A good night’s sleep is so important for a lot of things, from helping to heal your body to helping how you think for work and day to day life. So we asked out friends at www.koalamattress.com.au to give us “5 Tips To Get a Good Night’s Sleep” and they were kind enough to share some awesome info with us.
At Koala we like to ponder the big questions about sleep, like if a = sleep and sleep = happiness ∴ does sleep = happiness?
We spent a whole year researching and developing the ideal mattress and picked up a thing or two about getting quality shut eye along the way.
Here are our top five tips for waking up feeling fresh and well rested every day of the week.
No more nightcaps…
Alcohol might make you feel drowsy but doesn’t mean that it’s setting you up to rest. We associate alcohol with ‘unwinding’ after a long day but, in reality, its effect on your sleep cycle is harsher than caffeine.
To feel rested and restored from sleep, the average person needs to go through six to seven rapid eye movement (REM) cycles in the course of a night. A few drinks will encourage your body to go straight into deep sleep, skipping the first rapid eye movement (REM) stage, and reducing the total number of cycles to two.
So, if you want to spring out of bed revving and ready to go, stick to one or two drinks maximum and make sure to stay well hydrated along the way.
Drown out that racket with white noise
Have you ever been seconds away from blissful dreams, only to have it snatched away by a loud or sudden noise near by?
Your body is poised to alert and awake you if there is possible danger in the environment– it’s an unfortunate evolutionary hangover from caveman days that hasn’t clued on that your flatmates watching TV shouldn’t register on the danger scale.
It’s not all bad news! Listening to ambient white noise can help drown them out so that you can get back to dreaming about HSC finals again…and again…and again, in peace.
90 minute rule
If you wake up feeling exhausted after a full night’s sleep, it could have something to do with ‘sleep cycles’.
When you’re asleep, your brain progresses through a series of 90 minute cycles and if you wake up smack bang in the middle of one, you’ll be left feeling groggy even if you had a full night’s sleep.
Planning to wake up at the end of a cycle will help you feel more energised, but if counting out your sleep cycles sounds like the opposite of relaxation station, there are apps to make it simple, like sleepyti.me.
Ease your eyes with an amber filter
Blue light (the stuff that beams out of every device essential to your life i.e. smart phone, tablet, laptop, tv) is a serious set-back on the road to snooze-ville because it suppresses production of melatonin, a hormone that anticipates the onset of darkness and sets you up for sleep.
If removing your phone from your hand, let alone from your bedroom, sounds near impossible you can try out apps like Twilight that apply an amber filter to your screen, cancelling out the majority of blue light and helping your brain adjust for bed.
Say no to ‘just one more episode’
Both falling asleep and waking up are triggered by hormonal surges in your brain that are shaped by your activity.
For example, when you wake up, you produce a surge of the hormone cortisol, which preps you for daylight activity but if you’re still awake after 11pm, your body will trigger a second surge of cortisol because it thinks you have to remain awake and vigilant.
Getting (and staying) in tune with your body’s natural sleep cycle will go a long way towards improving how rested you feel, overall. So, if you want to feel refreshed, just say no to the Netflix binge …at least until Saturday.
Use these simple hacks to increase the quality of your shut-eye and set yourself up for the most awesome sleep of your life.
Dany Milham and Mitchell Taylor are co-founders of Koala Mattress, the mattress company changing the way Australia sleeps.
Happy Sleep Time!
by Arrnott Olssen
Editor Rogue Homme
