light
in your bedroom, you may be confusing your body’s circadian clock. The
circadian clock regulates how alert you are due to the light and darkness in an
environment. If you keep your bedroom dark during the day or use black-out
curtains, this can act as a signal to your body that it should be asleep. Swap
out your curtains for a lighter color or keep your shades partially open –natural
sunlight in your room can help you wake up in the morning.
2.
Out with the old: Approximately half (49 percent) of
Americans have had their mattress for five years or more and while people
struggle with sleep for a variety of reasons, your mattress could be keeping
you from getting a good night’s sleep. A quality mattress, like the Beautyrest Platinum Hybrid Mattress
can give you the support you need to wake up feeling refreshed. It offers a
“cool to touch” surface while also providing the support and pressure relief necessary
to make sure that once you fall asleep, you stay asleep.
3.
Tune out: Everyone’s guilty of binge-watching their
favorite TV shows from time to time. While you may satisfy your curiosity by catching
the ending of your favorite series, you may not be so happy when you wake up
groggy after staying up too late. Set an alarm for 30 minutes before you want
to go to sleep and when the alarm goes off turn off your TV and get ready for
bed. Limiting screen time before you fall asleep can also avoid disrupting your
body’s level of melatonin, which controls sleep cycles.
4.
If you snooze, you lose: Hitting the snooze button even once in
the morning can make you feel groggy throughout the day. By hitting snooze, you
are prompting your body to start another stage in your sleep cycle without
giving it enough time to fully recover. Try
downloading an app with a smart alarm to make sure that you are waking up
during a lighter stage of your sleep cycle.
5.
Cut the caffeine: While there is nothing quite like coffee for
an afternoon pick-me-up, having caffeine after 2 p.m. can impact both your
sleep quality and quantity. Instead of having a cup after lunch, take your
coffee break earlier in the day or consider switching to decaf.
For more tips to
wake up feeling refreshed, visit beautyrest.com.
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