Tips for sleeping well and improving sleep
Insomnia is a growing global epidemic, the risks of which are too often underestimated. For this reason, today we want to give you 10 tips for sleeping better and improving your quality of life.
You should know that the world no longer sleeps! This may sound catastrophic, but the ever-increasing workload and new technologies (smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and the like) that create so-called "technostress" prevent people from getting restorative rest.
Added to all this are communication channels and social networks active 24/7, which has meant that people in every corner of the planet can no longer afford to sleep, or rather, to rest peacefully. Indeed, as of today, 45% of the world's population suffers from insomnia.
It is not just a Swiss or Italian problem, but a global one that threatens our health and quality of life. Aggravating the situation is the sad statistic that 25% of people who drive have admitted to falling asleep at least once behind the wheel. How does sleep affect our health? We advise you to stay until the end to discover the benefits of truly restorative sleep.
Before discovering our 10 tips for sleeping well, some clarifications are necessary on which our advice is based.
How many hours of sleep are really needed to be well?
The optimal hours of sleep for our body are determined by age, genetics, sleep-wake rhythm, and the quality of sleep itself. Many studies state that the average duration of sleep for an adult is about 7-9 hours.
To be more precise, in the following table you will find the recommended sleep hours, with reference to age groups.
| Age Group | Recommended Sleep Hours | |
| Newborn | 0-3 months | 14-17 hours |
| Infant | 4-11 months | 12-15 hours |
| Toddler | 1-2 years | 11-14 hours |
| Preschool | 3-5 years | 10-13 hours |
| School Age | 6-13 years | 9-11 hours |
| Teen | 14-17 years | 8-10 hours |
| Young Adult | 18-25 years | 7-9 hours |
| Adult | 26-64 years | 7-9 hours |
| Elderly | 65 years or more | 7-8 hours |
What are the consequences of sleep deprivation?
The consequences of sleep loss or not sleeping well can be seen throughout the body, the first to occur may be: cognitive deficits, learning and memory disorders.
In addition, sleep deprivation can compromise performance and post-physical activity recovery, mood, increase feelings of fatigue, and decrease energy.
While the poor quality of our sleep can affect our decision-making processes, and the speed and accuracy of our performance.
Does sleep affect memory?
As we just said, yes, the strong correlation between sleep and memory has been discovered for over a century.
While it is true that sleep loss degrades the body at all levels, the first symptoms that appear are cognitive deficits and memory disorders.
Here's how our brain stores information: during the day, everything we hear and receive is temporarily deposited in a brain area called the hippocampus.
Considered a temporary memory.
Since the hippocampus's capacity to hold information is not infinite, a periodic "reset" is necessary to prevent new information from "overwriting" old information.
This task is entrusted to sleep. You should know that while we sleep (thus in the absence of new information), our brain processes the contents of the hippocampus, storing useful information in the frontal neocortex and eliminating superfluous information, thus consolidating our long-term memory. In this way, the hippocampus is freed up and ready to face the following day, able to capture all necessary information.
As we have seen, a good quality and quantity of sleep is useful not only for "freeing up" space from the hippocampus, but also for better integrating new information acquired during the day with what we already had in our stable memory.
How many sleep stages are there?
There are essentially two sleep stages:
- The slow-wave sleep (SWS) stage, also called non-REM (NREM), is the deepest stage and is usually predominant during the first part of our night's rest, decreasing in intensity and duration as the hours pass.
- Deep SWS sleep is contrasted by the REM stage (i.e., rapid eye movement), which is less deep and increasingly intense and extended towards the end of the sleep period.
You should know that normally, during the night, you go through several sleep cycles, transitioning from NREM to REM in about 90 minutes.
Don't believe it? Try this exercise: decide the time you want to wake up, for example, 6:30 AM.
Calculate backward, in 90-minute cycles, and consider 7-9 hours of sleep: 6:30 - 05:00 - 3:30 - 02:00 - 00:30 - 23:00 - 21:30. You should go to bed at 21:30 or 23:00.
Is napping good for you?
Napping is often considered synonymous with laziness. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Hundreds of experiments have revealed the enormous benefits associated with even very short naps.
So, closing your eyes for a few minutes every day can help you develop a stronger memory, be more alert, improve reaction time, and boost your productivity. Natural remedies can also improve sleep quality.
