We get it… Americans are tired. The need for better sleep is real and Hyphen is here to help. Recently the American Sleep Association (ASA) announced some alarming statistical trends developing throughout the United States.
Consider just some of the following published data about sleeping troubles:
● 50-70 million US adults have a sleep disorder.
● 48.0% report snoring.
● 37% of 20-39 year-olds report short sleep duration
● 40% of 40-59 year-olds report short sleep duration
● 35.3% adults report getting less than 7 hours of sleep during a typical 24-hour period.
● 100,000 deaths occur each year in US hospitals due to medical errors and sleep deprivation have been shown to make a significant contribution.
● 37.9% reported unintentionally falling asleep during the day at least once in the preceding month.
● 4.7% reported nodding off or falling asleep while driving at least once in the preceding month.
Scary right?
As a mattress company we firmly believe it is our duty to not only provide a physical medium to make sure our customers get a good night’s rest but it’s also imperative to discuss ways to improve sleeping habits before you even climb into a Hyphen mattress. Sleep is a complicated process and what you do leading up to and after the critical window of sleep time is essential to establishing good sleeping habits. One of our core missions is to educate both current and future Hyphen customers on ways that they can get a better night’s sleep. Because every good day starts with a good night’s rest!
So How Can You Get Better Sleep? Here Are 5 of Our Favorite Ways:
1. Warm-Up To Sleep: Pretend with us that sleep is a game. Now imagine if before every game Lebron James or Mike Trout headed straight from the locker room into the game without any shoot-around, batting practice, or stretching. These are two generational talents so of course they could forego warm-ups and still be successful, but their chances of success become diminished and the likelihood for injury also increases. We should all treat sleep the same way. There are no god given talents when it comes to sleep. So warm-up to sleep. About an hour before bed you should power off all your devices — smartphones, laptops, outside the bedroom and head in to sleep in a room that is completely dark. Our brains are programmed to react to light. When there is light the brain is triggered to be awake and alert, so even though we may be lying down and trying to force ourselves to go to sleep we are actually causing our brains to work much harder than needed with the addition of light.
2. Don’t Eat Too Late: Many people make this mistake. Just because you don’t feel full doesn’t mean your body is done digesting your food. Most doctors recommend eating your final meal of the day about 3-4 hours before bedtime. This will not only help you sleep better but also aide with weight loss when applied with a healthy diet. Try eating lighter at dinner and giving yourself 3 hours or more between your last meal of the day and climbing into your Hyphen for the night.
3. Find A Ritual: Event if it’s just one thing you do, try to find an activity or task that will relax you each night before bed and then do it every night. Research shows that creating habit forming rituals for sleep increases the signal to our brain that rest is near. Activities like: Reading a book, dimming the lights, stretching or deep breathing are all tried and true methods to get us ready for bed.
4. Plan Your Stress Time: This one plagues so many of us. Right before bed is often when we find our mind starts racing. Did I pay that bill? How should I introduce this concept at work tomorrow? Is it my turn to pick the kids up from school? With so many competing thoughts it can be impossible to get some shut eye. That’s why sleep professionals and psychologist recommend scheduling your time to stress well before bedtime. Some good planned stress time options are just before or after dinner, during your pre sleep ritual (see tip 3), or on the drive home from work. Anytime works really just as long as it is before you climb into bed with the intention of going to sleep. It’s also important that you either write down your stress to do list or tell them to someone so there is an actual release of the information. Get it off your chest!
5. Try Some Magnesium: There are plenty of sleep supplements on the market and all have varying degrees of success, but perhaps no supplement or mineral provides such synergy with sleep as magnesium. You see magnesium moves calcium out of the muscles and puts it back into the bloodstream so that it can be used in other areas of the body. So by removing calcium from the muscles, magnesium acts as a natural muscle relaxer. You have to be relaxed to sleep and magnesium can help spur on that relaxation in a natural and healthy way. You may remember as a kid being told to have a warm glass of milk in order to get to bed, well there was science in that quirkiness. Milk contains a lot of magnesium. But, because of the digestive issues it causes, milk isn’t actually a good sleep aide, magnesium is. You can either buy magnesium supplement pills to take a few hours before bed or you can take a bath or shower and then use magnesium oil on your skin before going to bed.
These are 5 ways we recommend to help you get better sleep but of course the internet is vast and there are many more opinions on the topic. Here are some of our favorite resources along with a list of fun facts about sleeping that you may not have known.
Additional Sleeping Tip Articles:
Some Fun Facts About Sleep:
1. Sleeping naked can be a good way to avoid wrinkles. When nude your body cools to a more ideal temperature and releases growth hormones. Clothes can keep your body at higher temperatures that prohibit these hormones from being released. This can block you skin from repairing itself more efficiently which is the direct cause for wrinkles.
2. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine 12% of people dream exclusively in black and white.
3. Humans are the only mammals that will consciously delay sleep.
4. The average person spends an estimated total of 600 hours dreaming each year.
5. Multiple research studies have concluded that people who sleep on the left side of the bed, typically want to get a good start to the day, are more inclined to like their job, have lots of friends, and generally wake up in a good mood with a more positive outlook on life. Meanwhile those that sleep on the right side of bed, generally prefer their own company, are grumpier, more pessimistic and don’t necessarily like their work.
