How to get a great night's sleep

For quite a while I've been stumped as to what I should write my next guide on. Ironically enough, I thought of this while laying in bed attempting to fall asleep.


As we get older, we start to realize how vital sleep is to us. Without a properly resting, we not only feel exhausted the next morning, but we'll also experience the inability to make decisions or follow through with cognitive functions. Everyone should be able to relate to this, as we've all had the misfortune of losing sleep for whatever the reason may be.

With that being said, this guide lays out some basic things one can do to improve their sleeping habits.

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1. Set a bedtime

As childlike as this sounds, it's of vital importance. You want to get your body into a sleeping schedule, and the only way to accomplish that is by having a set bedtime. The time will vary from person to person, and you want to find a time that suits you. Whatever time you start to feel sleepy is the time you should probably set. I, personally, start to find myself getting sleepy between 10:30-11ish.

The hardest part about this is that you want to try to follow this schedule every night; that includes the weekends. Deviating on occasion isn't a bad thing, but if you make it a habit you're going to ruin it, making everything you've done to be pointless.

Side note: If you've woken up in the middle of the night, try for about 15-30 minutes to just lay still and fall back asleep. If this fails, get up and walk around for a little to tire your body out. If that also fails, try to read for about 30 minutes and you'll most likely be able to fall back asleep.

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2. Rise and shine

If you're getting the correct amount of sleep, you shouldn't need to set an alarm. Your body has a built in alarm. Like before, setting a specific time to wake up is important. If you find yourself still drowsy when you wake up, you need to find an earlier time to go to sleep. The key is finding the perfect balance. So when it comes to the weekends, there's really no need to sleep in. If you're getting enough sleep during the week, you'll merely end up feeling tired again by getting too much sleep.

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3. Working out

Although time is usually limited in our daily schedules, it's important to find time to workout and do psychical activities. Something personally I've found helpful is going for a run / jog in the late afternoon. So that night when I'm in bed, not only are my eyes heavy, my body is too. It just makes for an overall tiredness, making the nights sleep feel all the better. This is especially effective if you for whatever reason failed to meet the necessary hours of sleep during the previous night. Be warned though, working out too late in the evening will make you feel extremely restless while in bed. Your eyes will want to sleep while your body wants to go for a run.

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4. Napping

While taking a nap during the day is quite common, I highly recommend not to. Doing this can easily tamper with your set bedtime, as you won't feel as tired as normal. Also, by over-napping you'll feel just as tired, if not more so then before. When you're starting to feel tired walk around your house a little bit, do some cleaning, or maybe run an errand. If you still feel the need to sleep, do a gentle stretch. That will increase the flow of oxygen to your brain and help you to be more alert.

The only time I believe it's acceptable to take a nap is if you've lost sleep the previous night. Don't assume if you lost 3 hours of sleep that it's alright to take a 3 hour nap. You'll completely destroy the habits you've (hopefully) been building up. Be smart about your naps. Take them in the afternoon, and be sure to set an alarm! A 15-30 minute nap will re-energize your body, and hopefully give you enough of an oomph to make it to the rest of the night.


Thanks for reading! All constructive criticism is welcome.

 

I really like the topic for the guide sanctuary. It's original, and it's also written well. I feel that some of these may be common sense, but nonetheless it holds good information that some users may have not known about before hand. Also your pictures correlate well with your guide so you did a good job with that. I also liked your section about napping, as it's true and is where many people can mess up their bed schedules as they won't be as tired later in the night.

One thing I think you could possible do is add in some effects to your text to give it more of a special look. Maybe just some underlining on some of your tips will give it a better look. Also I noticed that it was fairly small, so maybe a few more tips on how to get a better nights sleep would help out. I've heard that you can eat certain foods that make you more sleepy, and can also help you sleep through the night so maybe you can add something like that in there.

Overall I feel that it's a pretty good guide. Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks, I'll look into that when I have some more time.

 

Very well written. I found very few errors in your paragraphs. Like FishFishy said, it seems a little short, and you should try to add some color/effects like underlining/bolding key points.

On the contrary, I read somewhere that there is little evidence supporting foods that help one sleep; however, eating a small snack several hours before bedtime helps to get rid of any hunger pangs during the middle of the night.

 

Thanks, I'll try to do that.

Gohan suggested I also add a point about how to get back to sleep if you wake up during the night.

 

Ah good point. There's Gohan for ya

 

What about smoking cigarettes? I can be soooo tired, but after I smoke a cigarette I'm not able to fall asleep anymore. I know it's not a topic that needs to go in your guide, but do you think it has something to do with not being able to fall asleep? or could it just be the shock of cold weather on my body?

 

Nicotine is a strong stimulant, pretty much like caffeine. I sure see how it could be causing you problems.