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We spend a large portion of our lives sleeping or trying to fall asleep. If you experience a bad night’s rest, you know how it interferes with your life at work and home. However, sleep deprivation quickly turns from irritating to dangerous. Over time, poor sleep hygiene wrecks the brain’s ability to restore itself. In fact, our brains run on sleep. Without it, we can’t process memories, retain information, or harness creativity in the same manner as we can when we’re well-rested. Our brain’s ability to heal wounds, revitalize the skin, and manage hunger dramatically decreases when we’re tired. Certain brain waves for sleep help to carry out revitalizing processes we need to stay healthy. Moreover, poor sleep habits cause plaque buildup in the brain known to increase the risk of memory-related illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia. Proper sleep hygiene ensures that your brain has its best chances at processing new information, maintaining a healthy appearance, and keeping you at the top of your game.

Good dreams are blissful and exciting. Have you ever woken up from a great dream only to wish you could go back to sleep to relive it? What about a nightmare? Most of us not only never want to relive our nightmares, we’re happy to wake up from them. For some people, nightmares become so frequent and distressing that sleep becomes anxiety-inducing. So why do we have nightmares at all? Turns out, there is a need for them. They help us prepare for life-threatening scenarios. However, sometimes recurring nightmares are the result of a mental health condition like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Unprocessed trauma leads to bad dreams that disrupt and diminish our quality of life. Sleep apnea is another potential cause, as this sleep disorder causes a blocked airway and lowered oxygenation during sleep. No matter the reason for your nightmares, rest assured that their occurrence is caused by your brain trying to process memories and protect you from danger.

What you eat matters. Food is fuel, and our choice of fuel determines how we feel. However, even if you’re making healthy food choices, some of the foods you consume may cause insomnia if eaten too closely to bedtime. Moreover, certain foods may have hidden sources of stimulating ingredients like sugar or caffeine. For example, your favorite protein bar may be loaded with extra caffeine, taking your daily intake to a harmful level. If you’re a soup lover, your favorite can from the grocery store might be loaded with sugar, making your favorite comforting, warm meal a sugar bomb that prevents quality sleep. Some of your favorite treats may also unknowingly cause bloating, indigestion, and acid reflux that worsens when you lay down, keeping you awake. Over time, this lack of sleep impairs your ability to stay focused and healthy. That’s why we’ve rounded up a list of seven foods that keep you awake.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in America, so it’s understandable that heart health is important to so many people. Common tips to improve heart health include exercise and diet. The way you move your body and how you fuel your body both have direct ties to the health of your cardiovascular system. But what about the way you rest your body? As it turns out, a lack of proper, quality sleep is directly tied to poor heart health. There is a direct correlation between disordered, fragmented sleep and heart disease, mostly due to the way that sleep deprivation and sleep disorders interrupt your heart rate as you rest. Thankfully, there are a few solutions to help you protect both the quality of your sleep and your heart health.

It’s vital for our well-being to get at least seven hours of sleep each night, but many of us struggle to do so. If you don’t get enough sleep, you can feel it. A lack of sleep doesn’t just make you groggy for one day; it causes you to drag throughout the rest of the week. Sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on our personal and professional lives, causing lowered focus, slower reaction times, and poor emotional regulation. You may think you can “catch up” on a lack of sleep later by sleeping in on the weekends, but the inconsistencies actually worsen the problem. Our bodies rely on a 24-hour clock known as our circadian rhythm. When our sleep and wake times are all over the place, our bodies have a hard time releasing the proper hormones that trigger that cozy, sleepy feeling. If you want to learn how to get more deep sleep, discipline is the answer! Waking up and going to bed at the same time every day and night may sound boring, but this practice is critical for improving your circadian rhythm and sleep quality.

There’s a hack or quick fix for everything these days, but do these hacks really work? We’re continuously bombarded with tips to help us get our best sleep yet. They usually include things to implement into our routine, but we don’t spend enough time discussing what we shouldavoid at night to improve our chances of quality rest. For example, have you ever asked yourself if watching that fifth episode of Netflix is harming your chances of better sleep? Do you know if it’s bad to work out before bed? What about eating a large pizza thirty minutes before you plan to turn in for the night? Is that nightly glass of wine really helping you improve your circadian rhythm, or does it actually disrupt your sleep-wake patterns? We’ve rounded up all of the answers by uncovering seven things you should avoid every night for your best rest yet. 

