A healthy sleep habit is essential to your emotional, cognitive, and physical health. The way you spend your hours before bed can either set you up for a good night’s sleep or contribute to sleeplessness that can keep you tossing and turning all night.
Looking for a few tips to better sleep? Then you’ve come to the right place.
Keep reading to see how you can make a few easy adjustments to support your circadian rhythm and set yourself up for better, healthier sleep.
Get your paper and pen – you’ll want to add some of these to your to-do list tonight!
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Rule Out Any Sleeping Disorders
Before doing anything else, you’ll want to make sure you rule out any possible sleep disorders by talking with your doctor. A sleep disorder may require a sleep study and diagnosis by a medical professional.
If chronic sleeplessness is interfering with your daily life, talk with your doctor and get the support you need. You’re not alone in this struggle, and there is help.
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Consistency Is Key
Stabilizing your circadian rhythm means keeping to a regular, consistent sleep-wake cycle – yes, even on the weekends.
Your circadian rhythm is based on your internal clock and governed by the rise and fall of the sun. As the sky darkens at night, your brain begins to produce melatonin, a natural hormone that tells your body when it’s time to get ready to sleep. Exposure to any light after the sun goes down, including artificial and blue light, mimics the same signals in your brain and interrupts your natural cycle.
Here are our best tips for improving and maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm:
- Go to bed at the same time each night.
- Wake up at the same time each morning.
- Cut out all sources of artificial light, and especially blue light, at least an hour before bed
- Avoid drinking caffeine or eating large meals close to bedtime
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Reduce Your Daily Stress
If you’re wondering why you don’t sleep well at night – you might need to take a look at your daily stress levels. Especially if your sleep issues seem to escalate when new stressors turn up.
Stress has a major impact on your sleep, and a lack of adequate sleep often increases your feelings of stress – it’s a vicious cycle. The good news is, there are a number of things you can try to help decrease your stress levels at the end of the night. If you think stress might be the reason your not getting quality sleep at night, you might want to try:
- Meditating and deep breathing exercises
- Journaling before bed to help empty your mind
- Drinking calming herbal tea before bed each night
- Using CBD oil for sleep an hour or two before bed
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Exercise Earlier in the Day
It’s thought that regular exercise helps you feel more sleepy in the evenings, but that it may also help prolong the deeper stages of sleep. Regular exercise can help you fall asleep at night, but when you exercise might matter more than you think.
While exercising earlier in the day is correlated with better sleep at night, exercising too close to bedtime can boost your energy levels rather than reduce them.
Choosing the right time of day for your exercise can also be important, though this may differ depending on your natural circadian rhythm and sleep chronotype. The general consensus is to exercise earlier in the day in order to achieve your best sleep at night. This is likely due to how our bodies produce certain hormones while working out that might make sleep onset a little more delayed.
Although exercising earlier in the day is recommended for a better quality of sleep, exercising any time of the day is better than not exercising at all when it comes to your mental health, physical health, and sleep schedule.
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Choose Calming Activities Close to Bedtime
What you do in the hours right before bed is important to your ability to fall and stay asleep.
As we mentioned above, choosing calming activities to do before bedtime, rather than playing on your phone, laptop, or watching TV, can create successful sleep. Some great options to try include:
- Mindfulness Meditation – Consciously focusing on your breathing, slowing down your thoughts, and letting go of any lingering negativity as you get ready for bed can calm both your mind and body. By focusing on your actions in the moment, you allow the stress and worries from your day to subside so you can achieve better sleep.
- Reading – Taking some time to read at the end of the day can help calm the mind and distract you from ruminating over the day’s stresses. If you use a book light, make sure to purchase one that doesn’t use blue light, a common disruptor of sleep.
- Aromatherapy – Scents like lavender and chamomile have been shown to reduce stress and prepare you for sleep. Candles, room sprays, and teas are all great ways to add comforting scents to your nightly routine.
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Reduce Your Daily Caffeine Intake
Unfortunately, getting better sleep at night might mean having to sacrifice one of your regular vices: caffeine.
