Sleep Tight: Getting a peaceful night’s sleep

These days it’s so important to get a good night’s sleep, but there are many obstacles and problems facing the average bedtime aficionado.

A good bed is the absolute essential for a good night’s sleep but you may also be interested to know that you can do a whole host of other things too if you’re having trouble getting shut-eye! Remember that everything about your bed and sleeping environment contribute to getting a better sleep such as your headboards and your pillows and duvets.

To begin with, if you live in a built-up area, external noise from the streets can be of great disturbance during the night. Car horns, sirens, neighbourhood parties, dogs barking, voices shouting, loud music and various other bangs and crashes can keep you rolling around until the sun comes up. The best cure for this is to make sure all your windows are sealed shut. If it’s a hot night, try to get yourself an automatic fan to keep the room cool while you drift off. The only way to drown out left-over noise in this instance is to use ear plugs. They will muffle the sounds of mayhem from outside quite effectively.

Other problems facing the average person during their sleep hours are things that are far more within their control and are very easy to prevent.

The first major no-no is eating or snacking before bedtime or worse still, eating while you’re actually in your bed!  This can be very tempting, especially if your stomach is rumbling when you come back in from a night out, but eating food, especially carbohydrates, will increase your body fat stores. The consumption of food can give the impression to your body that you are not yet ready to rest, re-energising you for another couple of hours. This will only keep you awake for longer. The same can be said for eating in bed. The crumbs left over from a meal, scattered across the mattress sheet, will irritate your skin causing you to toss and turn during the night.

Try to avoid laying in bed if you can’t sleep. The very act of not sleeping will make your mind wander and your body restless. Some people sit up in bed with their backs against their headboards waiting to fall asleep. The best cure is to actually get out of bed and do something relaxing before getting back in. Sit down and read a book or a newspaper for a while until you feel sleepy again.

Draw your curtains or your blinds. It may sound obvious but there are large numbers of people who never close their curtains or blinds when they go to bed. Some don’t even have curtains to cover their windows at all. The darker the curtains, the better the sleep. Make sure your headboards are adjusted properly and not sticking into or rubbing against the tops of your heads too much.

The biggest factor in missing out on a peaceful night’s sleep is the comfort and quality of your mattress and bed frame. If the mattress is old and lumpy, you need to think about getting a new one. The worst thing for your body, particularly your back, is a worn-down, lopsided bed that hasn’t been flipped or changed for years. A good way of knowing if your bed has really reached its sell-by-date is if your arms or legs fall asleep and tingle during the night. This should not happen and is a clear indication that your mattress is no longer suitable for your body. The same can be said if you experience any creaking or you can hear the squeak of the springs when you shift around. Beds should not be torture devices, they should make you feel relaxed, comfortable and most importantly of all, sleepy.

However, all of the above will be wasted if you do not consider the quality of your bed. People that speak of lack of sleep usually never consider the quality of their bed and mattress to be part of the problem. It’s outside stress, heavy workload, worry and more, but never the bed or even in some cases a dodgy headboard!

If you are consistently getting less hours of sleep a night and you when you do sleep you only ever wake up with an aching back or neck, it really is time to consider buying a new bed!

And remember, it’s always best to buy a new frame AND mattress, rather than make the mistake of buying a new mattress on its own!

This is because a mattress deals with your comfort in bed and the frame is crucial to the support of your body – so theoretically just replacing one of them won’t necessarily give you long-term happiness when it comes to sleep!

These are just a few factors affecting people before and during sleep. The best course of action is to ensure that your bedroom is turned into an environment fit for sleep (complete with a nice new bed, mattress and headboard if necessary) where the sounds of the world are drowned out by the quiet and the bed you sleep in can be likened to a fluffy white cloud of comfort rather than a heavy tomb of despair. Whatever you do, don’t take it lying down!

Find your comfort zone.