1. It helps with post-workout pain.
If you’ve had a good nights sleep, you’ll be able to withstand an extra 27% discomfort during your next day workout. A minimum of 7 hours sleep would up your speed by 15% and boost your reaction time by 12%.
2. Weekend lie ins are important.
To feel fully refreshed, getting 9 hours sleep for two nights a week is vital for you to feel relaxed and refreshed throughout the week.
3. The more sleep you have the less you’ll want to snack.
Those who don’t get the recommended 8 hours of sleep a night end up snacking more. That snacking you do when you’re sat at your desk bored at 3 pm, can be stopped if you just slept a little more.
4. Do not hit the snooze button.
It might feel great at the time, but hitting the snooze button can be detrimental to your morning routine. Once you’re awake, you should stay awake.
“a standard 10-minute snooze cycle is confusing for your mind and body because it’s not long enough to feel either rested or wake without sleep inertia”.
Your body temperature drops just before you sleep and rises an hour or two before you wake, is messed with when you hit snooze because your body will begin to necessarily start to cool down again.
5. Light at night.
A study showed that 29% of city dwellers expressed fatigue and dissatisfaction with their quality of sleep compared to 15% of people who lived in the countryside. That’s almost 50% difference because of the lack of complete darkness in cities. regular light exposure made mice depressed and upped their levels of stress hormone cortisol. So no looking at your phone right before bed, it can stop you from having a good nights sleep.
6. Keep your body clock tuned.
Super nutrient Magnesium is essential for keeping your internal body clock happy. It helps cells adapt to the rhythm of day and night, benefitting your sleep.
7. Working out too hard can affect your sleep.
If you’ve worked out too much in the gym, you will struggle to get to sleep, stay asleep or just have an extremely restless night. You could be pushing yourself too hard in your workouts. Increase training in a progressive manner rather than jumping straight in. Have a happy medium.
8. Ditch the cotton PJs for wool
According to research done at the University of Sydney, you need to ditch the cotton PJs that you own and replace them with some wool ones. This is because wool actually helps your body to maintain its core temperature. This means that you are able to sleep an extra ten minutes faster than usual!
9. Women need more!
A study was conducted at Loughborough University and it found that women, when they were compared to men, needed an extra 20 minutes in bed before they could function on the same level. This is down to the simple fact that the female brain is a lot more complex, so it needs a little bit longer in order to recharge.
10. You are better on your back
If you lie on your front, then you can expect to get more wrinkles when you’re older because of the contact with your face on the pillow. So, if it is possible to sleep on your back then this is what you should do. However, we all know it is impossible to control your sleeping habits when you are asleep and unaware.
11. Eat rice
Kanazawa Medical University, located in Japan, did an investigation into whether people who ate more rice got a better quality nights sleep. The results proved that the volunteers who ate more rice had a better night’s sleep!! This theory works best on an empty stomach.
12. Beneath the sheets
According to research, you get an extra 6 full minutes of sleep if you have sex before a snooze. Six minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, but you will definitely feel like you’ve had to extra minutes the next morning!!
