Work can sometimes be stressful and often times we end up tossing and turning in our bed during the night hoping to get some sleep. This happens to almost all of us and only the lucky few are able to go to bed without having trouble sleeping. This is because they have unlocked the way to beating sleeplessness. Here are the top 5 ways you’re destroying your sleep cycle.
1. Working In Bed
Most of us are busy working in the office and oftentimes call for overtime. Sometimes, we tend to bring our workload at home and we end up working in bed. We carry our laptops and sets of papers into the bedroom and this can be a deterrent to our sleep cycle. Working in bed especially with a laptop or computer hinders our body’s production of melatonin. Melatonin is a chemical-induced by the body to begin the sleep cycle.
If melatonin production is hindered, the body does not feel sleepy even if it is already tired. This is why you do not fall asleep even when you are tired. You toss and turn the entire night and by then you realize it is already morning and you still haven’t slept yet.
2. Erratic Sleeping Hours
Work and stress can really throw off our sleep cycle. If you have a job that changes shifts every other week then you might have a problem with your sleeping cycle. Most of the time, it takes weeks for the body to adapt to a certain sleep cycle. When you adopt a habit of sleeping at ten in the evening and wake up at six in the morning, you will surely keep up with such a habit for the rest of your life and wake up the same time every day even without the help of an alarm clock.
If you have a shifting schedule at work, this can throw off your sleep cycle. This can lead to impairment in learning abilities and contribute to higher anxiety levels and induce lower concentration.
3. Exercise
As well know exercise can help improve our sleep cycle but can also destroy it. Most people exercise to help normalize the blood pressure and keep the blood flowing through our veins. This also helps normalize our sleeping pattern and get us tired enough to sleep. This makes it a very good point to exercise right before we go to sleep. But, chances are, when you do this, you will end up lying in bed awake at night.
Exercising right before you sleep only perks your brain up and makes it active. The blood rushing through your entire body makes your system active which makes you wide awake at the dead of the night.
4. Going Straight to Bed
The most important part before going to sleep is winding down. Some people are often too tired to care about winding down and let their bodies adapt to another environment and they end up rolling over the sheets for a couple of hours at night. It is important for your body to be able to adapt to another setting first before truly accepting its purpose. There is a small window for your body to adapt especially when you are tired from work. Take this time to take a warm shower or sip some herbal tea. This will help your body calm down and be relieved from the stress you have acquired over the day. If you are worried or anxious, try putting them in words by writing in a journal.
You can also calm your nerves by listening to mellow music or you can even talk to someone about your fears and worries. Learn how to wind down before you sleep so that the body can at least have the right amount of time to adapt.
5. Not Resting in Between
Most of us are hard at work in the morning and by the time we reach the afternoon, we get into a phase called the afternoon slump. It is that time of the day when we often feel lazy and unable to work. Most of the time, workers feel the afternoon slump at around two or three in the afternoon or even after lunch. This is one way that your body is telling you that you need to drop whatever it is that you are doing and rest.
This type of phenomenon can be traced to your body’s lack of sleep the night prior to working. Your body is in desperate need of sleep that it slowly shuts down in the middle of the day to acquire energy.
To avoid the afternoon slump, take a power nap after you take your lunch. A power nap consists of 10 to twenty minutes of shut-eye. This will help you recover all the lost energy and give you enough to last the rest of the day. Power naps also help you recover from stress and helps you sleep better at night.