Do you wake up feeling tired even after sleeping for six to eight hours? Do you feel exhausted even when you haven’t done anything physically strenuous yet during the day? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be doing something wrong before going to sleep!
Take a look at the possible reasons for your near-constant feeling of exhaustion and the possible remedies that you can make.
Your Bed Isn’t a Place of Rest
Tossing and turning may be good for salads but it isn’t for your physical and mental health when you’re doing it while sleeping. Of course, there are many reasons for it but the most common are the condition of your mattress, your preferred sleeping position, and your bed mates.
Your mattress, for example, may be lumpy in places so there’s a sense of sleeping on bed of rocks. You may also be sleeping with a partner who snores, takes up your half of the bed, or snores loudly. You may even have one or two pets on your bed as your bed mates.
Your bed becomes a place of stress instead of a place for rest! Well, you have to find the right fixes for it like:
- Buying a new King Koil mattress, preferably one with a medium-firm quality for better back and side support
- Getting a larger bed and mattress in case your partner takes up plenty of space
- Letting your pets have their own beds, even kicking them out of your bedroom because pet hair and dander can cause allergy issues that contribute to your sleepless nights
- Changing your sleeping position, such as from lying on your back to lying on your side while using a body pillow
You should also regularly change your beddings, blankets and pillowcases as well as vacuum your bed. These are hygiene measures designed to reduce the risk of dust, dirt and dust mites, which are allergens to some people, from affecting your sleeping time. You don’t want to wake up in the middle of a restful sleep sneezing from these unseen allergens.
If your bed partner snores too loudly or too frequently, you should consider using an earplug while sleeping or sleeping in another room. You should also suggest a medical consultation with a specialist as snoring can be a sign of a serious underlying medical condition, such as obstructive sleep apnea.
Your Bedroom Doesn’t Have the Right Temperature and Light
When you go to sleep, your body drops its temperature (i.e., cools down). You should then turn down the thermostat so that your bedroom has a cooler temperature that mirrors said drop. Otherwise, your bedrooms is too warm for your body’s need to cool down before sleeping, so you feel more restless.
This is also true for the light levels in your room. The more light there is, the less amount of melatonin in your body and the more alert you will feel at bedtime. So turn off most of your bedroom lights and let your body and brain go into sleep mode faster.
But there may be cases when even with lights dimmer, or turned off, there will still be light from outside, such as from the sun or from streetlights. You should consider using blackout curtains and eye masks.
You Don’t Have Healthy Bedtime Habits
Your bed and bedroom may be places of rest but you’re still not getting sufficient hours of restful sleep at night. You should then look into your unhealthy bedtime habits.
Checking your digital devices before going to bed
While social media has its merits, it can also bring stress to your life, such as when comparisons of lives are made. You will likely struggle with your negative thoughts, plan your day ahead, and lose sleep over trivial things after checking your social media accounts and emails. You must then turn off your digital devices at least an hour before your bedtime – or at least, stop looking at them and concentrate on going to sleep.
Setting irregular hours for bedtime
While your weekdays and weekends have different schedules, you should go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Your body’s internal clock will appreciate such regularity and, thus, make it easier to fall and stay asleep.
If you must wake up later than usual on weekends or on your vacations, you should ideally aim for a 30- to 45-minute variation.
Going to bed stressed
When you have plenty on your plate, you will have a harder time falling and staying asleep. Your stress hormones are preventing your melatonin from doing its job, so to speak.
So, before going to bed, you must relax and empty your mind of your day’s concerns. You can try meditation, light exercise, and a glass of warm milk as part of your bedtime ritual. You can also take a relaxing bath to remove the grime off your body and to relax your mind.
These aren’t quick fixes, however. You have to keep at them for a few days before you can see significant results but on your first night, you will enjoy relief from your restlessness, no matter how seemingly small it may.