9 Surprising Tips & Tricks on How to Fall Sleep Faster
Suffering from sleeplessness? Looking for ideas and tricks on how to fall asleep fast? Here is natural remedies on falling asleep and other natural cures for insomnia.
You probably have experienced the same thing as everybody of us… Yes we’ve all been there, feeling the feeling that when you awake after bad nights sleep and you really know that getting a good nights sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to having a better health, looking better and having a better feeling in your body. Wouldn’t you agree?
Sleeping is often overlooked as a simple thing and nothing to be discussed, everyone knows how to sleep right? But we all might benefit from information on how to make our sleep better.
Video about falling sleep faster:
9 Tips & tricks on how to fall sleep faster and better:
1. Sleep in complete darkness
Minimize any light in your sleeping space. Even the tiniest bit of light in the room can disrupt your internal clock and your pineal gland’s production of melatonin and serotonin. Note: even the tiniest glow from your clock radio could be interfering with your sleep.
For this reason, you might want to consider a natural eye mask as a sleep mask to block out all light. Here is my recommendation for a natural eye mask to wear as a sleep mask. Natural material which does not irritate skin and breathes better is always a more viable option.
2. Turn cellphones to offline mode and turn down WiFi stations
Major factor disturbing your sleep! If you are one of the millions of people who sleep with their cell phone in online mode near their head, you are doing yourself dramatical harm.
The cell phone radiation has been officially proven to be carcinogenic and might be causing damage to men’s sperm (source). The electromagnetic fields (EMFs) coming from your mobile phone also disturb your sleeping (study). Same goes for the wireless internet WiFi stations, shut them down for the night. Some experts even recommend pulling your circuit breaker before bed to kill all power in your house.
Do yourself a favor and at least shut the cellphone in the night-time or put it in offline / flight mode. If you must keep your phone online at all times then be sure to keep it far away from your body, at least 10ft(3m) away or preferably more.
Drastic point and most people are not even aware of this devastating problem… I wish you to educate people around you.
3. Check your bedroom temperature – bedroom should be cool, not warm
Your bedroom night temperature should be from 60 (15°C) degrees fahrenheit to max 68 (20°C) degrees fahrenheit for optimal deeper sleep state. Keeping your room cooler or hotter than that can lead to restless sleep.
When you sleep, your body’s internal temperature drops to its lowest level, generally about four hours after you fall asleep. Scientists believe that a cooler bedroom may, therefore, be most favorable to sleep, since it mimics your body’s natural temperature drop.
I also have noticed that I fall asleep a lot more easier when the room is more cool.
4. Wear warm socks
Wearing warm socks with cool temperature sleeping space has dramatically improved my falling asleep. Many experts also suggest wearing socks to bed. A study has shown that wearing socks to bed reduces night waking. Warm socks are better in my opinion than hot water bottle near your feet.
5. Exercise in the day time
Exercise promotes good sleep and you will fall asleep faster and more easily when you have exercised during the day. The timing of the exercise is to be noted though. You shouldn’t exercise too close to bedtime, generally not within the 3 hours before or it may keep you awake.
Long walks in the forest parks and fresh air with the bonus of sunlight is always a winning recipe for falling asleep faster.
6. You might want to try sleeping alone
Recent studies suggest, for many people, sharing a bed with a partner (or pets) can significantly impair sleep, especially if the partner is a restless sleeper or snores. If bedfellows are consistently interfering with your sleep, you may want to consider a separate bedroom.
7. Try bedtime tea which is full of relaxation promoting herbs
I recommend Bedtime tea by Yogi. It’s full of relaxation promoting herbs like Valerian root and Passion flower.
Another good one is Kava tea, Kava Kava root is highly relaxing. If you haven’t yet tried it I highly recommend this tea. For more information about Kava read this.
Another sleepy time tea from my latest order, which I highly recommend is Organic India Tulsi Sleep Tea.
These teas are also a good way to get extremely healthy herbs and antioxidants in your diet to help promote health and longevity.
8. Take magnesium supplements 1 hour before bedtime
I have seen improvement in falling asleep when I’ve taken magnesium supplements before bedtime. Magnesium is a crucial mineral for a better nights sleep, deficiency of it might be the reason to sleeplessness.
I’ve used both magnesium capsules & magnesium oil, you can read more about those from here.
