How to Sleep Better
I don’t know about you, but due to the current state of the world, I haven’t been sleeping very well. It’s never one thing in particular, but my sleep quality has not been good. A couple months ago, I downloaded the app autosleep. It’s $4 on the app store and it uses your apple watch to analyze your sleep. On one hand it gives you so much data, which I like. But it also will tell you when you’ve had a bad night of sleep, which is fairly often right now.
Meditate
After a string of nights of bad sleep, I decided that I needed to change something. The first thing I did was get back into meditating. At the beginning of the pandemic I meditated using the Peloton app fairly regularly and I found it really helped my stress levels. But I stopped doing it regularly. I got back on the mediation train, which I find really helps me. I like Anna Greenberg a lot. I use the Peloton app because I subscribe to the whole app and the meditation is included. I have also used Headspace, which I like, but I wasn’t going to pay for two different apps.
Upgrade Your Bed
The next step I took was to buy a new pillow and mattress topper. According to the National Sleep Foundation, you are supposed to replace your pillows every one to two years. My pillow was due for an upgrade, and there was a sale, so I invested in one from Tempur-pedic. I then moved to get a mattress topper. There is nothing wrong with my current mattress, so I didn’t want to spend $$$ and buy a completely new mattress so I got a topper. A topper can upgrade the average mattress for a fraction of the cost.
Have a Routine
The last thing I can recommend is have a nightly routine. This helps your body realize it’s time for bed. Turn off the TV, do your skincare routine and get into bed. I’ve bought a couple paperback books and will read those to help me unwind instead of scrolling on my phone. I will then do my nightly meditation and turn off the lights.
It took a couple of days for these new habits to start to work, but after doing all of these steps, I finally started having better nights of sleep. I hope that one or all of these tips are helpful in some way.
