As we transition from Winter into Spring, here are some tips to ensure you get your best possible sleep.
Practice Good Sleep Hygiene
Here are some simple suggestions to improve your sleep and daytime quality of life. First, try and keep your sleep schedule as regular as possible; this means going to bed and waking up at the same time each day. This is determined by the amount of sleep your body requires. The average adult needs 7-9 hours of average nightly sleep.
Avoid eating late at night or the few hours before bedtime, other than a light snack. When you eat late at night, you are disrupting your body’s normal circadian rhythm as well as how your body regulates your insulin sensitivity. Things that should be avoided before your sleep time are coffee, alcohol, or any type of stimulant. If you feel that you need a snack in the evening, try avoiding foods that are spicy, greasy, or contain higher levels of sugar.
You also want to ensure that you provide yourself with the most welcoming sleep environment possible; this can include removing all “blue light” devices, setting a comfortable temperature, and ensuring that you regularly have clean, fresh bedding. The bedroom should be a safe haven for getting the highest quality sleep you deserve.
Be Aware Of The Time Change And How To Adapt To It
As we promote better sleep hygiene and a regular sleep schedule, twice a year, we have a curve ball thrown at us with the looming time change. We want to ensure we are ahead of this by gradually transitioning into the time change. Acclimating to the time change can be accomplished slowly over time. Adjust your sleep schedule each couple of nights by 15 minutes in either direction, depending on the time of year. By doing this, your sleep patterns will have adjusted to the time change slowly before the time change has occurred. Of course, you want to pace yourself with this, so give yourself two weeks before the time change to adjust slowly.
Should you still feel the effects of the time change even though you have made your best effort to be as prepared as possible, please allow yourself to take a sleep break in the afternoon should you require it.
Other tips to help you avoid the time change slump would be to get out and enjoy some sunshine, ensure that you provide your body with some physical exercise, and relax before you go to bed. These things will help prep your system for a good night of sleep. In addition, ensuring that we get the best quality of sleep will help keep us focused on our day and eliminate issues such as daytime fatigue that can impact our focus while working, driving, and doing our day-to-day routines.
Let’s say you are having an issue falling asleep during this springtime change. In that case, we should get out of bed and do something relaxing until our body starts to feel dozy. However, allowing ourselves to lay in bed just causes frustration, and this will cause anxiety and other issues that can continue to impact our sleep quality.
Also, if you don’t normally use supplements or sleep aids, we encourage you to avoid using them as our bodies can come to rely on them, and they may not be something that is needed if we follow all the tips and guidelines we discussed in this article.
Clean your CPAP regularly and adjust its settings
Who doesn’t like a good spring cleaning? This does not just apply to your home or work environment but also to your CPAP equipment. As a CPAP user, you should be building the habit of a weekly cleaning routine. Your cleaning should include your tubing, water chamber, mask, and filter. You should wash everything thoroughly with mild soapy water, and while doing this, we should check to see if there is any physical damage to any of the items to determine if you should replace any parts. If you have CPAP components or products needing replacing, please contact your local Snore MD, and one of our dream team members will gladly assist.
With spring on the horizon and things changing, you should pay extra attention to your filter to help reduce any issues with allergens in the air. You may also need to adjust your climate controls, specifically your humidification settings, for the environmental change that occurs when we start approaching spring. Paying attention to all these simple things will help provide you with the highest possible quality of sleep.
If you have already implemented these tips into your daily routine and are still experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness, chronic snoring, or any other symptom related to a sleep disorder, call and schedule a consultation with one of the local Snore MD team members today. We’ll conduct a thorough evaluation and get the information we need to confirm or rule out the presence of sleep apnea. Then, if you do have this disorder, we’ll recommend the best treatments to achieve the best possible results.
