Sleep requirements vary from individual to individual and range from as few as four hours to even nine or ten hours per day. However, it is important to understand that the quality of sleep is perhaps more important than the number of hours of sleep. One can sleep for ten hours and yet feel morose and weary afterwards, whereas someone who enjoys as little as four hours of good sleep can feel greatly refreshed upon waking up. The following tips can aid in improving the quality of your sleep.
1) Set up and stick to a sleep schedule. If possible, also establish and maintain a “sleep ritual” before bedtime. Going to bed and waking up the next morning, at the same time each day is an excellent way to keep the body’s in-built sleep rhythm toned and in good condition. The sleep ritual can include performing a simple sequence of activities that condition the brain and body to feel sleepy before finally going to bed.
2) Having a slightly lower body temperature, along with moderate levels of physical exhaustion helps you swiftly fall asleep without much tossing and turning in bed. A good way to achieve this would be to follow a short twenty or thirty minute exercise regimen somewhere in the late afternoon. During exercise, body temperature is elevated but afterwards, the relaxation period begins and by bedtime the body temperature falls off to a point that helps in sleep induction.
3) A warm bath before going to bed can work wonders to relax the body. Adding a few drops of certain aromatics oils to the water can provide additional relaxation. An example of such oils is Lavender oil that has known calming effects.
4) Bedtime reading is another useful aid to falling asleep gently. The material can be stories or articles that do not elicit too much thinking. Magazine material with plenty of serene imagery or descriptions of natural scenery, etc… make apropos bedtime reading.
5) Doing away with foodstuff that can potentially cause upset stomachs is advisable. Specifically, hot and spicy foodstuff, and those with plenty of oil should be avoided as such food items can give rise to severe heartburns and stomachaches during the night.
6) Drinking a glass of warm milk before going to sleep is recommendable for most people. Milk contains an amino acid called tryptophan that is known to promote sleep.
7) For the majority of us, listening to soft music, without the vocal has a relaxing effect, which in turn promotes the process of falling asleep.
8) Shutting off arrhythmic and intense signals that stimulate our sense organs helps us in enjoying better sleep. Shrill sounds, loud noises, excessive lighting, strong or noisome smells, a badly made bed, etc… are things to be avoided in the sleeping area.
9) Excessive fluid intake prior to going to bed should be done away with. Drinking plenty of fluid before taking to bed, will, during the course of the night cause a full bladder, which in turn will trigger strong urges to urinate that can disrupt sleep.
10) Abstaining from alcohol consumption before bedtime is recommended. Although alcohol can help a person fall asleep rather abruptly, it can give rise to bouts of wakefulness during the night and cause disturbed sleep.
Do you struggle with irritation, frustration and productivity loss that increase over the course of the day? These are the symptoms of “burnout” that people usually experience during the closing hours of a stress-filled, busy day. Is there any way to fight burnout symptoms? It turns out that “power nap” may provide the optimal solution.
Until James Maas, a social psychologist at Cornell University, came up with the term “power nap”, it used to be called as “cat nap”. Power nap can be simply defined as a short nap, anywhere between fifteen minutes to one hour in duration that can refresh a stressed out person. Although power naps can be taken any time during the day, short naps at or around mid-day are the typical and the most productive power naps.
A lot of scientific research has been geared around to study how exactly power naps bring about such amazing results in people. An insightful study into the phenomenon from the Salk institute of Biological Sciences, strongly suggests that short naps provide a host of benefits to the better functioning of many organs in our body including the vital ones such as heart and brain. Some of the benefits of a short nap include better repair at the cellular level, improved heart function and a more balanced regulation of hormone levels in the body.
As one would expect, the major effect power nap has on the body, involves the brain. Reliable measurements using modern techniques such as MRI (magnetic Resonance Imaging) show that brain activity declines during the third and fourth quarters of the day. A mid-day power nap can act as a boost and prevent the brain activity from falling off during the latter half of the day. Power nap has been shown to greatly improve information processing and memory functions of the brain in many scientific studies. This correlates nicely with reduced stress levels and improved performance on tasks that require the acquisition of new skills, in power nap boosted persons.
Perhaps the most interesting and significant fact about power nap is that it is able to rejuvenate the brain and other organs of the body in an amazingly short period of time. A power nap is believed to recapitulate only the initial stages of sleep and does not involve invoking the deeper sleep states. This is critical since reawakening from light sleep will have refreshing effects while waking up abruptly from some of the deeper stages of sleep can have a negative impact on mental health. Based on these factors, the ideal length of a power nap can vary from fifteen minutes to one hour, depending on the person.
Power nap is the best remedy for stress related problems in sleep deprived individuals. But, catching that half hour of light sleep in the afternoon, following the consumption of a cup of coffee, can do wonders to your productivity and mood even if you are not a sleep starved person!
For those of you with children, their naptime is a quiet time well anticipated. Although we’re tempted, we don’t want for them to sleep too much in the day. Needless to say, they’ll be too wound up at night and that won’t be beneficial for you. It’s a fact that our current culture in America frowns upon sleep in the middle of the day. However, it’s proven that most of us that get about 8 hours of sleep a night or less experience an increase naturally in afternoon drowsiness, usually 8 hours after getting out of bed. In the latest research, you can actually become more alert, diminish stress and boost brain functioning with a power nap. Imagine living life daily with less stress, more patience, increased learning, more efficiency, better reaction time and improved health. An afternoon nap can result in all of these improvements in lifestyle. This doesn’t suggest that we should spend our days sleeping and our nights watching infomercials and TV land on television. That would be…I don’t know—counterproductive.
Although the human body requires 7-8 sleep hours a day, as less than 6 basically triples the risk of an automobile accident. Ironically, over 9 hours of sleep can also be perilous for the body. In regards to the power nap, 20 minutes of afternoon sleep offers more benefit than 20 minutes of more morning sleep. Here are the top 10 tips to take a power nap:
- Take a nap for 20 minutes to increase productivity and alertness in the day.
- Nap either in the late morning or early part of the afternoon.
- Before a nap, evade sugar and caffeine.
- Ascertain you don’t consume food, which is difficult to digest. This can keep you from a comfortable sleep.
- Noises shouldn’t disturb you, so seek a quiet area.
- Turn off lights, draw curtains or shades and/or wear a sleep mask for naptime. This helps to stimulate melatonin (hormone that’s sleep-inducing) and capitalize on rest.
- Cover up with a blanket, as the temperature of our bodies decrease during sleep.
- Set the time on the alarm at desired time of more than 60 minutes for a power nap to repair muscles and bones.
- After a power nap, you’d want to wake up in a peaceful mode. Try to set an alarm clock with serene, melodic tones, rather than jolting sounds and aggressive music.
- It’s imperative to enjoy a guilt-free nap. A power nap only increases your job performance.
It’s advisable to take a power nap to perform better at work (and play) and feel more vibrant. Thus, it’s important to map out of one hour of lunch, or even suggest a naptime in the office. This is why more sophisticated businesses create “quiet rooms”.