Half of all older adults report that they struggle with their sleep in one way or another. It’s not a surprise that more people are buying and taking melatonin than ever before. Melatonin is known for helping to bring on the onset of sleep. There’s just one issue: the side effects associated with long-term use and high dosages. For example, melatonin anxiety is possible, as the supplement has been found to increase anxiety over time in some individuals. Melatonin nightmares are also a real risk since the supplement boosts the amount of time you spend in stages of sleep where dreaming occurs. That said, if used in small doses and for quick fixes, like to correct jet lag, it can be beneficial. So is melatonin really worth all the hype it receives as a natural sleep aid? Or does it do more harm than good?

Our circadian clocks run on a 24-hour rhythm. Disrupting this rhythm causes fragmented sleep, insomnia, grogginess, and more. Nobody likes feeling sleepy while trying to get everything done on our checklist during the day. That’s why an evening routine checklist is just as important as your daily calendar of tasks. The hour before bedtime is especially important, as it can either make or break your sleep quality if you aren’t utilizing it to relax and prepare for the night. Getting your eight hours is important, but if your eight hours aren’t full of quality sleep, you’re missing out. That’s why we’ve gathered seven things to do in the hour before bedtime to improve your sleep quality, duration, physical well-being, and mental health.

We take more than 8 million breaths each year. That said, most of us are dysfunctional breathers. What if there was a way to breathe efficiently and improve your health in the process? Controlled breathing exercises offer a moment of mindfulness that provides numerous health benefits, such as emotional regulation, improved posture, and a quick metabolism boost. The practice of mindful breathing dates back to ancient times and was appreciated by Eastern cultures. However, scientists are just now beginning to break down the details that explain why breathwork has such a profound effect on the human body. The benefits of practicing controlled breathing are seemingly endless. By just taking a moment to breathe each day, you’ll feel better, think better, and perform better; no matter the task at hand.

The phrase “take a deep breath” may hold more power than most of us understand.  In the battle between belly breathing vs. chest breathing, belly breathing is the clear champion. But why? Slow, deep breathing lowers cortisol and blood pressure levels, helping us relax. Deep breathing also helps improve our posture, which is known to reduce the back pain so many of us suffer from. By understanding what the diaphragm is and where it’s located, we can harness the power of diaphragmatic breathing to strengthen our posture, improve our breathing, and destress from the daily grind. But how do you make the switch from chest breathing to belly breathing? If you’re a mouth breather, it may be more challenging for you than necessary. That’s why nasal breathing is the hidden key to achieving proper belly breathing as part of your daily routine.

Why do so many people find themselves waking up tired after eight hours of sleep? If eight hours is the recommended amount, why do so many people still feel groggy, irritable, and weary after sleeping all night long? As it turns out, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for the amount of sleep we each need. Some people may need more, while others need less. Furthermore, if the sleep you’re getting isn’t quality, restorative sleep, you’ll rack up a sleep debt and face the dangers of sleep deprivation. Genetics plays a role in the amount of sleep you need and finding the sweet spot depends on how you feel in the morning. Huberman Lab sleep recommendations may help you increase the amount of quality sleep you get each night, along with mouth taping for improved airway function as you rest

Bad dreams are distressing. When you wake up from a bad dream, like dreaming of fire, you’re likely thankful that it wasn’t real. However, dreams can also be so happy that we feel we never want to wake up. Sometimes they’re just outright strange, like when you try to run in a dream and your legs feel like they’re weighed down with cinder blocks. Whether they’re good or bad, dreams might help us prepare for the future. More specifically, distressing or embarrassing dreams help simulate threats and protect our brains to be better prepared to deal with them in real life. But when the distressing dreams start to disrupt sleep altogether, they begin to do more harm than good by causing sleep deprivation. Those who have experienced traumatic events may relive them involuntarily in their dreams each night, which only causes even more mental anguish. So what purpose do dreams truly serve?