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For those who have been following our site for a while, you might be familiar with the numerous sleep disorders that seem to be everywhere. It wouldn’t be surprising if you’ve come to believe that certain common lifestyle habits could lead to sleep issues and negatively affect your health by impairing your immune system due to fatigue. What’s even more troubling is that it can be difficult to recognize these sleep problems and issues when you’re experiencing them firsthand, making it all too easy to dismiss symptoms as just another part of daily life.

If you ever run into a situation where you suspect you’re dealing with a sleeping disorder or regularly experience sleep problems, the single best course of action is visiting your primary care physician for initial tests and questioning. A quick examination is often only a starting point – if they notice anything worrying, you may be put through further examinations that determine what causes your sleeping problems. In this article, we will explain the process of a sleep study, as well as list some good reasons for getting examined early on, and what you can do to make the doctors’ jobs easier. Let’s get into it.

The First Diagnostic Stage

The rule of thumb is obvious – as soon as you notice regular sleeping problems, schedule an appointment with your doctor. If something is preventing you from seeing them this early, start keeping a sleep journal. A sleep journal can be a simple notebook where you write down details about your sleeping habits. A full-scale sleep study often involves a sleep journal, so you want to make sure you have something to present as soon as possible. Even if you don’t start at this point, your doctor will tell you to start once the first examination is done (assuming you pass the screening tests, more on that in a bit).

If you want to be helpful to them, you want to use your sleep journal notebook to document various pieces of information about your sleep. For example, they may want to know things like:

–          When you go to sleep and when you wake up

–          How long it normally takes you to fall asleep once you’re in bed (this is commonly known as sleep onset latency, and it’s often measured if you’re dealing with suspected narcolepsy or similar disorders)

–          How tired you feel when you wake up and right before bed (not necessarily in the late evening and morning – some disorders change when your body wants to go to sleep)

–          How often and when you wake up during the night. Fragmented sleep is a huge health concern, as it stops your body and mind from recovering properly during the last two stages of sleep.

–          How exhausted you feel during the day – fatigue makes you perform worse in most aspects of life, especially work and driving.

–          How often you consume alcohol and caffeine

When you visit your doctor for the first time and explain your problems, they may give you a questionnaire or two to fill out. These questionnaires are usually the first stage of sleep diagnosis and include tests like the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index or Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Each answer in these questionnaires carries a score that gets added up towards a final result. If you pass a certain threshold at the end, it serves to indicate the presence of a possible sleep disorder. These tests are often used as a sort of screening filter for early patients. If the result of these tests shows no signs of a sleep disorder, then the problem is often classified as a lifestyle thing, and no real further examination is done aside from basic blood and urine sample analysis.

Expect to be asked a variety of questions about your daily life. Sleep problems can appear as a result of many seemingly unrelated habits and situations, so you want to give the doctor as much information as you can, even about things that don’t normally appear in a sleeping journal. If you’ve been maintaining a sleep journal or using other sleep tracking devices, it can speed up the diagnostic process and skip you right to the next phase – a full polysomnography procedure, or what is known as a “sleep study.”

How Does Sleep Studies Work?

The most common diagnostic technique or procedure used during a sleep study is polysomnography, to the point where the two terms are used interchangeably. Polysomnography is a thorough, detailed investigation into the patient’s sleeping patterns, looking at how their body behaves throughout a full night of sleep, as well as performing additional lab tests with blood and urine samples. In most cases, this procedure will involve reading the person’s sleep journal notes (or information provided by sleep tracking apps and devices, depending on what was agreed upon in advance and what the patient could afford). The information from previous examinations (including questionnaires like the Epworth Sleepiness Scale) also proves handy at some point. Here’s a step-by-step overview of what happens during a sleep study:

–          Before you even show up to the sleep lab, you will be given diet instructions. In simple form, these instructions boil down to avoiding alcohol, caffeine, sugary or greasy food, and anything that could produce “false alarm” readings or otherwise interfere with the results of the sleep study. The longer you maintain this preparation diet, the more accurate the readings will be, so stay disciplined.

–          Make sure you clear your schedule for days that immediately precede and follow the sleep study. Because this is a procedure that takes a whole night, you don’t want your work schedule or similar obligations to interfere with the procedure.

–          Most of the time when you arrive at the sleep lab (the place where sleep studies almost always take place), they will do a basic examination and explain the whole procedure to you (if your doctor didn’t already do that before). If you have a sleep journal prepared, which you should, you will be given a chance to present it and will often have to fill another questionnaire to make sure the results sync up with the previous examinations. Most sleep disorder-related questionnaires can easily be repeated multiple times in a short period, and it helps avoid biased answers and forgetfulness.

–          Once all of this is done, you will be hooked up to devices that monitor your bodily functions, usually after making sure that your sleep surface is comfortable. Electrodes will get attached to various spots on your body, and you will be constantly watched by sleep technicians and other specialists. Overall, the information that is tracked varies depending on what the technicians expect to see. If they suspect the presence of seizures, additional electrodes will be attached to you to keep track of seizure activity. The lights will get turned off, and the technicians will use low-light cameras to monitor your behavior. You can talk to each other if the need arises, but they will avoid interrupting your sleep whenever possible.

