Fed up of lying awake every night, counting sheep? It might be down to your late night habits. How you choose to spend the hours before you hit the hay can have a huge impact on your ability to fall asleep at night and if you find that, night after night, you simply can’t switch off, it might be time to make a change. Following a more restful, relaxed nighttime routine is one of the best ways to ensure that you enjoy a proper night’s sleep and by avoiding these disruptive habits, you can drift off to sleep much more easily than you had ever imagined.
- Drinking Too Much Caffeine
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Are you a little too addicted to your coffee maker? It could be keeping you up at night. While having the odd cup of coffee throughout the day is perfectly healthy, drinking too much of the stuff too late into the night can seriously mess with your ability to fall asleep. Caffeine can help to increase your cellular metabolism and enhance feelings of wakefulness, so it makes sense that the more that you drink, the more alert that you will feel. Cutting off your coffee habit from around 3pm onwards is a great way of giving your body chance to begin to relax and function without the caffeine. When bedtime comes around, you might just feel a whole lot more tired.
- Keeping Your Bedroom Too Light
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While we all like a certain amount of darkness in our rooms, there is an optimum level to help you to fall asleep and if your bedroom is too illuminated, you might just find it harder to fall asleep. If you have a disruptive amount of light in your bedroom, your mind and body will find it a great deal more difficult to switch off at night, keeping you up for hours in your bed. To eliminate the problem, try investing in an eye mask, buying blackout curtains or covering your windows. The darker it is, the better you will be able to sleep.
- Exercising Too Late At Night
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There’s a reason why people use exercise as a way of waking up in the morning. When you work out, you pump your body full of things like adrenaline and cortisol which can make you naturally feel more alert. Coming down from the high you have created from working out can take a little time and if you leave it too late, you could be waiting a long time in your bed to fall asleep. Try to push your workout to earlier in the day or even holding out to the following morning. You will feel all the better for it and your body will thank you, too.
- Going To Bed Feeling Anxious
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Racing thoughts and anxiety can seriously mess with your ability to fall asleep at night. If you hit the hay while you’re still worrying about a work project or personal issue then the chances of you falling asleep rapidly are relatively low. If you find you can’t sleep due to worry, get out of bed and try to fix the problem. If it’s really late at night, you can try writing down how the problem is making you feel, compiling a list or doing something to calm your nerves. The more together that you feel, the more easily that you will be able to drift off to sleep.