Coffee, energy drinks, tea, soda, and even chocolate are all common sources of our much loved caffeine. Now, we’re not saying you have to cut caffeine from your diet entirely, but you might need to decrease the amount of caffeine you usually drink during the day and implement a cutoff time. That means no drinking coffee with your dessert after dinner. While it might be hard to cut back, drinking less caffeine each day can help increase both your health and quality of sleep.
Keep it reasonable and restrict your caffeine to the morning hours. This way it can be fully metabolized before bedtime.
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Try Incorporating Sleep-Enhancing Foods
Did you know that some foods and drinks can actually help you sleep? It’s true!
Incorporating foods with L-tryptophan, melatonin, magnesium, and vitamin B6 into your evening diet can help your mind and body wind down for the night. In fact, you might be surprised to find that some of your favorite foods fall into this list.
Not a big late-night snacker? Not to worry, because there are a number of foods that do double duty, containing two or more sleep-enhancing ingredients:
- Almonds (L-tryptophan, Melatonin, and Magnesium)
- Milk (L-tryptophan, Magnesium, and Vitamin B6)
- Bananas (Melatonin, Magnesium, and Vitamin B6)
- Salmon (Melatonin, Magnesium, and Vitamin B6)
- Oats (L-tryptophan and Melatonin)
- Pumpkin seeds (L-tryptophan and Magnesium)
- Eggs (L-tryptophan and Vitamin B6)
- Carrots (Magnesium and Vitamin B6)
- Avocado (Magnesium and Vitamin B6)
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Sleep Aids You Can Trust – CBD for Quality Sleep
There are lots of sleep medicine options and natural sleep aids hitting the market these days. And here at cbdMD we specialize in creating naturally effective CBD sleep aids so you can fall asleep better without worrying about any addictive components found in many other sleep aid options out there.
CBD Sleep Aid Gummies
Available in both full spectrum and broad spectrum varieties, all you need to do is take one to two of these delicious gummies for a sleep-enhancing boost of calm before bed. Fortified with melatonin, L-theanine, ashwagandha, GABA, and a selection of soothing herbs, this soothing nightcap is the perfect way to relax into dreamland.
CBD Oil Sleep Tinctures
CBD tinctures are the easiest way to get the perfect amount of CBD for you by using as much or as little CBD oil as you need in every serving.
Infused with melatonin, our full spectrum CBD oil tinctures for sleep come in a soothing mint flavor while our broad spectrum tinctures are available in either mint or berry. For best results, take the same amount each evening around the same time.
Our CBD sleep formulas are so good, our broad spectrum CBD oil tinctures for sleep were even voted Product of the Year by the Consumer Survey of Product Innovation in 2020!
CBD Softgels for Sleep
Our broad spectrum CBD PM softgels are made with the same great formulas as our CBD oil tinctures and CBD sleep aid gummies, while our full spectrum CBD softgels offer 50 mg of CBD, 2 mg of THC, and 3 mg of melatonin in every serving. Packed with hemp extracts and calming herbs, all you need to do is take one or two with a full glass of water an hour or so before bed and relax your way into a dreamy sleep.
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Drinking Alcohol Doesn’t Help You Sleep
Did you know that alcohol actually impairs your quality of sleep? Although alcohol is a sedative and may help calm you, it actually can delay sleep onset or even exacerbate some common sleep conditions like sleep apnea.
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Eliminate Any Remaining Factors Keeping You Awake
Setting the stage of your room for uninterrupted sleep is called having good sleep hygiene. Many things can disrupt your sleep, from that light on the side of your laptop to the room being too warm or too cold, to that whirring sound your dog makes when they snore. Try to find out what’s annoying you when you lie down to sleep and what might be stirring you from the lighter stages of sleep.
Eliminate these common annoyances and make your sleep space as comfortable as possible. It’s also helpful to remove mental distractions from your sleeping area, like your laptop or cell phone, games, your work, and hobby materials. Your sleeping area should tell your body this is time to sleep, not hey look at that thing we forgot about.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to develop health sleeping habits or how CBD can help you sleep better, keep an eye on our frequently updated blog. Looking to stay up to date on the latest supplement news and cbdMD’s upcoming special offers? Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or chat with someone live today!