Get great sleep with this

Photo credit: www.mirror.co.uk

We’ve all heard of the benefits of sleep.  Not only should you make sure you get enough sleep, but you should make sure you get very good quality sleep.  As a new mom, every second of sleep counts, and thus my goal every night is to make the most of the time that I do get for sleep and rest. 

One of the top recommendations in order to get very good quality sleep is to make your room as dark as possible.  Light interferes with the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone secreted by the body to help promote sleep.  Low levels of melatonin can cause less and lower-quality sleep.  Poor sleep is linked to a host of wellness issues including: diabetes, heart disease, anxiety, depression, blood pressure, obesity, among more.  BBC recently published an article referring to findings by Oxford University’s Institute of Cancer Research in which women were found to have larger waistlines if their bedroom was “light enough to see across”.    These days, light comes into our bedroom from many places: light from outside our windows, bathrooms, hallways, night stands, phones, computers, tablets, televisions, among much more.  Especially if you do not sleep alone, your partner may unintentionally expose you to light if you happen to have different sleep schedules on particular evenings. 

You can make your bedroom as dark as possible by outfitting all of the windows in the room blackout shades.  This can be quite an expensive and arduous endeavor, and something I have not done in my own bedroom.  So here’s an alternative I love: a sleep mask.  For quite a bit now I’ve been sleeping with a sleep mask and absolutely love it.  When I use it, I can tell the difference in the morning when I wake up.  I feel rested, alert and relaxed, ready to tackle my day.  When I happen to forget to put it on I can immediately tell the difference the next day…What a missed opportunity to get a good night’s rest so I can tackle all of my to do’s with zest and zeal!!  These days, I almost never forget to put it on, I keep it at arm’s reach on top of my night stand. 

Many experts recommend using a sleep mask that does not press against your eyes, as this could interfere with REM sleep (an important phase of our sleep cycle where some of our deepest restorative work is done); click here to find a good example of such a mask.  There are actually plenty of options, with many different styles and price ranges; here are some good options I found.

I hope you get a ton of sleep and that this article was of service to you.  I would absolutely love to hear from you!  Tell us: What tips do you have for better sleep?  Do you do anything special that you can share so that we can improve our sleep as well?  Please leave your comments or questions below.  If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends and family!

Lots of love,

Judith