When it comes to getting quality sleep, many people try to find fixes before tackling what their main problem could be — a lack of a consistent sleep pattern. A sleep schedule, or pattern, is making sure you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
Regular sleep schedules are important for maintaining your body’s internal clock, also known as your circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is physical, mental, and behavioral changes that occur over a 24-hour time period.
This is why after you spend the entire week waking up at a certain time, your body will naturally wake you up at that same time, even on the weekend.
How Important Is a Regular Sleep Schedule?
Sleep is your body’s time to repair itself. Sleep deprivation can negatively affect your body. Maintaining a consistent sleep schedule is just as important as getting enough hours of sleep at night.
Studies show that an irregular sleep schedule negatively affects your sleep-wake cycle and the quality of sleep that you get. This could also put you at risk for sleep insufficiency or deprivation, which could lead to sleep disorders or other major health problems.
Consistently falling asleep early one night and late another night can increase the risks of heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and a sleep disorder like insomnia.
Advantages of Keeping a Regular Sleep Schedule
One of the most important things that you can do to fix your sleep problems is to maintain regular sleep schedules and healthy sleep habits. Doing so has numerous advantages, including improved concentration, memory, and productivity; reduced stress; improved physical and mental health; improved athletic performance; better mood; lower risk of developing chronic illnesses; and reduced risk of accidents.
Improved Concentration and Productivity
First, having a consistent sleep schedule helps to improve concentration, memory, and productivity. Studies have found that people who maintain regular sleep patterns tend to be able to focus better on tasks at hand, such as school or work projects, and remember more information from lessons or meetings than those who do not keep a consistent routine.
Additionally, good sleep hygiene can help people make fewer mistakes during tasks that require concentration and speed up their work performance as well.
Reduced Stress Levels
A regular sleep schedule also helps reduce stress levels. When we are deprived of sufficient restful sleep, our bodies release hormones like cortisol which contribute to feelings of anxiety and irritability. On the other hand, getting enough quality sleep enables us to better cope with stressors throughout the day, leading us to feel more relaxed and less overwhelmed.
Not only this but keeping a regular bedtime also allows us to get into an optimal hormonal balance which can further reduce stress levels over time.
Improved Physical and Mental Health
In addition to reducing stress levels, establishing a regular sleeping pattern can help improve physical and mental health as well. Research suggests that people who get adequate rest are less likely to suffer from depression or other mental health issues since it relieves the body from fatigue-related symptoms like difficulty concentrating or making decisions.
Moreover, maintaining a steady sleeping pattern makes it easier for our bodies to regulate hormones associated with physical illness such as inflammation or pain so we may be less prone to developing chronic illnesses over time.
Enhanced Athletic Performance
Establishing a fixed sleep schedule can lead to improved athletic performance too! Getting sufficient rest improves strength and endurance by enabling muscles in our body—as well as our entire cardiovascular system—to recover faster from exercise so we are able to push ourselves harder when training for sports or any other type of physical activity without risking injuries caused by fatigue-related exhaustion.
Improved Mood
Having a set bedtime also helps us create positive moods throughout the day since it provides us with enough energy needed for daily activities while preventing tiredness and consequently grumpiness. Plus it reduces the chances of being involved in an accident due to drowsiness or falling asleep behind the wheel since getting an adequate amount of rest drastically lowers the likelihood of these events occurring.
How to Get and Keep a Normal Sleep Pattern
Sometimes, maintaining a normal and consistent sleep pattern is not as easy as just making yourself go to bed. Here are a few things to consider:
Know Your Chronotype
Your chronotype is made up of the differences in your alertness and activity from morning to evening. This is why some people are morning people, and others are not.
Knowing your chronotype will help you have a better understanding of your internal clock. This helps you schedule your sleep at the proper time and also choose the right amount of hours.
Skip Naps
Skipping naps can be an effective way to establish a healthy sleep pattern. Napping is generally considered to be beneficial, but if you are trying to set up a normal sleep routine, regular napping can disrupt your progress. To get the most out of skipping naps and creating a regular sleep pattern, it’s important to understand how missing a nap works in terms of your body’s natural rhythms.
When you take a nap during the day, your body begins producing melatonin in anticipation of going to bed. This hormone helps regulate the body’s circadian rhythm and induces drowsiness, but when you don’t actually go to bed after taking the nap, it throws off that rhythm.
By avoiding naps throughout the day, especially during times when your natural biorhythm would normally cause you to feel sleepy anyway (late afternoon and early evening), your body will naturally adjust its own melatonin production cycle so that it kicks in later on at night.
This will help keep you from feeling too drowsy in the late afternoon/early evening hours and make it easier for you to stay awake until the appropriate time for going to bed, in accordance with your new sleep schedule.
Another benefit of skipping naps is that our bodies tend to become more alert during times when we are most likely to nap; as such, by avoiding these brief periods of restfulness we can use this alertness and energy throughout our daily activities instead of relying on sleeping or lying down for 15-20 minutes. This not only helps maintain our regular daily routines but also keeps us energized throughout them – which means better productivity overall!
Exercise
Exercising can be an effective way to establish a healthy sleep pattern. Regularly participating in exercise can have a positive influence on the quality of your sleep, helping you to not only fall asleep faster but also to maintain a deeper, more restful sleep over the course of the night.