–          While you sleep, the experts will keep track of your heart rate, breathing patterns, brain wave patterns, nocturnal eye movement, the shifts in your sleeping positions, etc. All of this information is relevant because specific sleep disorders have specific “tells” that are crucial to making a correct diagnosis. For example, eye movement and brain wave patterns are important for detecting the REM stage of sleep, the stage where vivid dreams occur and a lot of brain activity resembles that of a waking person. Certain disorders affect this stage and are hinted at by abnormalities in the patient’s sleep architecture (the natural progression between sleep stages). Breathing patterns are essential for diagnosing problems such as obstructive sleep apnea, and so on.

–          You will usually be discharged around 7 am, and the results of this procedure are usually sent directly to your doctor for when you show up for a follow-up examination.

Overall, there’s nothing to be nervous about. No part of this procedure hurts or has any harmful consequences, so you shouldn’t worry. Even though you’re sleeping in a different bed (and could thus take extra time to adjust and find a comfortable position), the machines are accurate enough to nullify that detail.

The Follow-Up and Multiple Sleep Latency Test

Depending on what your doctor suggests beforehand and what they notice during the sleep study, you may be put through the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) during the day following the polysomnography. This test is an incredibly common diagnostic technique for many disorders, and its purpose is to measure excessive daytime sleepiness and average sleep propensity. The procedure is incredibly simple and resembles a “smaller” version of a full sleep study. The idea is that the more daytime sleepiness a patient faces, the easier it is for them to doze off and start napping. The MSLT procedure involves the patient trying to take a nap multiple times during the day, usually around four times a day.

The napping periods last 20 minutes and are separated by breaks of two hours each. The less time it takes for the patient to fall asleep during each napping period, the more excessive daytime sleepiness (or daytime fatigue) they’re exposed to, on average. Obviously, external conditions can affect their level of fatigue, but the results are consistent with whatever ends up being diagnosed through a full sleep study.

Universal Treatment Advice

Most sleep disorders lack a proper cure. The prescribed therapy plan typically revolves around alleviating symptoms, and your doctor will offer lifestyle advice and similar recommendations to help you improve your quality of life while dealing with a sleeping disorder. For example, sleep apnea is dealt with through the use of positive air pressure (PAP) generator, but that doesn’t make the sleep apnea go away completely – it only helps you sleep better during the night. A lot of lifestyle advice you receive will sound the same regardless of which specific condition you’re facing. Here’s a list of steps you can take to improve your sleep quality in general:

–          Improve your diet. Much like how you have to spend a week avoiding unhealthy foods before a sleep study, train yourself to avoid sweets, greasy food, alcohol, carbonated drinks (especially energy drinks), etc. A good diet plan helps you in more ways than just through improved sleep.

–          Introduce regular exercise into your daily or weekly routine. If you’re out of shape, it’s definitely not unacceptable to start slow, and only work out once or twice per week. Exercise not only helps you develop your body (when maintained over a long period of time), but the resulting increase in sweating helps you remove toxins, which helps you relax when you need to relax the most.

–          Keep working on your sleeping journal. Eventually, you will have to get re-examined by your doctor, and the new information can be incredibly helpful for monitoring the treatment plan. If your sleep patterns improve, it will be obvious in the journal, and the doctors can recommend subtle adjustments that help you even more.

The past ten years have markedly improved our comprehension of how nightly slumber affects all facets of our daily existence. Medical professionals now advocate for quality sleep as being equally crucial to our general wellbeing as diet and exercise. With the proliferation of information accessible to the general public, technology designed to offer personalized insights into your sleeping patterns also emerged. As a result, the significance placed on restful sleep has led to the surge in popularity of sleep trackers, saturating the market with these devices.

But besides being a fancy little gadget, is there any benefit in using sleep trackers? Do they provide accurate information about your sleep or are they just showing some standard measurements? Can sleep trackers negatively affect your rest and health?

How Do Sleep Trackers Work?

Sleep trackers are useful pieces of technology that should help you learn more about your sleep. They can be in the form of a smartphone app, a device that is usually wearable around your wrist, or special pads that you put on or under your mattress that track you throughout the night.

No matter what option you go for, sleep trackers should be able to tell you how long you slept during the night and how good your sleep was. That estimation is based on whether you have woken up during the night or if you’ve been tossing and turning around. Some devices can measure sound, and they can warn you if you are prone to snoring or if they notice any other sounds during the night that might be an indication of a sleep-related breathing disorder. Some claim that they can show you how much time you spend in the various stages of sleep: deep, light, and REM. You can check out the extensive review and our favorite sleep trackers.

This all sounds pretty useful, so how are they able to do that? There is a device called accelerometer embedded in the sleep tracking device, and it measures your movement. The principle behind tracking sleep is simple; lack of action means that you are sleeping. Unfortunately, that would mean that the device would think that you are sleeping even when you are laying down reading or watching television. Because of that, some devices track heart rate and combine the results to give you more accurate data about your sleep. Some sleep trackers also rely on infrared technology, and they can even track your respiration, which gives a useful additional set of information.

Are Sleep Trackers Accurate?

