We all want our own personal cave, especially one’s that make us feel good personally! Here are some tips!
1. Clock Out:
Light can inhibit the secretion of melatonin, the hormone that is your body’s natural sleep drug, and you can still detect even a small amount of light (such as from your alarm clock) through closed eyelids. Clocks with red numbers are less disruptive than ones with white or blue digits; turn yours so it’s facing away from you.
2. Turn on a Fan:
Research highlights the benefits of pink noise, blended sounds with a consistent frequency – 75 percent of study participants reported more restful sleep or anp with pink noise than with silence. You can create this sound at home with fans, apps or gadgets that produce steady, uninterrupted sound, like falling rain or blowing wind.
3. Get a Whiff of Lavender:
The scent has long been known to have sedative properties, decreasing heart rate and blood pressure. In fact, a Wesleyan University study found that women who sniffed lavender oil before bed experienced, on average, 22 percent more restorative slow – wave sleep.
4. Claim Your Own Blanket:
“Using one blanket for two people is not conductive to good sleep,” says John Dittami, an Austria – based sleep researcher and co – author of Sleeping Better Together, since it can amplify movement and body heat. Instead, he suggests trying separate sheets.
5. Make Your Bed:
People who make their bed every day are 19 percent more likely to report a better night’s rest, according to a poll by the National Sleep Foundation.
6. Find a Temperature That Makes You Want to Hibernate:
The cold makes us drowsy, and a falling core body temperature helps us drift off faster, says Nancy Collop, MD, director of the Bory Sleep Center in Atlanta. Specialists usually give a ballpark suggestion of setting the thermostat to between 65 and 72 degrees – or that it feels just chilly enough so that you need a blanket.