There’s a myriad of reasons and factors that affect your sleep that are often internal or external. Making sure you took a step back and take a long hard look at your situation can you really achieve a really good sleep, avoiding any sleeping problems in the future.
From eating habits to the hours that you work, it’s often difficult to get a grip of these factors. Implementing a fix isn’t always possible, but fixing a couple of these problems can go a long way towards your goal of a uninterrupted night.
Bedworld bring you an insight into several common factors that may affect your sleep at night and some ways to alleviate them.
Light
This may seem obvious, but the presence of light in your sleeping environment can have a huge effect on your sleep and the quality you get. Trying to sleep in your own room with the light on is only really achievable when physically and mentally exhausted.
While also affecting us directly, it can also do so indirectly but affecting your internal clock, changing your preferred sleeping time.
Out sleep patterns are set based on the light sensitive cells within the retina of our eyes. These cells tell the brain whether it’s daytime or nighttime, which is where your sleep patterns are set.
Make sure to turn off all electronic devices giving off a light source and ensure all curtains and blinds are drawn. Reduce the chance of any light affecting when you get to sleep or wake up. If possible, dimming the light in your room is a great compromise if you don’t prefer total darkness.
Work
A big factor that may be changing the direction of your sleep schedule is your work or work shifts.
People who work night shifts are the most obvious who this will apply to, with constantly shifting working hours all focused around a time the majority of people will be sleeping has a huge effect on sleep.
Since the natural sleep cycle would be to sleep during the night and wake up in the day, swapping this on its head can be difficult to adapt to. This can produce several symptoms, one of which is Insomnia, having a huge effect on your life even after changing to normal working hours.
A good way to help deal with working night shifts or even unsociable hours is to group them all together. If you do several nights a week, then make sure you request them all together so that you’re not flipping between nights and days. Lessening the effect on your sleep cycle and ensuring you have the time to adjust back to normal sleeping patterns.
Pain
An unfortunate accident or illness may restrict you from sleeping or having a good sleep. Having constant interruptions in your sleep due to the pain is very difficult to fix, as most of the time, the pain is usually just one part of a bigger problem.
Making the best of the situation and adapting is the only way to get by until the illness or pain has passed.
Ask your doctor in ways they can help with your sleep due to pain, they can possibly offer you sleeping medication to help soothe the pain when sleeping. All these factors depend on the specific pain or illness that is affecting you, always consult your doctor first before trying anything.
Your Environment
Your own bedroom can often be a huge factor for sleep, from the noise and temperature, inside and out to the very mattress you sleep on.
Finding a way to eliminate these external factors that are causing you sleep trouble is the first step to a perfect sleep.
Changing the layout of your room or switching rooms entirely can completely get rid of noise. For example, if you live by a main road the noise can often keep you up. Switching to the room furthest away from the road can almost completely eliminate that as an external factor.
Making sure you’re prepared for the changing seasons can help with the temperature, keep a fan ready for when summer hits so that you’re not stuck in a summer heat wave as you try to nod off.