The thing that everybody is interested in is how accurate sleep trackers are. There is some research done on this subject, and the results are mixed. While it looks like sleep trackers can be pretty precise in determining whether you are sleeping or being awake in most cases, there is just no evidence that they are useful for determining how much time you spend in each stage of sleep. This is hard to decide based only on your body movements, as they are very similar in both deep and light sleep. There is an absence of action in the REM phase so that we don’t act out while we are dreaming, but our muscles might twitch which can be recognized as being awake. We also naturally turn around and move our body parts during the night, so that we maintain proper circulation in our body. This can be seen by the device as being awake and active.

To figure out which sleep stage you are in, you would need to measure your brain wave activity, and these devices can’t do that. To make things more complicated, it is not even important if your device precisely told you how much time you spent in each stage. Sleep is an individual activity, so these parameters vary based on many factors like your age, sex, race, and other demographic factors. A perfect rest for a 70-year old would be rated as terrible by a 20-year-old, so don’t think much about it. Just learn to recognize your body’s needs, and if you are feeling well-rested in the morning, it doesn’t matter what your sleep tracker says.

A 2011 study confirmed this when they looked at the abilities of wrist actigraphy. Actigraphy is a technique of measuring movement, and it is the essence of these devices. The method is good at determining total sleep time and night disturbances, and in combination with other sleep assessment tools can provide useful information about sleep patterns.

An article from 2013 looked into how wrist actigraphy compares to polysomnography, which is an overnight sleep study done in a laboratory by the professionals. It is used to detect sleep disorders and any problems with your sleep, and while it is currently our best option, researchers think that sleeping in a lab is not a natural environment and that it affects results as well. Like the previous study, they found that wrist actigraphy is useful in determining total sleep time and sleep disturbances.

The reviews of commercially available sleep trackers include Fitbit, Withings, Jawbone, and other popular brands. The results are all mostly similar. While they accurately describe total sleeping time, there is an inability of sleep trackers to determine time spent in each stage of sleep, and more importantly to recognize the symptoms of sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea. Some other reviews are more positive and say that with the continual progress of technology, we will soon be able to see highly accurate devices, which will save time for sleep specialists and make their job a little easier.

Are You Sleeping Worse Because of Your Sleep Tracker?

Your sleep tracker can be beneficial if you use it correctly. You can learn more about how long it takes you to fall asleep if you have any nocturnal interruptions that you don’t remember in the morning, and how much you sleep on average. A data of a period of a month can tell you a lot about your habits, and if you fill out the questionnaire about your daily activities, you might also figure out what is causing your sleep problems. Many devices have these regular questionnaires where you state your actions, like exercise, alcohol consumption, stress, and other things that can affect your rest. This information is crucial in understanding your sleep habits and correcting them.

It all sounds pretty useful, but there is also a big downside for some users, and that is when psychology comes in play. A 2014 study researched the effects that placebo had on sleep and cognitive performance. The subjects in the study were told that the researchers were able to measure brain wave activity and determine how much time they spent in each stage of sleep. The researchers weren’t able to do that, and they randomly picked two groups, where they told that one had good quality sleep, and the other didn’t. Participants would rate their sleep before that, and this is when it gets interesting. Individuals who rated their sleep as good and were told by the researchers that the brain waves showed they didn’t sleep well, performed worse on tests measuring their cognitive ability. They acted so poorly that the results were actually similar as if they were sleep deprived. Inability to focus, concentrate, and form memories, learn things, and perform are all effects of sleep deprivation. These findings tell us that our minds are just so complex and that the attitude about sleep is essential to get sufficient rest.

Overthinking is the reason while sleep trackers can be problematic. People become so obsessed with getting sufficient sleep, sleeping correctly and the results that their devices show, that it has the opposite effect of what they want. Sleeping is a time of relaxation, and when you are thinking about how to get 8 hours of sleep or trying hard to fall asleep as fast as you can, it is the opposite of relaxation. It leads to increased stress and can even cause anxiety. It is important to remember, while these devices can be useful, you can’t completely rely on them. If your sleep tracker is showing you that you didn’t get enough deep or REM sleep, but you feel good and well-rested in the morning, believe your body. It is the best sign there is, and finding some stats on your phone more reliable than how you feel can make it seem like you are not getting sufficient sleep and that you are even suffering from a sleep disorder. People tend to overanalyze mild symptoms, and overthinking can also lead to insomnia that wasn’t there in the first place.

Researchers named this condition orthosomnia, and they describe it as the obsession with sleeping well so much, that it impairs the sleep quality. Orthorexia is a similar condition obsessing about eating well, where patients end up with terrible diet habits. They reported a few cases in this article, where the patients would see a doctor, and when the overnight study done by the professionals showed that they don’t have any sleep problems, they would dismiss those findings as their smartwatch showed otherwise. Waking up in the middle of the night and watching at your phone to see how well you are doing have terrible effects on your sleep. Screens emit blue light that tricks your brain into thinking that it is daytime, so whenever you are checking your phone at night, know that you are disrupting your natural rhythms.

How To Avoid the Negative Side of Sleep Trackers?

The usefulness of these devices depends on how you use them. Sleep trackers can help you stick to a regular schedule, get more sleep, and they can also give you useful personalized tips on how to improve your nightly rest. However, you need to remember that this is just a helpful tool that should benefit you. You should objectively observe the data that the sleep tracker provides, and you shouldn’t obsess and over-analyze the results.