Regular physical activity helps improve overall physical health and well-being, which directly impacts how quickly you fall asleep as well as how soundly you sleep throughout the night. Exercise has been shown to help reduce levels of stress and anxiety that can interfere with normal sleep cycles, allowing you to drift off into deep REM (rapid eye movement) sleep faster and easier. Additionally, exercising earlier in the day helps keep your body’s core temperature lower at night when it’s time for bed. Keeping your body cool is important for being able to get restful sleep.
When it comes to determining an appropriate amount of exercise for improving your sleep quality and establishing a healthy sleeping pattern, experts recommend that adults engage in moderate-intensity aerobic exercise three or four days per week, totaling 150 minutes per week minimum—this translates into about 30 minutes each day of moderate intensity activity like walking, cycling, or swimming. For people who want more strenuous workouts, higher intensity aerobic exercises like running can be done two days per week for about 20 minutes per session where possible.
For those who would rather do strength training exercises instead of aerobic activities, research suggests that resistance training should be done twice per week with one set of 8-12 repetitions for each major muscle group.
In addition to this two-day regimen advice for strength training exercises, using light dumbbells at home or attending yoga classes twice a week is also recommended by experts as it helps improve circulation and relaxes tense muscles, which together help promote better sleep quality and establish normal sleeping patterns.
When doing any sort of physical activity before going to bed, make sure that your last workout session ends at least 3 hours prior to getting into bed so your body has enough time to wind down and transition into resting mode naturally—this ensures that when you finally do go to bed, you won’t be overly stimulated after completing a strenuous workout session right before bedtime.
Eat Earlier
Eating too close to bedtime can cause discomfort and indigestion, resulting in difficulty falling asleep. Eating earlier can also help regulate the body’s internal clock and circadian rhythm, which plays a significant role in quality sleep.
It’s important to note that quality sleep begins with the timing of your last meal. Eating earlier allows your body the time it needs to digest food before going to bed. Generally speaking, it’s advised that you should finish eating at least 2-3 hours before bedtime. This ensures that energy can be diverted away from digestion and towards other bodily functions during sleep such as tissue repair, hormone regulation, and memory consolidation.
It’s also important to consider what food you are consuming in the hours leading up to sleep. Eating snacks that are high in sugar or caffeine can lead to an increase in alertness and difficulty falling asleep due to their stimulant effects on the body.
Additionally, foods high in fat can take longer to digest, making it more difficult for your body to relax when trying to fall asleep. On the other hand, foods high in complex carbohydrates such as oats or quinoa have been shown reduce stress levels and promote relaxation, which can aid in establishing a normal sleep pattern.
Ultimately, eating earlier is key when establishing a healthy sleep pattern because it gives your body time for proper digestion while avoiding certain foods that may disrupt or delay your sleep cycle. By paying attention to when you eat and what you are eating prior to bedtime, you will be well on your way towards achieving a better night’s rest!
Create a Comfortable Sleep Environment
Creating a comfortable sleep environment can be an essential factor in establishing a relaxing bedtime routine. The most important element of creating a conducive sleeping space is to make sure it is quiet, comfortable, and with little to no light exposure.
To begin, choosing the right mattress and bedding are crucial to getting the best possible sleep. The mattress should be comfortable enough to support the body without being too soft or firm. It is important to choose the right pillow as well because this helps with neck alignment while sleeping. Additionally, sheets and blankets should be breathable so that you stay cool throughout the night and don’t overheat.
Secondly, it’s important to create an optimal temperature for sleeping. Ideally, you want the room temperature between 60-67 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature range helps people stay asleep longer because it's too cold for our bodies to overheat and wake us up during the night, but still warm enough for us to remain comfortable throughout the night without waking up chilly or clammy due to sweat.
Additionally, maintaining consistent noise levels in your bedroom can also promote better restfulness throughout the day or night by creating a quieter atmosphere that won’t distract from any potential deep sleep cycles you may enter into while snoozing away.
This means avoiding televisions and other electronics that produce noise or light within close proximity of your bed, such as cell phones or tablets, as the blue light from these devices can cause distraction resulting in fragmented sleep patterns which disrupts natural REM cycles your body needs for proper restorative rest throughout the night.
Finally, setting up dimmers on lights so that when entering into pre-bedtime hours its easier on our eyes helps put ourselves into a calmer state of mind more easily so we don’t have bright lights stimulating our senses before going off to dreamland. This also reduces chances of being disturbed by any sudden LED flashes coming from devices our smart homes may contain like refrigerators, microwaves, etc.
What Is the Best Sleep Pattern?
Simply put, the best sleep pattern depends on your body. A normal sleep pattern for one person could be completely abnormal for someone else. You should know your body to correctly pick your sleep schedule and also know how many hours of sleep you need to be fully rested.
Use the BetterSleep app to discover your chronotype and find different ways to help you wind down after a long day and create the perfect bedtime routine.
Conclusion
Sleep is an important part of our lives and can affect everything from our mood to our ability to focus. While there are many different sleep patterns that work for different people, it’s important to find what works best for you and stick to a routine.
If you’re having trouble sleeping, the BetterSleep app provides great tips and tricks to help get you on the right track. So give it a try – your body and mind will thank you!
