Lack of sleep increases the risk of depression and promotes obesity. These ten tips ensure a restful sleep:
Sleep well! – The kindly meant remark in the evening is an unfulfilled wish for many: 20 to 30 percent of Germans suffer from sleep disorders. Those affected have difficulty falling asleep, lie awake in the middle of the night or feel exhausted even after nine hours of sleep.
A restful sleep not only improves quality of life and promotes performance. Lack of sleep increases the risk of depression and promotes obesity. Reasons enough to do everything possible to ensure a good night’s sleep.
Caffeine takes a few hours to break down in the body. Avoid caffeinated drinks from lunch onwards. If you use appetite suppressants, test whether giving them up has a positive effect on your sleep. Even if it seems to relax you and make you tired, avoid alcohol as much as possible and never use it as a sleeping aid. It prevents deep, restful sleep and can lead to bad dreams, especially in the early morning hours. Exercise regularly. For example, two hours before going to bed, take a 30-minute walk or a 10-minute brisk walk. This prevents your blood pressure from falling too low during the night and the body stopping it by waking up. Instead of going to bed full steam ahead, let the day end. Complete work on time. The closer you get to bedtime, the less strenuous mental and physical activities should be. Make sure that there is a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the bedroom. For example, avoid things that remind you of unfinished tasks, such as unread work papers on the bedside table or ironed laundry in sight. Is there a personal, calming sleep ritual? Cultivate it. Take five minutes to look at the surroundings from the balcony, water the potted plants in the apartment, read a chapter in a book… Make yourself feel safe. A slight crack remains an insignificant crack if you can rely on the safety features of your “four walls”. Alarm systems that detect burglars at the property boundary and are connected to a 24/7 security control center provide particular security. If you wake up in the night, do not look at your alarm clock or watch. This almost always leads to dissatisfaction in people with sleep problems and makes it difficult to fall asleep again. Instead, you say to yourself sentences like “Everything will be fine” or “Tomorrow is another day.” Since a sleep phase is exactly 90 minutes long, set the alarm clock so that the time until it rings is approximately a multiple of 90 minutes. For example, 7 1/2 hours instead of 8. In the transition times between two sleep phases, sleep is light and being woken up is much more pleasant for the body. “Started” sleep phases can hang with you all day long.
These simple tips are already helping many people. However, if you do not sleep well at least three nights a week over a period of a month and are therefore impaired during the day, you should consult a doctor.
From World of Wonders editorial team