Why do I often feel sleepy during the day?
Our immune system promotes tiredness and drowsiness when our body needs to recover from an infection.
It is a defense mechanism put in place to save energy.
This "mechanism" is also activated when we introduce a dysfunctional food into our body, such as a GMO or irradiated food.
So, post-prandial drowsiness (especially after lunch), unless you have accumulated a strong sleep debt, can be caused by a virus, a bacterium, or a dysfunctional food that activates an immune response in our body.
10 tips for better sleep
Now, after learning more about sleep, how it affects our body, how many hours we should sleep on average, and why we should never deprive ourselves of it.
It's time to read the reasons why you're on this article, here are 10 tips for sleeping well:
- Try to go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning, even on weekends, preferably sleeping from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM
- Make sure the room where you sleep is completely dark, quiet, relaxing, and has a generally cool temperature of 15 to 18 degrees Celsius.
- Remove all electronic devices (e.g., TV, computer, smartphone) from the bed while you sleep and turn them off at least 30 minutes before going to bed.
- Avoid having too heavy a dinner, or going to bed hungry.
- Do not drink alcohol or stimulating-energizing beverages (e.g., energy drinks, coffee, tea) in the evening.
- Avoid intense exercise and exposure to intense artificial lights in the last hours of the day.
- Take a warm bath 90 minutes before getting into bed; it lowers the body's core temperature more easily in the following hours, thereby improving the quality of your sleep.
- Drink an herbal tea with a relaxing effect (e.g., Lemon Balm, Linden, Hawthorn, Passionflower, Valerian, Sativa Hemp)
- Read a physical book in bed before going to sleep or plan a relaxing activity such as meditation or deep breathing, with warm, indirect, relaxing light like that from salt lamps.
- Supplement micronutrients with an anxiolytic-calming effect
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Sleep Better, Sleep: A Brain Detox
We've just looked at 10 tips for sleeping better, but the best way to conclude this article is to reiterate a simple concept, often underestimated:
Sleep is essential for the health and functioning of our brain.
Indeed, good sleep increases attention, promotes concentration, enhances emotional control, fosters creativity, reduces anxiety and depression, and is indispensable for memory and its consolidation.
You should know that brain cells produce a kind of "toxic waste." If allowed to accumulate, they have negative effects on thought, behavior, and mood.
To prevent this, the body regularly releases a special cleansing fluid called "cerebrospinal fluid" into brain tissue. This fluid removes unwanted waste and carries it to the liver for the detoxification process.
During the night, brain cells contract, and the space between them increases by about 60%. This allows a large amount of cerebrospinal fluid to flow rapidly through the brain, efficiently carrying away toxins.
Women are more at risk for sleep disorders
Insomnia affects women more frequently than men, with a gap that significantly widens after 45-50 years of age. Clinical data reveal a worrying aspect: when insomnia persists for more than a month, it tends to become chronic, leading to significant consequences for general health and quality of life.
In its chronic form, this disorder is not just a sleep problem, but a real risk factor for numerous pathologies. Improving the quality of nighttime rest significantly reduces the probability of developing cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, depression, and anxiety disorders.
Particularly relevant is the frequent association of insomnia with neurological disorders, found in 25-60% of cases. Scientific evidence suggests a direct link between chronic insomnia and progressive cognitive decline, opening important reflections on the relationship between sleep and brain health.
On a socioeconomic level, insomnia represents a determining factor for increased absenteeism from work, a rise in requests for sick leave, and a significant drop in professional performance, with relevant consequences for both the individual and society as a whole.
Our advice for overcoming sleep disorders and difficulty falling asleep:
Transform your quality of life with restorative sleep every night. Follow our scientifically validated guidelines and rediscover the pleasure of deep, refreshing rest.
Sources:
- World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM) Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2019 Feb; 54: 120–126. Published online 2018 Oct 23. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2018.10.006
- J Therm Biol. 2018 Dec;78:192-203.doi: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2018.09.012. Epub 2018 Oct 5 Review Nat Rev Immunol. 2019 Nov; 19 (11): 702-715.
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J Sleep Res. 2024 May 29;34(2):e14252. doi: 10.1111/jsr.14252 ; Chronic insomnia, REM sleep instability and emotional dysregulation: A pathway to anxiety and depression?