The key is to recognize if a sleep tracker is doing more harm than good. Next step is to catch yourself during obsessive thoughts and take some action to make them go away. You can try meditation or finding a hobby that interests you, to keep your mind occupied, and to drift away from those negative thoughts.

If thinking about your sleeping results gives you stress and anxiety, maybe it’s time to throw away your sleep tracker for some time. To improve your nightly rest, you can try to maintain healthy sleep hygiene. Make a schedule where you go to bed and wake up at nearly the same time daily, create a relaxing sleeping routine, make your bedroom dark, quiet and cool, don’t use electronics half an hour before you go to bed, and remember to eat healthily and exercise regularly. Following these steps improves sleep quality in most people, and it can also be useful to you too, even more than some sleep gadget. If you experience sleep problems and disruptions regularly that make you fatigued and extensively sleepy during the day, you should see a doctor. They can refer you to a sleep facility, where they’ll do the overnight sleep study and determine what’s causing your sleep problems.

Residing adjacent to a train station or experiencing construction activities by your bedroom window, even briefly, makes you acutely aware of the troubles associated with environmental noise. This type of noise pollution is characterized by loud and often unwanted sounds, common in urban settings, arising from machinery, sirens, or dense traffic. This issue has garnered considerable attention for its role in contributing to various health problems. This is not only because of the immediate effect of loud noises on hearing capacity (or the loss of it, to be more accurate) but also because the stress of living in such noisy environments can lead to a variety of health issues and disrupt sleep.

This issue was recognized by authorities, so much so that space planning is required to predict the possibilities of loud ringing, clicking, thudding and racket, and strategically avoid combining such situations with areas designed for living. But what happens when the turbulence isn’t coming from the outside of your window, or even your room?

Constant noise is what many people with tinnitus experience on a daily basis. Although sometimes indirectly caused by the external noise pollution, the difference here is that it comes from their heads, not from outside. It makes it a bigger challenge to deal with, and creates struggles in many scenarios – people with tinnitus live with this ringing in their heads as long as it lasts and it often significantly disrupts their daily lives and makes it almost impossible to fall asleep. Of course, not all cases are as dramatic, but persistent issues of this sort can push a person to a certain edge. People who suffer from tinnitus report higher incidence rates of some mental conditions, sleep problems, and an overall decreased quality of life.

Luckily, this doesn’t always have to be the case, as many treatments have been tried out and proved very efficient when dealing with tinnitus. But before we get into that, lets first cover what this noise is and why it appears in some of us.

What is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is a symptom commonly described as roaring, ringing, clicking or buzzing in an individual’s ears. It can include high or low pitched noises and vary in volume from very quiet to loud in both or just one of the person’s ears. More than 10% of the population in the US alone experience this symptom.

Based on whether only the patient can hear the ringing (most commonly the case) or a doctor can notice it too, tinnitus can be subjective or objective. It is often a symptom of the following medical conditions:

• Ear injury or sinus infection.
• Central nervous system disorder.
• Age-related hearing loss – tinnitus is often its first warning sign.
• Noise-related hearing loss. People who work in factories, construction or even in music are frequently exposed to loud sounds which, over time, damage the sensory cells that transmit the sound to their brain and result in loss of hearing.
• Exposure to bomb explosions. This is why tinnitus is the leading issue reported by war veterans.
• Hormonal changes (especially in women).
• Tumors and abnormalities in one’s brain structure can cause rhythmic pulsing in the ears, also known as the pulsatile tinnitus. This type of tinnitus is very rare.
• Thyroid problems.
• Diseases of the heart or blood vessels in the head or neck can cause tinnitus that is detectable by the stethoscope if the doctor checks for it in those areas.
• Ménière’s disease – an inner ear disorder that causes severe dizziness (also known as vertigo) in the patient, pain or pressure usually on one ear, hearing loss and tinnitus.
• Medication. Tinnitus can also be a side effect of over 200 different pills when you abruptly stop or first start taking them.

Although ringing in the ears is regularly a sign that something is wrong in one’s body, it seldom represents some serious condition without the simultaneous presence of other, more alarming symptoms as well. This issue often happens for no detectable reason and may go away on its own. However, when persistent, tinnitus can be followed by a wide array of comorbid issues and contribute to developing of memory problems, depression, anxiety, poor concentration, excessive sleepiness and more. For instance, insomnia is reported in over 76% of the patients with tinnitus. As a result, over one-fifth of all people experiencing this issue need clinical intervention for their tinnitus or a comorbid condition if there is one.

Why Does This Noise Appear?

Like all sounds, you will hear tinnitus in your ears, while the real action takes place in the brain. There still isn’t a clear consensus on what exactly causes this sensation, as there is no actual sound out there for your ear to experience; your brain is likely tricking your ears in a similar way that you continue to feel pain after a broken bone has healed, known as the chronic pain syndrome. The fact that some people who experience this phenomenon also experience heightened sensitivity to sound suggests that tinnitus causes your sensory cells to work harder due to their natural loss that occurs when you age or in some other scenarios mentioned above.

Tinnitus may also happen due to some abnormality in neural circuits interaction, as the ones meant to control our hearing ability are closely connected to some other parts of our brains.

What to Do if You Experience This Issue?

