What affects sleep quality?

Everyone wants a goodnights sleep. When we wake up, it leaves of feeling refreshed, happy and with a new found sense of productivity. Unfortunately, the likelihood of getting eight hours of sleep every night without fail, is almost impossible. However, that’s not to say that you can’t get close to this. By adding certain things to your ‘sleep cycle’, you can greatly improve the overall quality of your sleep.

ROUTINE – Getting into a strict, thorough and manageable sleep routine is key. By staying in a routine, your body will automatically begin to start the process of going to sleep after a certain time. This process gets easier overtime, and improves the quality of your sleep.

ENVIRONMENT – Sleeping in different places every night of the week doesn’t help sleep. In fact, it does the opposite. Make sure you’re comfortable within your environment. Soft pillows, minimal lighting, avoid loud noises. Make sure that the environment is a suitable temperature to sleep in. Open a window if it’s too hot, put on a jumper if it’s too cold.

RELAX – Before bed, try to reduce brain activity. Avoid screens and high-octane activities and substances like caffeinated drinks and tense films. Find something relaxing that calms you, like reading a book.

Of course, the chances of sticking by this for every night won’t always happen. Other things can get involved like parties and work. In the event of such things coming about there are measures you can avoid that will make sure that your quality of sleep isn’t affected that much.

ALCOHOL AND NICOTINE – Alcohol, nicotine and other substances alter sleep patterns. These directly impact on the quality, and amount of sleep that you get. For example, alcohol decreases REM sleep early in the night, but as the alcohol wears off, there is a rebound in REM sleep, which prolongs the REM stage.

PSEUDOEPHEDRINE – Essentially, the ingredient in drugs. Taking drugs massively impacts the quality of sleep. Drugs can lead to addiction, which can cause a very negative sleep cycle, amongst other things.

MEDICATION – Various medications can have an impact of sleep. Antidepressants can lead to a lack of REM sleep. Sleeping pills can also impact sleep. They can also be dangerous to people with breathing difficulties and chronic lung problems like asthma.

However, as time goes on, sleep will become slightly different for all of us. Age impacts sleep. As new-borns approximately 50% more time is spent in REM sleep, and sometimes they might enter the REM stage as soon as they fall asleep. As they get older, their sleep patterns become more stable, similar to that of an adult. However, as we age, we spend less time in REM sleep. Unfortunately, these are things at the minute that we cannot change, but by getting into a good routine, being in a comfortable environment, and relaxing before we go to bed, we can maximise our chances of getting a goodnights sleep.