9. Last resort is sleep supplement melatonin
If all else fails, try melatonin supplement. Most of you shouldn’t need this if you follow all other tips on how to fall asleep better, but its good to have it as a last resort option.
You should definitely avoid taking sleeping pills as you cannot take pharmaceutical drugs all your life, it’s not sustainable. Instead, always look into the natural cures and solutions which is the way better solution, isn’t that right?
Additional tips for better sleeping and waking up
Try to minimize drinking any fluids 2 hours before sleeping
This way you won’t likely wake up in the middle of the night to urinate. Bedtime tea or a small smoothie is ok, I myself do them all the time.
But try not to drink more than you absolutely must, nothing is worse than your body awakening you in the middle of the night because of the need to urinate and possibly after that you might not catch the sleep again, at least not very deep sleep.
Remember, caffeine stays in your body for a long time
Guess how much of caffeine is in your system even after 20 hours from taking your last caffeine dose? Shockingly enough 12.5%. It might not be that bad for everyone, but some people react differently and have their sleeping deeply disturbed by this.
A good rule for most people is that you should take your last coffee mug of the day around 10 hours before bedtime. Even after 10 hours some of it will be in your system so it is advised to at least not make it any worse.
Some medications also contain caffeine, for example, diet pills. I myself drink my last coffee cup around 8-10 hours before I go sleep and it doesn’t seem to affect my sleep, even if I have caffeine in my system I still fall asleep fast.
Avoid excessive snacking before bedtime
Especially avoid grains and sugars before bed. Though light high nutrient foods are recommended before bed, this can provide the L-tryptophan needed for your melatonin and serotonin production.
Good foods to eat before bed are for example high protein foods such as eggs, chia seeds. Also, banana and many other fruits are recommended, all these are high in tryptophan, aiding you to sleep better.
Before bed do not watch TV or use electric devices, instead read and do journaling
Especially do not watch TV or computers monitor before going to sleep. It’s too stimulating to the brain, preventing you from falling asleep quickly by disrupting your pineal glands function. Try to wind down from electric devices about 30 minutes before sleep time.
I recommend doing journaling(physically with pen write your gains down from that day – what was good in your day), reading a good book or listening something with the audio book right before bed. And isn’t it better to end the day doing something useful which benefits you instead of watching some meaningless fluff from TV, if you know what I mean?
Use soothing alarm sound, not a noisy surprising soundtrack which actually stresses your system when you wake up
I myself don’t even have an alarm clock, I awake with my cellphones alarm (remember to keep it offline).
We all have awakened to a horrible alarm clock sound and it often is a horrible feeling, isn’t it? Many studies say that loud sudden alarm tone is stressing your system and this is something you really do not want to experience right for the first thing in the morning.
I recommend searching a soothing soundtrack from Youtube and downloading a free youtube downloader and converting it to your cellphone as an alarm sound. Here is a few recommendations which at least start kinda slowly and soothing: [1], [2], [3], [4]
Alternatively, if you want a motivating song to wake-up on then try this, starts mellow which is crucial. Another good is this one, dubstep helps to stay awake and work more so its also a good one to wake-up on because it’s helping you to jump out of the sleeping haze.
Another recommendation is to wake up with natural wake-up light which emulates sunshine and natures sounds. One product like this Wake-Up Light alarm clock with colored sunrise simulation.
Optimal sleep time is anything between 7-8 hours, not less and not more
Studies say that it is extremely harmful to your health in countless ways if you continually sleep less than 7 hours per night and it is the same if you sleep for more than 8 hours. Yes, you read it right, even too much sleep causes health problems and it is not advised as much as sleeping too little. 8 hours is advised as the maximum, you shouldn’t sleep for more than 8 hours.
Everybody has probably got a headache from sleeping too long, it is a sign that it’s not good for us. If I ever sleep for more than 8 hours I usually always wake up surprisingly very exhausted and with a headache.
I never oversleep nowadays. You cannot “store” sleep. In example sleeping 6 hours in the week and then suddenly sleep 10 hours a night on the weekends, this just makes more harm than good. Rather have the same sleep cycle always.
7 hours of high-quality sleep is a good realistic number for most modern busy people but try to aim for close to 8 hours of sleep every night.
Try these tips on how to fall asleep and how to sleep better, soon you might just sleep your nights a lot better.
More to read about how to sleep better and information: How to Sleep Better Notes