Anxious thoughts keeping you up?

Try improving your sleep quality with these three tips!

When we think of living healthy, we often think of eating all our greens and heading to the nearest gym. While you can definitely do all those things (if that’s what you want!) the most important part of healthy living is so simple, we often forget to improve it on our quest for health.

It’s sleep!

You’re already familiar with sleep, but did you know a lack of sleep can have some serious impacts on almost every aspect of your day?

Research shows that when we don’t get enough sleep, it can impact everything from our memory to our mood. Lack of sleep can also impact our immune system and weaken our ability to fight off that flu that’s been going around.

Recent Pinterest reports saw “sleep optimization” grow as a search term by 116 percent. Sleep is apparently on top of a lot of people’s minds this year.

So, if sleep is eluding you, where can you start to make the necessary changes to fix this? Here are three ways to get started…

Create a nightly routine

A nightly routine for some people is a perfect way to signal it's time for sleep. Creating one doesn’t need to be very complicated. Get started by finding something to do every night before you go to bed that relaxes you.

Maybe that means staying away from bright lights (Yes, that means no binging Netflix or endless scrolling on Instagram!) before you fall asleep. Maybe take time to write down in your Tranquility Thought Journal, or trying one of our breathing techniques to lull you to sleep. For some people, the perfect move is a cup of tea or some light reading.

The key factors to a wind-down routine is anything that will get you in a calm and tranquil mindset and free your mind of worries or anxious thoughts that may keep you up (or, at least make them a little less intense).

What we like to recommend to Tranquility users is to write out all the things we wish we would have said or make a list of things we have to do tomorrow, they just gotta leave our brains… and we feel more rested.

Find what works for you, and improve on it over time.

2. Release Endorphins

Even if you get your diet and exercise right if you don’t get enough sleep you’re probably not going to have enough energy to do either.

While your sleep impacts your ability to exercise, exercise also impacts the quality of your sleep.

Endorphins are released when you work out, and these can keep you awake. So if your schedule only allows you to workout in the evening, be sure you give yourself enough time to sweat it out and let your endorphins and brain wind down.

3. Set a schedule

Ever find yourself trying to catch up on sleep on the weekends by sleeping in?

While it’s not necessarily bad for you, it’s also not the best thing to do if you want to build healthy habits. Many doctors suggest sticking to a consistent sleep schedule - and research shows that keeping an irregular sleep schedule leads to lower sleep quality.

Stick to a schedule for when you go to bed and wake up, and see if that consistency works for you over time.

Whatever you do, start where you’re at and just work on building your habits - one step at a time - and you’ll wake up to a healthier you.