A good night’s sleep should be a part of everyone’s health and wellness routine. Sleep is crucial to proper brain and body functions and how well you fight off diseases. Without adequate amounts of sleep, your cognitive and behavioral functions will suffer.
It’s not only the amount of sleep you get that matters but the quality of sleep as well. You can get all the rest in the world, but without REM sleep, you will still suffer from sleep deficiency. The good news is that you can get better sleep by making adjustments to your daily and nightly routines.
Tips on Nighttime Routines For Better Sleep
Everyone knows that coffee contains caffeine, and caffeine is a stimulant. In fact, according to AboveAverageCoffee, some of the strongest Starbucks drinks have as much as 475mg of caffeine!
Power naps are great for a quick recharge of your brain and body, but long naps during the day can negatively affect your nighttime sleep patterns. Another way to get better sleep at night is to set a routine of going to bed and waking at the same time each day. Setting regular sleeping and waking times can benefit your long-term sleep quality.
When used properly, caffeine can help you focus, boost energy for excelling in your favorite driving games, and boost athletic performance, but it can greatly reduce your sleep quality when you consume caffeine late in the day. Your night routine should never include drinks or foods that contain caffeine.
How Reading Can Help You Sleep Better
Reading a good book has also been shown to help you relax, lower stress, and allows you to focus on a single thing rather than the problems and challenges of daily living. A good story can take you from one world into another, where you can travel to other countries, visit distant planets, or take a walk down a quiet country road. Read bedtime books that help you relax and escape into different places and times for a better night’s sleep.
Benefits of Reading Before Bed
Here are a few ways reading before bed can be beneficial:
- Increases Your Knowledge
Reading before bed can make you more knowledgeable. When you read, whether fiction or nonfiction, you strengthen your vocabulary, concentration, and memory.
- Stimulates Creativity
Reading helps to stimulate your creativity by allowing you to relax and use your imagination. The more you become involved in a good story, the more your imagination takes you to an altered state of consciousness where your creativity can flourish.
- Becomes an Enjoyable Daily Routine
Nightly reading can become a very enjoyable routine when you get lost in a good book or story. Looking forward to your routine can add structure, peace, and enjoyment to your daily life. Some of the best books to read before bed are those that take you away from your daily life and into the lives of others. If you need any suggestions, puffy.com has put together a list of its top 10 recommendations for you.
- Fights Insomnia
Suppose you have been struggling with sleeping for some time. In that case, reading before bedtime can help you sleep undisturbed. It may take you a while to get used to the idea entirely and adjust your body clock accordingly, but it can help you sleep peacefully once you do. Moreover, children who find reading to be boring can doze off immediately as soon as they catch the sight of a book.
- Reduces Exposure to the Blue Light
Reading a book can limit your exposure to the blue light emitting from the devices we use daily. We can understand that nobody can get through a day without accessing gadgets. However, what we can do is limit our exposure to the harmful light these gadgets emit. There’s absolutely no reason you cannot make reading a bedtime ritual and devote time to learning something new.
- Helps Unwind
Reading can help you unwind before bed. However, a few tips to make it a more relaxing experience include finding yourself a spot where you are the most comfortable and feel at ease, picking a book that genuinely interests you, and an hour to yourself. If you have all the key pieces in place, we guarantee that you will have the time of your life for that particular hour before you go to bed.
It can further help you sleep peacefully and get that beauty sleep routine you have been wanting to get around for a while. Moreover, you need some time to yourself, and making that a part of your daily routine can really help you become a better version of yourself.
- Better Concentration
If you have the attention span of a baby, reading may be the most beneficial habit you can take to better your cognitive abilities and concentrate more solemnly. Several individuals scroll their feed and update themselves with the lives of those they barely know before they go to bed. But, don’t you think it should be the hour of the day you must devote for yourself?
You can enjoy a book and gain other advantages along with it. Reading a book can help you concentrate better since you will follow a single plotline for days. However, you will see the effects in other daily tasks that require unwavering concentration. Reading books can help reduce your screen time and help you concentrate on something with substance rather than following shallow posts on social media and hurling fake likes.
- Reduces Screen Time
Concede it or not, humans have become the slaves of gadgets, and the disease is spreading at an alarming rate. It has infected you and will continue to infect your children if you don’t do something today and set a better example. However, you might ask, “what is the best way to reduce screen time?”
A very simple answer to that question is to revert to old ways. Get a book and immerse yourself in its plotline, and you will find yourself addicted to the yellow pages of the first edition of Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings.
Book Suggestions to Read Before Bedtime
No matter what you like to read, you will still find yourself relaxed and distracted from your challenges and problems. Some good books to read before bed include “In the DreamHouse” by Carmen Maria Machado, “The Starless Sea” by Erin Morgenstern, and “May the Best Man Win” by ZR Ellor.
No matter what type of article, story, or book you like to read before going to bed, you will get a better night’s sleep and wake up each morning feeling lively and refreshed.