As in almost all other medical situations, the first thing to do if you think you have this problem would be to reach out to a doctor. They will perform a physical exam, take your medical history, typically including your age, current state of health, other present conditions and any medications you might be using (this includes pills that you recently stopped taking, too). If a cause of tinnitus still isn’t apparent, your doctor might send you to an otolaryngologist, or ear, nose, and throat doctor (ENT for short), who will perform a more detailed physical exam. This test will determine whether your hearing is impaired along with the presence of your tinnitus and eventually pinpoint the source of your difficulties.

Treatment Options for Managing Tinnitus and Better Sleep

Some people find that their tinnitus not only continues but gets even worse, noticeably affecting their focus and sleep and often decreasing their hearing ability further. While no cure for this symptom has been discovered, treatment options are versatile with the mutual goal of better coping with this nuisance and achieving sound sleep despite of it. A combination of the following methods is not rare:

• Hearing aids, when correctly set up, are a good way of shifting the focus from the clicking or ringing you hear in your ears to the outside noises you’re surrounded by. Needless to say, they’re also beneficial for better communication and merely help keep you present and more alert to non-visual cues, phone ringing or the sound of cars passing by.
• Counseling is an excellent way to get educated on your particular problem. When you understand what is happening in your body and what causes it, it becomes easier to deal with the discomfort it brings into your life. You may not only learn what tinnitus is but also how to accept that it’s there without feeling burdened the entire time.
• Tabletop sound generators are used to help you relax and fall asleep more efficiently through a program that plays soothing, calming sounds or melodies. Rain falling, ocean waves, birds chirping or waterfall sounds are just some of the samples commonly used for this purpose.
• Wearable sound generators work the same way as the tabletops, with the difference of fitting into your ear. You may want the sounds masking your tinnitus to overlap just a bit louder, or cover it up entirely to immerse you in the relaxed background tones and help you forget all about your problems.
• Cochlear implants may be used by people who have damaged inner ear as well as very loud tinnitus. These implants work by stimulating your auditory nerves via electric signals and help deliver the outside noises that would be otherwise unavailable in such conditions, shifting the focus away from the tinnitus and helping stimulate the neural circuits in one’s brain.
• Acoustic neural stimulation uses music to overpower loud tinnitus. This new technique works through headphones the size of one’s palm to send acoustic signals right up to the auditory nerves. This method is becoming increasingly popular among patients with tinnitus.
• Some medications for depression and anxiety, as well as sleep meds, are occasionally prescribed to lift your mood and help quicken your sleep onset. You should discuss this with your doctor, especially if you are already taking some other pills.
• Other drugs can be found over-the-counter or even on the internet, but this option is the worst of all. Not only is it dangerous to single-handedly treat any issue with medications, but taking the wrong drugs or combining them without professional supervision can lead to catastrophic consequences, and very quickly at that. With so many other options available, it would be plain irresponsible to take this route instead.

That being said, you can prevent your tinnitus from worsening or even occurring in the first place by taking measures like limiting your exposure to loud noises, turning the volume down on your earphones or wearing plugs when necessary. Remember not to neglect other aspects of your health while trying to tackle the one currently most urgent – replacing one problem with another won’t solve much in the long run. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or merely some proper sleep hygiene, may at least rule out other potential issues you experience when bedtime arrives, if not lessen the buzzing sound that prevents you from getting a satisfying rest.

Talking in your sleep shares similarities with talking while inebriated, as you’re oblivious to the content of your speech or the identity of your listener, often uttering gibberish without any recollection of it the following day. This situation is typical for many individuals who talk in their sleep, as they remain unaware of their condition until it is pointed out by a partner, roommate, or family member.

When people find out that they have been talking in their sleep, they are usually concerned about what they might say, and perhaps reveal something embarrassing or incriminating about themselves. Sometimes it may seem like you are having a proper conversation with somebody, other times you might mumble, whisper or grunt. One study showed that the most frequent word during sleep talk is “no.” So, can sleep talking reveal secrets? Yes, it can, but, while those embarrassing secrets may cause you to blush in front of your partner, the good news is that whatever you say while you sleep, cannot be used against you in court.

Sleep talking is not as rare as you might think. It is estimated that around 50% of young children between the age of 3 and 7, and 5% of adults deal with this problem. Just like with other sleep problems that are common among children such as bedwetting, sleep talking usually goes away naturally with age. There is no difference when it comes to sex, but there are some indications that it runs in families, which means that it can be a genetic thing. Talking while sleeping is also known as somniloquy, and it is classified as a parasomnia, which is a sleep disorder. Parasomnia stands for a group of several sleep disorders, including sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, bedwetting, teeth grinding, and night terrors.

Depending on how severe sleep talking is, there are three stages:

• Mild – sleep talking episodes occur less than once per week
• Moderate – sleep talks occur more than once in a week, but not every night
• Severe – sleep talking happens every night, and it disrupts the sleep of partners or roommates

When it comes to duration, we also have three categories:

• Acute – sleep talking episodes last for one month or less
• Subacute –  episodes last more than one month, but less than one year
• Chronic – sleep talks last for at least a year, or longer

Causes of Sleep Talking

In a way, this is still a mystery. Scientists are working hard to narrow down the possible causes of this disorder, but it is a process, which means that it is still impossible to control this condition. A few factors have been marked as most likely to lead to sleep talking, but it is yet up to science to officially confirm them. Sleep talking can occur during any stage of NREM or REM sleep, and it is still unknown if it is directly linked to our dreams. Although the research is still ongoing, here are some of the potential causes of sleep talking.

