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Are you struggling with poor sleep quality, such as difficulty falling asleep or light sleep? Improving your sleep quality can not only eliminate daytime sleepiness but also offer various benefits like fatigue recovery.
This article introduces methods to improve sleep quality. It also covers how sleep quality is determined, causes of poor sleep quality, and the benefits of improving it, so please use it as a reference.
10 Ways to Improve Sleep Quality
Here are 10 ways to improve your sleep quality. Try incorporating these into your daily routine, starting with what you can easily do.
- Expose yourself to morning sunlight
- Engage in light exercise
- Keep naps to about 15 minutes
- Eat meals at least 3 hours before bedtime
- Consume foods containing tryptophan
- Reduce caffeine and alcohol intake
- Bathe at least 90 minutes before bedtime
- Relax with background music or essential oils
- Avoid smartphone use before bedtime
- Optimize your sleep environment
Let's look at each method.
Expose yourself to morning sunlight
The human body clock operates on approximately a 25-hour cycle, which is about a one-hour difference from the Earth's 24-hour cycle. However, exposure to morning sunlight resets the body clock, correcting this discrepancy.
Additionally, by exposing yourself to light in the morning, the sleep hormone melatonin is regulated to be secreted at night, establishing a natural sleep cycle where you feel sleepy in the evening. Maintaining this sleep-wake rhythm helps you achieve quality sleep.
Engage in light exercise
Regular exercise has the effect of improving sleep onset and promoting deeper sleep.
However, the type of exercise matters for effectiveness. To improve sleep quality, it is recommended to consistently engage in moderate aerobic exercise, such as light jogging, that slightly increases your breathing. For those looking to deepen their sleep further, exercising 3 hours before bedtime is effective.
However, intense exercise or exercising right before bed can interfere with sleep, so be cautious.
Keep naps to about 15 minutes
Naps of 15 to 30 minutes, known as "power naps," are effective at efficiently recovering brain fatigue. A rested brain can spend the rest of the day actively, leading to deep sleep at night when both the brain and body are tired.
However, sleeping for more than 30 minutes can make it difficult to wake up, so it's important to keep naps to about 15 minutes .
Eat meals at least 3 hours before bedtime
Eating right before bed can disrupt sleep due to digestive activity, leading to a decrease in sleep quality. Therefore, it is ideal to finish dinner or a late-night snack at least 3 hours before going to sleep.
Consume foods containing tryptophan
Tryptophan is an essential nutrient for the production of melatonin, which enhances sleep quality. It can be obtained from food and is abundant in meat, fish, soy products, and dairy products.
Since it takes 15 to 16 hours for tryptophan to convert into melatonin, it is recommended to consume it at breakfast.
Reduce caffeine and alcohol intake
Caffeine has a stimulating effect, so consuming it before bedtime can interfere with sleep. It is recommended to consume caffeine-containing items like coffee and chocolate at least 5-6 hours before bedtime.
Additionally, it is ideal to refrain from consuming alcohol before bedtime. While alcohol may help you fall asleep initially, it can disrupt sleep in the early morning hours.
Bathe at least 90 minutes before bedtime
Taking a bath before bed to temporarily raise your body temperature can help you achieve deeper sleep.
However, avoid bathing right before bed as it can make it harder to fall asleep. Drowsiness occurs when the elevated core body temperature begins to drop, so completing your bath at least 90 minutes before bedtime will facilitate smoother sleep onset.
Furthermore, if you want to fall asleep even more easily, it is recommended to soak in lukewarm water at 38 degrees Celsius for about 25-30 minutes. A lukewarm bath activates the parasympathetic nervous system, relaxing both mind and body and improving sleep onset.
Even a 0.5-degree increase in body temperature can have a positive effect on sleep, so if you are short on time, simply soaking in hot water at 42 degrees for about 5 minutes is sufficient.
Relax with background music or essential oils
Stress can degrade sleep quality, so to achieve good sleep, it's important to adequately relieve and not accumulate stress.
Relaxing before sleep by diffusing essential oils by your bedside or listening to music effective for sleep induction can help relieve stress.
Avoid smartphone use before bedtime
The blue light emitted from smartphone screens can reduce sleep quality, so it is recommended to avoid using them before bedtime as much as possible.
Optimize your sleep environment
To improve sleep quality, it's also important to create a suitable environment in your bedroom. The temperature, humidity, noise, light, bedding, and sleepwear in your bedroom affect how easily you fall asleep and the depth of your sleep, so adjust the bedroom and bedding environment appropriately according to the season.
What Determines Sleep Quality?
Sleep quality is assessed by how easily one falls asleep, the depth of sleep, and how refreshed one feels upon waking. Essentially, the ease of falling asleep and waking up are determined by "sleep rhythm," while the depth of sleep is determined by "sleep cycle." Below, we will discuss sleep drive and alertness, which influence sleep rhythm, and non-REM and REM sleep, which influence the sleep cycle.
Sleep Drive and Alertness
The sleep rhythm is determined by "sleep drive," which arises from the accumulation of fatigue from daytime activities, and "alertness," which is signaled by the body clock. When sleep drive increases, you feel sleepy, and when alertness increases, you feel awake. When these two are balanced, bedtime and wake-up times become stable, leading to quality sleep. In other words, sleep quality is determined by the balance between sleep drive and alertness.
