An average night of sleep is 6 and a half hours in Hong Kong, where 1 in 10 people have insomnia. The city’s noise, light pollution, high population density, and long working hours all combine to make quality sleep a luxury for most working adults. Finding tips to sleep better at night naturally and learning how to improve your sleep hygiene will help you stay healthy and keep up with the high pace of our city.
Without further ado, these are our top tips on how to sleep through the night:
1. Stick to a sleeping schedule
Frequent interruptions and changes to your sleeping schedule confuse your brain and body. Sticking to a consistent sleep-wake schedule can help your brain determine your daily rhythm and help you fall asleep easier at night. Pick a bedtime and a wake-time and stick to them every day, even the weekends. With enough discipline, this will be one of the easiest ways for you to sleep better naturally at night.
2. Eat early
This might not sound like a tip on how to get better sleep, but there is plenty of scientific reasoning behind it. If your body is still functioning at its peak and digesting food while you sleep, it will disrupt your REM sleep and make it harder for you to achieve deep sleep throughout the night.
It generally takes your body 4 to 6 hours to digest food, so if you’re scheduling to sleep at midnight, you might want to finish dinner between 6 PM to 8 PM and give your body enough time to settle down.
3. Reserve your bed for sleep
Keep cell phones, tablets, and laptops away from your bed. Binge-watching Netflix on your bed is surely one of the greatest pleasures in life, but it’s simply not how you should do if improving sleep is on your wish list. Help your brain recognize that once you lie on your bed, it’s time to shut down and fall asleep.
4. Create a good sleeping environment
Our brain and body are programmed to stay alert during the day and react when there is noise. By keeping your bedroom as dark and quiet as possible, you can protect your brain and body from reacting to external disturbances and waking up before your scheduled time.
In a city as compact and dense as Hong Kong, this could mean installing blackout curtains for your room or even wearing a pair of earplugs. Incense and candles can also create a more relaxing environment to help with sleep. Findings have also suggested that a temperature between 15 to 19°C is best for achieving good sleep, so make sure you keep it cool!
5. Improve your sleeping position
This tip on how to improve your sleep is much more significant than most people would assume. A bad sleeping position can not only lead to a sore neck, muscles, and joints in the morning, but it could also obstruct your breathing and lead to heavy snoring.
This article from Healthline provides some good tips on adjusting your position and sleeping better at night naturally. Finding the right position for your body can improve your sleep massively, and the best way to help your body adapt to and maintain a good position would be none other than…
6. Find the right pillow
How do you improve sleep naturally overnight? Investing in the right pillow is certainly one way to do it.
A good pillow should keep your head and neck in neutral alignment, whether you are sleeping on your back or on your side. If your pillow pushes your head forward, it is too high and could restrict your airway. If your chin is tilted up when you’re sleeping and creates a cervical curvature, your pillow is too low. Both could cause you back, shoulder, and neck pain and make you feel tired in the morning.
7. Exercise five times a week
Your muscles and body tissues also send signals to your biological clock. One of the easiest tips to help you sleep through the night is by incorporating 30 minutes of exercise into your daily routine. Even a moderate amount of cardio exercise such as jogging, skipping ropes, and cycling five times a week can help signal your brain that your body needs more rest.
8. Beware of sleeping disorders
Sometimes your sleep hygiene has little to do with external factors, and a few of these tips on how to sleep through the night will bring huge improvements for you. You might be waking up in the middle of every night because of an existing sleeping disorder that needs to be taken care of.
Conditions such as allergic rhinitis (hay fever) can congest your nose and make it difficult for you to breathe during sleep, and treating these conditions will bring drastic improvements to your sleep. If you are suffering from snoring, frequent nocturnal urination, and morning headaches, you might show sleep apnea symptoms, which is a very common sleeping disorder in Hong Kong. Learn how to conduct a simple screening test at home and improve your sleep permanently with the right treatment.
9. Look out for your partner
An estimated 45% of adults snore during their sleep. If you are sharing a bed with someone, there’s a huge chance that one of you will snore and disrupt the other person’s sleep quality. If your partner’s heavy snoring persists or shows other sleep apnea symptoms, such as frequent nocturnal urination, it might be a good idea to help them conduct a simple screening test or look for treatment.
Don’t keep these sleep hygiene tips to yourself. Share a sleeping schedule and routine with your partner and help each other stay disciplined. Figuring out how to get better sleep can be a fun and cooperative team assignment.
The information above contains general information about medical conditions and potential treatments. It is not medical advice. If you have any medical questions, please consult your doctor.