• Sleep terrors are more frequent among the children, hence is the percentage of children who sleep talk so high. Night terrors are very vivid episodes during which people act like they are fully awake; they are usually yelling, screaming or kicking since they are literally fighting in their dream or being in fear of something. Regardless of how awake people seem to be during an episode of night terror, they are not going to have any memory about it when they wake up in the morning.
• REM sleep behavior disorder can also be the cause because during the REM stage our blood pressure rises, heart rate increases, eyes rapidly flutter and our brain is as active as when we are awake, but our body remains still, almost like it is paralyzed. However, people who have RBD will not remain still, and they are more likely to act out their dreams, to talk, scream, move or even get out of the bed.
• Medications can be tricky, and you have to read the instructions and potential side effects carefully because one of them could be the somniloquy or sleep talking. If that is the case with your prescribed drugs, consult your doctor to change the dosage or the therapy.
• Emotional stress or any unsolved emotional problem can keep us up and lead to irregular sleep patterns which are very common among people who sleep talk.
• Nocturnal sleep-related eating disorder (NSRED) is not your typical eating disorder; it is a particular combination of parasomnia and eating disorder, and people who have it can eat while they are asleep. They can even go to the kitchen and prepare a meal while sleeping. If they encounter someone during this episode, or someone tries to wake them up, they can engage in a conversation which is an example of somniloquy.
• Fever is another common cause of sleep talking. Our body and brain get drained and exhausted because they are trying to boost the immune system, and are not entirely dedicated to regulation and control of what our body is doing during the rest time, that’s why people with high fever are more prone to sleep talk.
• Substance abuse is a harmful habit that can have multiple consequences and side effects; some drugs will cause drowsiness while others will act as stimulants and keep you awake. In both ways the effects are artificial, and they quickly wear off but they impact our circadian rhythm and sleep routine, which then leads to various sleep disruptions, and sleep talking is one of them.
• Sleep deprivation is keeping many people unrested and drained, which is the reason why they can not process smoothly from one stage of sleep to another, and they also have problems with waking up. During that prolonged period of grogginess, they are not fully awake, so whatever they say, they are probably not going to remember it.
• Genetics is a powerful thing, it can pass on some good stuff and some that you wish it rather skipped you. Since sleep talking runs in families, scientists are trying to find the genetic component to “blame” for that disorder.
• Mental health disorders are numerous, and scientists are still struggling to figure out if they cause sleep disorders, or they develop as a consequence of sleep-related issues.

Is There a Sleep Talking Treatment?

It can be hard to quit something that you are not even aware that you are doing and have completely no control over it, but there are some things that you can try to enhance your sleep and check if they will resolve the sleep talking problem. Since this problem occurs occasionally and it can go away on its own, it does not have to represent such a big issue. But, if it becomes more frequent then there is either something about your lifestyle habits that should be changed, or you have some type of disorder that has not been diagnosed properly.

There is no such thing as a proven treatment for sleep talking because it is usually considered that sleep talking occurs as a consequence of something else, not as a primary cause. You can try and follow some of these tips to see if they will help you.

• The first and probably the best advice that we can give you is to get a medical opinion from your doctor. Doctors can help you understand your condition and start the journey of finding the cause. In some cases, other sleep disorders such as sleep apnea can trigger sleep talking, but sometimes the conversation with a therapist can be beneficial especially if the sleep talk is related to any upsetting content or anxiety.
• Like with many other things in life, reducing the stress can be the cure. Stress impacts us on so many levels, and our sleep pattern is one of them. When we are not able to rest properly, our body will struggle with shifting between sleep cycles and increase our chances of developing sleep disorders such as somniloquy.
• One way of ensuring a night of good rest is to take care of sleep hygiene. That implies maintaining healthy sleep habits, waking up and going to bed at the same time, sleeping for 8 hours, etc. An adequately nurtured sleep routine should keep you away from most sleep disorders.
• Writing it all down in some form of a bedtime sleep diary is something that will require the help from your partner or a recording app; that will tell you how your night went through. Besides that information you should write down everything that could help you recognize a specific pattern, including the time when you went to bed and woke up, what you ate, any stressful events from that day, and so on.
• When it comes to children, they are the dominant group affected by this disorder, but parents should not worry too much, because it will usually stop on its own as they age. Children talk during their sleep because they are overexcited or worried about something, like a birthday celebration or a test at school. The best thing that a parent can do is to calm down, wait for their child to wake up, talk with the child about a certain topic and be supportive. If you have two or more kids sharing a room, you might need to consider a different sleep arrangement for a while because other kids can be scared or rude to their sibling because they cannot understand what is happening. Sleep talking cannot harm a child in any way, so it is up to parents to decide whether they are going to tell their child about the fact that he/she is sleep talking, or are they going to try and solve the underlying problem first.

What to Do When Your Partner is Sleep Talking?