Non-REM and REM Sleep
Sleep has a cycle, with two types of sleep, non-REM and REM sleep, periodically alternating.
Non-REM sleep is a state of deep sleep where the brain and body are resting. Non-REM sleep has four stages, with sleep progressively deepening from Stage 1 to Stage 4.
REM sleep is a state of light sleep where the brain is active but the body is at rest. It is characterized by rapid eye movements, muscle paralysis, and frequent dreaming.
After falling asleep, the cycle of "non-REM sleep → REM sleep → non-REM sleep → REM sleep" repeats at approximately 90-minute intervals. This sleep cycle affects sleep quality, and stabilizing the first two cycles is crucial for good sleep.
If you'd like to learn more about non-REM sleep, please also refer to this article.
Can a pillow alone change sleep quality? Also explains the relationship with REM and non-REM sleep.
What Causes Poor Sleep Quality?
Here are five main causes of poor sleep quality:
- Stress
- Medication and stimulants
- Blue light
- Medical conditions such as sleep apnea
- Sleep environment
Stress
Normally, when we sleep, the parasympathetic nervous system becomes dominant, leading to a relaxed state. However, stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, causing excitement and tension, which can lead to difficulty falling asleep or shallow sleep.
Medication and stimulants
Medications and stimulants with awakening effects can impact sleep quality, making sleep shallower. Common examples include caffeine and alcohol.
Caffeine inhibits the action of adenosine, a substance that causes drowsiness, and promotes wakefulness. While some people drink alcohol as a nightcap, it can lead to waking up in the middle of the night or early morning, reducing sleep quality.
If you'd like to learn more about waking up in the middle of the night, please also refer to this article.
【Doctor Supervised】What is mid-awakening? Causes and solutions for waking up multiple times at night
Blue light
Blue light is part of the light spectrum in sunlight and is also emitted from smartphone and computer screens. Exposure to blue light before bedtime suppresses melatonin secretion, disrupting the body's internal clock. This imbalance in sleep and wakefulness activates the sympathetic nervous system and degrades sleep quality.
Medical conditions such as sleep apnea
Conditions that occur during sleep, such as sleep apnea, periodic limb movement disorder, and REM sleep behavior disorder, can also cause shallow sleep.
Sleep environment
The environment at bedtime affects sleep quality. Among these, "light, temperature, and sound" are particularly important. If bedding, room temperature, and humidity are not adjusted appropriately for the season, or if there is noise, sleep can become shallow.
Benefits of Improving Sleep Quality
Improving sleep quality can offer the following benefits:
- Fatigue recovery
- Stress relief
- Improved immune function
- Obesity prevention
- Skin beautification effects
Fatigue recovery
Achieving high-quality sleep helps balance the autonomic nervous system, allowing for smooth transitions between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. In particular, ensuring sufficient non-REM sleep, when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant, increases the secretion of growth hormone, which promotes bodily recovery, leading to fatigue recovery.
Stress relief
During sleep, the brain controls visual and auditory information, organizing, storing, and deleting information acquired during the day. Through this process, stress is deleted as unnecessary information. Therefore, getting quality sleep can help relieve stress.
Improved immune function
When foreign substances like bacteria and viruses enter the body, our bodies produce immune substances to eliminate them. The information needed to produce these immune substances is stored in immune cells for a long time.
It is believed that getting quality sleep extends the memory period for immune cells, thereby improving immune function.
Obesity prevention
During sleep, two hormones are secreted: "leptin," which suppresses appetite, and "ghrelin," which increases appetite. If sleep duration is short, leptin decreases and ghrelin increases, but ensuring quality sleep helps maintain the balance of hormone secretion, leading to obesity prevention.
Skin beautification effects
Stabilizing non-REM sleep increases the secretion of growth hormone, which promotes metabolism and cell repair. This, in turn, accelerates skin cell turnover, leading to improved skin tone and beautifying effects.
Optimize Your Sleep Environment! Introducing Brain Sleep Products
To improve sleep quality, it's essential to find bedding that suits you, optimize your sleep environment, and promote comfortable sleep.
"Brain Sleep" develops products that enhance sleep quality using sleep medicine and advanced IT technology.
We offer various items to support sleep quality, such as the "Brain Sleep Pillow", which cools the head with excellent breathability for faster and deeper sleep, the "Brain Sleep Mattress Plus Float", which supports legs, waist, and shoulders to reduce physical strain, and the "Brain Sleep Coin" for more personal sleep measurement and analysis.
If you're interested, please check out our product information.
Brain Sleep Product List
Start Improving Your Sleep Quality Today
Sleep quality can be improved by reviewing daily habits such as maintaining a regular routine, engaging in moderate exercise, eating well, taking baths properly, and optimizing your sleep environment. Improving sleep quality can lead to benefits such as fatigue recovery, stress relief, improved immunity, obesity prevention, and healthier skin. So, try implementing some of the methods for improving sleep quality introduced in this article, starting with what you can.
