We all need our beauty rest. It’s an essential part of our daily routine. Yes, we spend a lot of our living time sleeping. But we ladies need our rest to recharge our souls and to keep us looking our best. Here are a few tips that you might find useful to help you get the most out of your sweet dreams time.
1 - Stop With The Gadgets Early
It’s pretty clear across the board that our gadgets and gizmos and mobiles and tablets are contributing to our inability to get decent rest. It’s a known fact that the LCD backlight displays used in these devices emit a blue light that is similar to that found naturally during daylight. Our circadian rhythms (our biological clock) work in time to changes in the intensity and quality of light. It makes sense therefore, that if we expose ourselves to this “afternoon” light at night, our brains will naturally think it’s not time to sleep yet. So you should be looking to put down your devices at least an hour before bed time to let your brain understand it’s sleep time.
2 - Do A Brain Dump
Sometimes there’s a nagging problem at the back of your head, or a fear that you've forgotten to do something. Or maybe you just suddenly have an idea or thought that you need to get out of your head. A good way to deal with this before you sleep, is to write all your thoughts down on paper and keep it next to your bed. By transferring the contents onto paper, you’re freeing up your brain, it’s no longer concerned or stressed about loosing or forgetting anything. Having a note pad by your bedside gives you some assurance that even if you did forget something during the brain dump, you can capture it right away and then go back to sleep.
3 - Calm The Mind
In a similar vein to a brain dump is meditation. Meditation helps slow you down, soothes your mind, relaxes your breathing and returns some semblance of control back to you. The great thing about it is that you don’t even need it to be a long drawn out exercise. Start out with a few minutes and build up from there. There’s no rush after all. Just remember to control your environment as well. No TV/PC/games/music etc. Just you, the room and your breathing.
4 - Do Some Light Stretching
Some people find that light stretching helps to relax the body. Maybe you’ve had a long day at the office, or maybe you’ve been out and about. Your body is tired and likely a little stiff. Pop into a nice warm bath or shower and finish off with a little light stretching. Loosening up the muscles and joints helps blood circulation too. Keeping the body happy means your mind has one less distracting discomfort. Yoga can be good here too obviously.
5 - Plan Ahead For The Morning
Another idea is to develop a routine for preparing for the things you need in the morning. Lay out the clothes you want to wear, arrange your handbag, have what you need for breakfast ready etc. All these steps seem obvious, but they help greatly to remove the stresses of worrying about it in the morning. You can sleep easier knowing that all you need to do is to wake up and go through the motions.
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