You have to work tomorrow morning, but your partner suddenly starts chatting in the middle of the night, you are instantly annoyed, stressed, and it is disrupting your sleep, so what can you do now? Wake him or her up and hope that it will not continue once your partner falls asleep again, or move to the couch in the living room? Here are a few tips for those who have to listen to their partners or roommates talking in their sleep.

• First and probably the best option is to buy earplugs. If the sleep talking occasionally occurs than these small buds should always be on your nightstand so that you can quickly put them in and continue snoozing as if nothing happened. Most sleep talks do not last longer than 30 seconds, but in some severe cases, those conversations can stretch throughout the entire night.
• Since your partner is not aware what is going on or what he/she is saying, you are the one who will know all about it, so you are the only one who can help your partner to get to the core of the underlying problem and help him/her get rid of sleep talking, which will be beneficial for both of you. Try talking them through the things they said while they were sleeping so that they become aware of what perhaps subconsciously bothers them.
• Believe it or not, one wife was creative enough to write down all the things her husband was speaking while he was asleep, she opened up a blog about it which quickly became viral, and the rest was history. The enormous popularity of this blog lead to a book called Sleep Talkin’ Man, and that is how Adam Lennard became the most famous sleep talker in the UK. So apparently if you are creative enough, you can even make a profit from your partner’s sleep disorder. Do not worry, you will have plenty of time to think about how to monetize it when you are up all night. However, this idea was not so innovative since Adam is not the first person whose night talks were published. In the early 60s, musician Dion McGregor, was often sleep talking, and his roommate was recording it all like any good friend would do, so they published those recordings together as an LP record called The Dream World of Dion McGregor, and a book with the same name.
• People never know what the next topic their partner is going to sleep talk about is, but sometimes, depending on what they hear, they can find out some interesting things about them or their relationship. You can even try and ask your partner a question, something that you have been dying to know the answer to; they might answer or not, depending on how deep their sleep is at the moment. But, even though this sounds tempting, remember that the things people say while they sleep are not necessarily the bare truth, so do not jump to conclusions just because your partner mumbled something during sleep.

Numerous varieties of noise assist individuals in falling asleep, and it’s common for people to leverage these sounds to ease into a peaceful sleep. White noise is widely favored – defined as a combination of all static frequencies creating a soothing ambient sound. Additionally, noises or other “colors” of noise like pink, blue, brown, and red are effective in both initiating and maintaining sleep.

The noises are usually associated with colors, similar to light. White light looks white because it is a combination of all the colors of the rainbow equally represented. In the same manner, white noise is a combination of similarly represented frequencies, whether the lower or higher ones. Also, there are other colors of noise, such as red noise, pink noise, blue noise, brown noise, and grey noise and scientists are just beginning to explore their functions.

What is White Noise?

White noise is similar to white light. It is a combination of all the sound frequencies that we can hear, just like all prism colors are combined in white light. It has a range of different frequencies with the same amplitude, which is measured in Hertz. Frequencies indicate the number of vibrations produced by the sound wave per second. White noise sounds like a waterfall and its volume does not change with frequency changes. Therefore it is very efficient in masking noises from our environment and alleviating tinnitus troubles.

According to research, it can also help induce sleep. In healthcare, it is used to treat increased sensitivity to environmental sounds. However, the sound of pure white noise is often harsh for our ears because its frequency range can be very high or very low. It is often mistaken for pink noise, which also has a range of frequencies, but its volume decreases with the frequency increase. Therefore pink noise sounds more balanced and susceptible to the human ear.

White noise has been studied widely, with the outcomes indicating its ability to help us fall asleep easier or calm down patients in hospitals by blocking background noises. For example, a fan in one room can block the sounds from the other room, helping you to calm down and fall asleep, which gives the noise a fan produces the character of white noise. It is similar to the murmur of a large number of people where our brain cannot differentiate any particular voice, but a buzz of sounds, which is also considered to be white noise. The fact that the white noise can cut through environmental sounds has qualified it for use in everyday life, for example in sirens of emergency vehicles.

What is Pink Noise?

White noise and pink noise are similar in the sense that we can hear them equally, but there is a difference between them when it comes to frequencies. It refers to the fact that both of them cover the range of 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. However, they differ in the way their signal is distributed. White noise power per hertz is even throughout all frequencies, whereas pink noise power per hertz decreases as the frequency increases, resulting in more power in lower frequencies than in higher ones.

Pink noise is a combination of several natural sounds, such as thunder, ocean waves crashing, a huge waterfall, steady rain falling or the wind rushing through the leaves, so it is optimized for our listening perception, whereas white noise might sound thin or harsh. Its pattern is present in our daily heartbeat rhythm or traffic flow. However, what is pleasant for our ears is a singular sensation, so some scientists tend to advocate the idea that whatever we find relaxing will work for us. In that respect, some people find techno music relaxing with its steady beat, but for others, it might be annoying. The concept is that both white and pink noises benefit our relaxation by eliminating background sounds, but some people find pink noises deeper and gentler, helping them to improve their focus, sleep better and cure headaches. Some noises that don’t bother us during the day as they are masked by other daily sounds, such as faucet dripping, can become our nightmare during the night, as the surrounding silence enhances them.

