How Men can Improve Their Sleep
After a whole day of work and household chores, every man needs to rest and sleep in order to be active the next day. However, not every man is able to get his beauty sleep due to various issues such as insomnia, stress or being a night person rather than a morning one. This doesn’t mean that you end up sleeping for only a couple of hours and be lethargic the next morning, taking n numbers of cups of coffee while struggling to get out of the bed.
Whether you have a desk job in a media house or are a construction worker, you always need those 8 hours of sleep no matter what. Every man needs to develop good sleep hygiene, whether they go to parties or binge-watch Netflix. If you don’t get a good enough sleep, you will end up being lazy and lethargic, and won’t be able to give your 100% at work as well as in your personal life.
If you are one of those men who are having problems sleeping at night, such as not being able to sleep at all or interference in your sleep, you might need a few tips from us. Have a look below:
No Caffeine at Night
You might love to have that last cup of coffee at night before going to bed, however, that cup of coffee might be the sole reason why you are unable to get your beauty sleep after consuming it. Coffee as well as tea contains caffeine which doesn’t allow you to get into deep sleep so it should be avoided at all costs at night.
You can always have caffeine in the morning with your morning coffee or tea, however, at night, it should be considered a crime. Although after having coffee you might be able to fall asleep but it would be a lighter stage of sleep. The best way of avoiding the hampering of your sleep at night is by not consuming caffeine after 2 PM.
If you have your last cup of coffee by 2 PM then you can easily fall asleep by 10 PM.
Make a Sleep Friendly Bedroom Environment
You cannot expect yourself to sleep in a freezing temperature or a sweaty temperature, can you? Or can you sleep with the lights switched on? This kind of bedroom environment is not right when it comes to sleeping at night. You need to organise a sleep friendly bedroom environment when you are about to sleep, which is dark as well as cooler but not too cold that you end up shivering.
The temperature of the bedroom that you are going to sleep in should be between 65 to 75 Fahrenheit and will neither make you shiver or sweat during the night time. Apart from that, when it comes to the fabric of the pillows and bedsheets, every man has to make his own choice. It depends on their own comfort level.
Hot Shower
Taking a hot shower exactly 90 minutes before you are about to sleep can help you a lot when it comes to your beauty sleep. A hot shower can increase your core body temperature and help you sleep by releasing the sleep hormones, melatonin, which make you drowsy and regulate sleep as well as wake cycles.
Exercise and Meditation
Whether you like jogging around the neighbourhood or picking up weights in the local gym near your house, exercising before you go to sleep can be really beneficial for your sleep cycle. However, working out will take a couple of months to positively affect your sleeping pattern, but a regular routine of exercise will certainly help in improving your sleep. Along with that, vigorous exercise will give better results for your sleep.
When it comes to your mind, meditation is a great way of treating insomnia in men. Apart from that, by practising effective stress management strategies as well as relaxation exercises can help you in sleeping properly. However, when it comes to working out, you shouldn’t exercise more than two hours before you go to sleep.
Avoid Using Your Smartphone
It is always better to avoid screen time before you go to sleep so that you fall into deep sleep during bedtime. Using smartphones or watching television often disturbs the circadian rhythm and doesn’t let you fall asleep during the night when you need your beauty sleep.
If you do need to use your smartphone urgently, try using a sleep shield on it to control the amount of light you are exposed to before you go to bed. A sleep shield is basically a transparent polyethylene terephthalate (PET) coating over your smartphone that reduces the amount of blue light that interferes with the melatonin production in your body.
No Emotional Topics before Sleeping
Imagine you are in bed with your partner and are about to sleep and they blurt out that they cheated on you with their friend. You are certainly not going to fall into a deep sleep after getting such stressful information, are you? Even if you do fall asleep it won’t be a good one and you will feel stressed after waking up.
The moral of the story is that you need to filter out emotional topics before you go to sleep and not discuss them. Instead, talk about such emotional topics during the day, when you are not going to sleep.
Minimal Alcohol Before Sleeping
While alcohol does make you sleepy and does make you sleep initially, later on it keeps you awake all night. The truth is that while alcohol does make you sleep, it doesn’t let you go into the deeper stages of sleep. You can wake up very easily if you sleep after drinking alcohol.
As the human body requires one hour to metabolise one alcoholic drink, you should go to bed for two hours after having two drinks, for three hours after having three alcoholic drinks and so on.
Better Mattress and Pillows
Sometimes, the reason that you are unable to sleep properly is because you are just not using the right, comfortable as well as high quality mattress as well as pillows. Try investing in some good quality and comfortable mattress and pillows that are perfect for that dark and cool bedroom environment that you need to sleep in. It is always worth trying this option out as your comfort matters when you need to sleep.
Organise Your Bedroom
A messy as well as cluttered bedroom is not the right environment for you to sleep in during the night time. With that clutter of unwashed clothes on your chair, you will certainly not be able to fall into a deep sleep and will end up being in a crappy mood the next morning.
Instead, do your laundry and declutter your room, organising your space properly. This will help you not stress about the mess you had made earlier and you will be able to fall asleep easily.
Listen to Soothing Music
You might love to scroll through Instagram while listening to rock music at night, however, when you are about to go to bed, rock music isn’t exactly what we would recommend you to listen to. Instead, you must listen to some soothing music, such as instrumental or classical music with your headphones on to feel drowsy with the melatonin hormones releasing through the music.
Conclusion
Sleeping is a basic need that is required by everyone, whether a man or a woman, to unwind and rest in order to recharge for the next day. However, when it comes to men, they go through a lot of problems related to sleep, such as work stress, insomnia as well as sleep apnea which does not let them sleep properly. Even if they fall asleep, these problems break their sleeping patterns and do not let them rest as much as they should.
However, with the above given tips, any man can fall asleep and go into deep sleep without thinking twice. Remember, alcohol or sleeping pills are not the best solution for sleep. While alcohol eventually breaks a man’s sleeping pattern, creating interference in their sleep, sleeping pills are not seen as a long term solution for sleep problems and are only prescribed by doctors for a few weeks.
Remember, you cannot ignore the signs of not being able to sleep properly. Every man requires at least 8 hours of sleep and if you are barely able to sleep for a few hours then you must see a doctor as well as try out the above given tips as a solution for your sleeping problem. The truth is that as a man, you cannot go to work or live a healthy life without resting properly. You need those 8 hours of sleep and if you aren’t able to get it, you must seek a professional.
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