Tips to Improve your Sleep Schedule

Almost all human physical functions lead in a daily rhythm or a 24-hour cycle. This cycle is called the circadian rhythm that is part of the body’s internal clock. The most crucial to this cycle is a healthy sleep routine.

When well aligned, a circadian rhythm can facilitate deep and restorative sleep. But when this cycle is thrown off, it can create major sleeping problems, including insomnia.

Studies also reveal that circadian rhythms can play a primary role in varied elements of physical and mental health. Therefore, this circadian cycle is extremely important.

If for whatever reason you struggle to fall asleep, here are a few tips to help you improve your sleep cycle.

1. Stretching Before Sleeping

If you have a pet at home, especially a dog or a cat, you would have noticed that they stretch before they go to sleep. And they start to yawn as soon as they begin to stretch their body.

Stretching, for some reason, triggers certain hormones that help us fall asleep more easily. It is an extremely beneficial technique and doesn’t have to be too long. 10 or 15 minutes of stretching right before you go to bed helps you sleep better and deeper.

2. Use of Supplements and Herbs

Try Magnesium, a mineral found naturally in food. Taking a magnesium supplement at night is not addictive and is in fact effective.

But if you don’t want to take supplements you can totally skip it and probably try herbs instead. Herbal teas like chamomile and jasmine also help you naturally fall asleep. In fact, using a little jasmine essential oil on your bed also helps to fall asleep fast.

Be sure to read the first part of this newsletter topic.

3. Taking a hot water bath 45 minutes before hitting the bed.

To help you sleep better and faster, you would want your core body temperature to drop by 1 degree.

When you take a hot water bath, your blood vessels open up and a lot of blood comes up to the surface area. And this process helps to drop your body temperature by 1 degree.

Research has also found that sleeping in a room of about 18 to 19 degrees is the most optimal to help you generate sleep faster and better.

4. Classical Conditioning

This process involves conditioning your mind through a certain set of activities done 1 hour before sleep to help you fall asleep.

For example, if I go to sleep at 10.30 pm, from 9.30 pm onwards, I will have a list of 4 to 5 activities set up which I make sure to follow every single day. This way, I’m classically conditioning my mind that after the end of these 4 activities, I need to fall asleep immediately.

My sleep schedule mostly consists of doing laundry, meal prepping for the next day, taking a hot shower, gratitude practices, stretching, etc.

And since this is something I follow on a daily basis, my body is now conditioned to fall asleep at the same time.

5. The Tapping Technique or Tapping Meditation

This is an 8 to 10 minutes meditation technique that has its roots in Chinese medicines. I will leave a link below for you to understand more: