Early To Bed, Early To Rise! Really? | Let Us Try “Normal Sleep Cycle”

In this lockdown period, most people intentionally or unintentionally facing the problems of the disturbed and mismanaged sleep cycle. Some of us wanted to make up our schedule to have a sound sleep while others are still in an illusion that no matter whenever they are sleeping or waking up, it does not matter. But HOLD ON, it matters, and it matters a lot to have a normal sleep cycle.

As per several researches of Harvard University, when our schedule of sleep is governed by factors contradictory to the natural inclinations of body, our health suffers. Also, insufficient sleep and sleeping at “abnormal times” directly affects our metabolism and blood sugar levels. It might surprise you that without quality sleep, you won’t be able to maintain pathways for learning and creating fresh memories in your brain or even creates the barriers in concentrating and responding quickly. So if you really think you need a normal sleep cycle, this article may help you.

Tip 1: Let Us Sync Our Natural Sleep-Wake Cycle

For starters, you can try with sleeping at the same time regularly. Let us assume from tomorrow onwards, you decided to sleep at 12 am (trying to turn human from an owl). Then, schedule your day till 11 pm, set your bed (without phone) and be there till 11.30. You may toss and turn a few times for a few days, but within a week you might end up sleeping. This exercise can set the internal clock of your body and will also optimize the quality of your sleep. Just two things more, be smart about napping in initial days and try to fight with lunch and dinner drowsiness.

Tip 2: Smart Eating And Drinking

Don’t worry, I won’t suggest to you for fasting or counting your daily calories. You just need to control some bedtime habits to get the sound sleep. First one is obvious, you need to limit caffeine (tea/coffee) and nicotine at least before two hours of sleeping time. Early dinner time with less spicy food can speed up the metabolism and won’t trouble your sleeping cycle. If you are a foodie or need a snack after every hour, then you can add snack like yoghurt, warm milk, banana or roasted chickpea in your night eating routine but no oily food!

Tip 3: Improve Your Sleep Environment

Yeah! You are right, I am suggesting for some “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” before you go to sleep as it would help in the peaceful and quality normal sleep cycle. Don’t worry, you just need to make slight changes in your environment for making an enormous difference in the quality of sleep. First, you need to make sure that your bed buddies, bacteria, bugs, etc won’t stay at night with you so just clean up your bed and pillow before lying on the bed. Assure that the surroundings are dark (you can use a sleep mask but if you are scared of darkness, you can light a small lamp), cool (either by setting your fan or AC) and quiet by eliminating noises (earplugs can be used). And please “do not” means do not use your phone, tablet or computer in bed, leave it on the table 15 minutes before your sleep time.

Tip 4: Clear Your Head

In the rat race of getting ahead of everyone, stress, anxiety, tensions and many more worries hover inside our mind when we try to sleep. Managing our stress levels sometimes become a heavy task and end up in ruining our night. Let us try to develop the relaxing bedtime ritual which can help our mind to relax and have a normal sleep cycle.

You can start with taking a warm bath, dimming the lights, listening to soft instrumental music or an audiobook as per your taste. A daytime habit of barring your mind from overstimulation like limiting checking of notifications during a particular time of day can aid in calming your mind during bedtime. You can also try a simple breathing exercise in which like breathing from your belly rather from your chest while you lie down. This exercise can effectively activate the relaxation response and lower down the stress levels.

Tip 5: Learn To “Falling Back” Asleep

Most of us wake up briefly during the night and find it difficult to fall back asleep again. You can learn some methods of getting back to sleep. Firstly, never try to stress over the inability to sleep again as stress would only encourage your body to stay awake, rather practice deep breathing or visualisation technique. Suppose you tried for 15 minutes to sleep, and you failed miserably then you can try to get out of your bed and do some quiet non-stimulating activity like reading a book (Avoid screens!) or make a brief note on paper for postponing the worry.

Sleeping is the best meditation as per Dalai Lama so just enjoy your deep quality sleep!