Sleep can help improve your productivity so you can get more done. As you may know, after a night of little sleep, poor sleep dramatically reduces your performance in everything from mental to physical activities.
Whether you work with your hands or sit at a desk all day, you need to be able to feel your best, solve complex problems, and improve your performance to increase productivity. Doing all of this is simple if you get more sleep and change your sleep patterns. Here’s how you can get more done by getting more sleep at night.
Find Out How Much Sleep You Need
If you ask everyone you know how much sleep they think they need, you’ll get a variety of answers, making it difficult to know how much sleep you really need at night. Some people function best with just seven hours of sleep, and some of your friends would prefer to sleep at least ten hours a night if they could. You’ll even hear people say they can function properly and be highly productive with only five hours of sleep every night.
Most experts agree anywhere from six to eight hours of sleep is enough for most people, but many people only need five, and another small percentage of people need more than eight to perform their best.
Luckily, you can easily determine how much sleep you need a night. If you find yourself feeling tired throughout the day, or your performance decreases before 11 am, then you’re probably not getting enough sleep. You can test this by going to bed an hour earlier and seeing how you feel the next day. Determining how much sleep you need will take some trial and error, but once you figure it out, you can readjust your schedule so you can get the right amount of sleep every night.
Sleep Quality
Unfortunately, sleep quality is just as important quantity, if not more so. If you sleep for 10 hours a night but toss and turn for five of those hours, then you’re probably going to feel exhausted the next day. Sleep quality is harder to get than sleep quantity, and it can be impacted by many things, such as stress, pain, and an uncomfortable sleeping environment.
It’s a little more difficult to figure out how you can determine the quality of sleep than it is to find out if you need more sleep. Luckily, there are many products out there, such as sleep drops and smartwatches that can track your sleep. Remember, the most important phase of sleep is REM. You must enter REM sleep several times every night to feel rested when you wake up in the morning. Smartwatches can’t measure these sleep cycles, but they can measure your heart rate and track movement to determine how many times you entered REM sleep.
Sleep Solutions for Improved Productivity
Luckily, there are ways for you to improve the quality and quantity of sleep you get each night. Here’s how:
Address Stress
If you can’t fall asleep at night or aren’t getting enough sleep because of stress, it’s time to find ways to manage that stress. For example, if you’re worried about your family’s wellbeing, you can get life insurance so you have one less thing to worry about.
If you’re stressed out about work, you can try finding creative ways to manage that stress, including yoga or eating better. If that doesn’t work, you can talk to your boss about your work schedule and let them know that working long hours is harming your health and overall productivity levels.
Change Your Environment
Your environment impacts your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. If you feel too hot or too cold at night, you won’t be able to et a restful night’s sleep. Similarly, you won’t be able to fall asleep if you’re physically uncomfortable, either. If you notice your room is always warm at night, consider getting a fan or turning the AC up just at night.
In addition, if you find that you get shoulder pain from sleeping on your side but can’t seem to fall asleep in any other position, consider a pillow designed for side sleepers to relieve shoulder pain.
Ultimately, trying to fall asleep when you don’t have the right sleeping environment wastes time. Instead of sleeping, you’re stuck trying to fall asleep without any luck. Find out what factors negatively impact your ability to sleep so you can come up with the right solution.
Stop Drinking Caffeine
If you are overly sensitive to caffeine, it might be time to cut it out of your diet. Caffeine can keep you feeling awake even when you’re tired. If you don’t have caffeine sensitivity, it can still keep you up at night, especially if you drink coffee or energy drinks throughout the day. Try only drinking caffeine in the morning and see if you’re able to fall asleep faster at night. Consider adding some supplements to your routine. Reading the Nucific Bio X4 reviews you can see how a probiotic supplement can improve your wellbeing.
Change Your Routine
If you work, watch tv, or scroll through social media until you get tired, then you could be disrupting your natural sleep pattern. Instead, change your routine by turning off the television, stopping your work for the day, and resisting the urge to scroll Instagram to let your body know that it’s time to wind down.
Instead, consider activities that help you relax, such as reading or writing in a journal. By relaxing, you’ll release hormones that promote sleep.
Wake Up Earlier
Believe it or not, you could be getting more sleep than you need, which makes your body and mind feel tired throughout the day. If you haven’t figured out how many hours of sleep is right for you, try waking up earlier so you can see how you feel throughout the day.
Everyone’s sleep patterns are different. Whether you need more sleep to feel alert in the morning or sleeping too much makes you feel groggy throughout the day, only you know what techniques will help you. If you notice your sleep is impacted by stress or any other factor, then it’s time to make changes so you can be more productive day after day.
Marné Amoguis holds a B.A. in International Business from UC San Diego. She is a contributing writer at 365businesstips.com where she loves sharing her passion for digital marketing. Outside of writing, she loves traveling, playing music, and hiking.
