When did falling asleep become so complicated? There’s no shortage of fitness trackers, sleep apps, smart lights, white noise machines, even wearable brain monitors, all promising the holy grail of a good night’s rest. But with gadgets and gizmos aplenty, it’s easy to overlook traditional solutions for scoring a solid eight hours’ sleep.
So, before your nightstand becomes overstuffed with expensive tech solutions, let us remind you of some of the best analog ways to improve your sleep, many of which are still hard to beat.
RELATED: Sleep Well Tonight – 18 Tips to Help You Sleep Better Than Ever Before!
- Open your window
Keep your room as cold as possible overnight as a cool temperature is vital to getting to sleep and staying asleep. If you don’t want to leave your window open at night for security reasons, crack it for half an hour before you go to bed to give the room a chance to cool down. Use light bed sheets, natural fabrics like cotton, and the thinnest comforter you can get, so you don’t overheat during the night and wake up. - Banish your clock
We’ve all been there but stressing about how little sleep you’ll get because of the time is totally counterproductive. End worries and stop clock-watching by removing clocks from your bedroom altogether. If you need it for the morning alarm, just turn it around and away from your view until you need to get up. - Take pumpkin seed oil supplement
If you get up in the night to go to the bathroom and find it hard to get back to sleep, then a pumpkin seed oil supplement could be worth a try. It’ll help you sleep through till morning without the need to ‘go’ disturbing your rest.
Want to shop all our Health picks in one place? Check out our dedicated shopping page, full of all our best finds from the interwebs! - Don’t go to bed until you’re really sleepy
As much as you might dread being tired tomorrow, going to bed only when you’re body is ready is one of the best recipes for going to sleep fast and staying asleep. If you do wake up, never stay in bed, but instead, get up and do some boring activities like minor housework or reading until you feel sleepy again. - Read a bedtime story
Bedtime stories help children nod off, so why not adults too? Just pick something light that will help you relax – in other words, give the latest Jack Reacher book a miss. - Leave devices outside the bedroom overnight
Charge your phone in the kitchen if you normally keep it on your nightstand and use it to scroll before bed. Besides the blue light from the screen being bad for your sleepiness, you’re more likely to check emails or read the news – all likely to keep you up at night. - Start a screen time curfew
Set a time limit of an hour before bed to stop using all screens, including mobile devices and the tv. Consider ditching sleep tracking apps too; worrying about the fact you only got 3hrs 37 mins of deep sleep the night before will only cause more anxiety around getting to sleep tonight. - Take a bath or shower 90 minutes before you want to go to sleep
The optimum time for a relaxing pre-bed shower or bath, is 90 minutes before the time at which you want to sleep. This is so your body has time to cool itself down ready for slumber.
