Rest Easy: 3 Tips for Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

Between avoiding naps and drinking herbal tea, there are quite a few effective ways to get the eight hours of sleep you deserve every night.

We all know what a good night’s rest means to our mood. In fact, this past week I’ve had a few nights where I’ve needed to implement some better before bed sleep habits myself. With the pandemic, dealing with the California fires, or the fear of a hurricane or a political uprise, there’s been more than plenty to shake our feelings of groundedness and safety.

And waking up in the middle of the night from time to time can be annoying, at best, especially if you have plans to be up early in the morning. If you’re experiencing this issue on a more consistent basis, it can have a negative effect on your mood and energy levels throughout the day. Don’t worry—this guide will teach you how to rest easy.

Here are my three tips for getting a good night’s sleep before your head hits the pillow so that you:

• Begin with maintaining a consistent sleep schedule
• Become wary of naps
• Meditate more
• Indulge in a delicious, relaxing beverage

Maintain a Consistent Sleep Schedule

Sleeping in on the weekends is something we all love to do when we can, but if you’re having trouble getting a good night’s rest, sleeping in could be the problem. Developing a consistent sleep schedule that ensures you wake up and go to bed at the same time each day helps your body naturally prepare for sleep each night. Tuning your internal clock to a consistent sleep and wake-up schedule can even help you wake up naturally at the same time each morning, meaning you won’t need that annoying alarm on your phone anymore.

Don’t Take Long Naps in the Afternoon

Taking a nap in the afternoon may be tempting, but it can hurt your overall sleep schedule. Short naps of about 20 to 30 minutes in the early afternoon won’t hurt your sleep habits. However, naps that exceed that amount of time—especially in the late afternoon—can make it more difficult to get that eight hours of sleep you should be getting every night.

Meditate More

The more you practice meditation and mindfulness practices, the more your brain will literally de-stress itself and it will be far easier to go to sleep at night. Part of our issue is quieting down our active minds that are prone to worry.

If this is you, you may be interested in checking out our Mindfulness Course for clarity and calm. You will learn how to practice mindfulness and meditation to ensure a good night’s rest.

Indulge in a Good Cup of Tea

A large number of the most widely available teas on the market contain caffeine, but not all of them do. A variety of loose-leaf teas can make for a serene way to end the night. Drinking popular stress-relief teas such as chamomile or Tulsi can soothe you before bed and once you lie down, helping you get the hours of rest you deserve. It doesn’t hurt that a good cup of tea also provides the drinker with an incredible taste and aroma to enjoy as well.

If you want to consistently rest easy, these three tips for getting a good night’s sleep are great ways to achieve that. Also, unplugging for a time and meditating with an app before sleep can do wonders to relax you and put your busy mind on the back burner. As in all things it’s not surprising that we have to make some shifts and pivot into reinventing our habits to make room for rest.