Tired lately? Assuming that you’ve actually been trying to sleep, it can be incredibly frustrating to downright angering to lay awake tossing and turning. Luckily some small fixes can make some big changes to sleeping patterns. Here are some reasons why your sleep might have gotten out of whack.
You’re Switching Up Your Sleep Schedule
You know, the work sleep schedule versus the weekend sleep schedule. Our bodies tend to get into a rhythm with our sleep patterns, and when we suddenly push back our bedtime by hours it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be rewarded with restorative sleep. Studies have found that sleeping in on the weekends can actually make you feel more tired come Monday morning when you have to wake up early again.
But what can you do? If you’re planning to stay up later on the weekend, do what you can to still get up at a reasonable hour. (As close to your normal wake up time as possible.) Over the longterm it will feel better to preserve some of that rhythm, and it might encourage you to skip the after party you often regret anyway. It’s actually better to get up at your normal time and take a nap later as opposed to just sleeping in. Insert Sunday afternoon snooze.
All Of Your Electronics Are On
Our houses are full of electronics, and most of them remain plugged in or on 24/7. Though the amount of light that they emit from their power sources might be small, it can still effect your sleep in not so nice ways. Our bodies decide whether it’s time to be asleep or awake based on light, so flooding the body with non daylight can make it confused and it won’t produce the proper amount of melatonin that you need to fall and stay asleep.
Add to that the fact that checking your smartphone before bed can cause you all kinds of issues. For one thing, staring at that light can make it harder for your body to go to sleep at all. But for another thing, spending too much time on your smartphone before bed has also been shown to make people sleepier and less alert the following day.
Your Bedroom is Too Hot
Research has shown that the optimal levels for sleeping are on the cooler side, so if you find yourself tossing and turning in a sweaty mess you might want to get a bedside fan or turn on the air. You’ll be doing yourself another favor when you sleep in a cooler room as well, sleeping in cooler temperatures has been shown to reduce the amount of bad fat that you store in your abdomen. Yep, you can work on your abs while you sleep.
The “bad” fat we speak of is the white kind, which is the kind that stores energy. The brown fat on the other hand burns calories, and exposing the body to the cold can tip the scales in your favor.