With age, our deep sleep becomes critical, thus causing the whole range of side effects, such as the loss of concentration and memory. This is where the pink noise can help according to some researches who suggest listening to soothing sounds – a mix of high and low frequencies that are balanced, as a solution. As we mentioned above, the volume of higher frequencies in pink noise is milder, meaning that – the higher the frequency, the lower the sound, so the sounds seem equally strong and the listening experience relaxing. Thus, the sounds do not seem as high as in white noise. However, the research of pink noise is not as extensive as in the case of white noise. Some studies indicate that constant pink noise helps by reducing brain wave complexity. It is also said to induce better sleep in the sense of its quality and duration. What is interesting is that in specific studies some subjects exposed to pink noise experienced longer deep sleep and better quality napping than the subjects exposed to no noise.

Also, in another study, subjects were shown several word pairs before being exposed to pink sound during the deep sleep phase, whereas another group was not exposed to any sound. The group of subjects exposed to pink sounds was able to remember twice as many word pairs as compared to the no sounds group the following day, displaying much better memory. The main reason for this is considered to be the fact that the frequency of pink noise sounds was synchronized with the subjects’ brain waves. However, after a clinical trial on how different color sounds affect tinnitus, it has been concluded that pink noise did not have any effect on patients with tinnitus. Two-thirds of patients exposed to different color noises preferred white noise, and the rest of them chose red noise, while pink noise was not the preferred choice for any of them. Such a result indicated the necessity to tailor the treatment according to the needs of each individual patient.

One must always bear in mind that we all respond to noises differently, so the advice of the researcher mentioned above is that we should all find what works for us best. Pink noise has its application in everyday life such as for testing loudspeakers. It is also applied in business more and more, since it can mask the low-frequency background sounds, which help to enhance the concentration of employees, thus increasing their productivity.

Finally, as we noted, the research into the benefits of pink noise is still limited. More studies are required to definitely conclude how the effects of pink noise are different from white noise and other noise colors.

Other Types of Noises

Apart from white and pink, there are many other colors of noise. Among those colors are brown, blue, violet, and gray.

Brown noise got its name after a botanist named Robert Brown. He discovered the Brownian motion (random particle motion). The noise is also known as Brownian noisy to its random change in sound signal. It has a spectral density that is oppositely proportional to the frequency. This means that the power decreases while the frequency increases, and because of that it makes a lot of energy while having a low-frequency. To us, brown noise is actually very similar to white noise. The difference is that brown noise is much deeper, with a sound that has a low roar, and it contains all the humanly audible frequencies that boost the lower frequency range, which can be very useful for enhancing sound privacy, blocking out annoying noises and for treating hyperacusis and tinnitus.

Blue or azure noise has low frequency components without any concentrated spikes in energy. It is sometimes regarded as high-frequency white noise, but its spectral density is proportional to its frequency. Each successive octave increases by three decibels, which is why the power increases along with the frequency. This blue noise is biased toward higher frequencies, so it results in a high-pitched sound without any base. The noise is used for dithering – a process in which you add noise to a track in order to smooth out the sound and minimize the distortions.

Violet or purple noise is defined with the power increase with each increased octave in the frequency. Because it is the result of a white noise signal differentiation, the noise is also known as differentiated white noise.

Grey noise is random white noise that is the result of a loudness curve that happens in a range of frequencies. At all frequencies, the listener gets an equally loud perception of the sound. That is the opposite of the standard white noise that has an equal strength on all frequencies but does not make an equally loud sound on all of them.

How to Generate Environmental Noise and Block Sounds?

White noise or sound machines are the ones used for generating different colors of noise. Do not be fooled by the name, it does not produce white noise only. These machines can make all the different colors of noise, with white, pink, blue, brown, violet and grey being the most popular options. And many of these machines shave a collection of natural and ambient sounds that come with them.

Apart from white noise machines, you can find a variety of white noise apps for smartphones that vary with the options of sound selection and quality. Some have extensive noise and natural sound selections, but many more have a limited selection. This depends on how much the app costs.

Electric and ceiling fans can also be used as white noise machines. They produce a soothing whirr, very similar to white noise, and if the whirring is loud enough, you can block outside noise to a noticeable extent.

Noise-cancelling headphones are very useful for sleepers that do not like hearing white noise or any sound during their sleep. Headphone models that do not penetrate the ear but still cover it are the best choice. Similar to headphones, you can get earplugs that block outside noise. They mold to the contours of the user’s ear and effectively block all sounds. However, contrary to headphones, long-term use is not recommended for earplugs because they can cause many problems like earwax buildup and tinnitus.

Benefits of Falling Asleep to Ambient Noise

Each color of noise has its benefits that fit the needs of different sleepers. White noise is best for sleepers who like intense noise and live in very loud neighborhoods, or expect to be sleeping in loud environments. Pink noise is for individuals that like deep and bass-driven sounds, similar to thunderstorms. Brown noise is ideal for those who love hearing soothing noises, similar to a waterfall or falling waves. Blue noise is helpful for people who like high-pitched noises, like those you can hear from harsh wind. Violet noise is also for those who like high-pitched sounds, but they prefer noises similar to whistling kettles. Grey noise fits people who love hearing static at a constant volume.

As we mentioned before, there are many benefits to using white noise and other noise colors. Here are certain general benefits environmental noise can offer you.

Effective Noise Blocking

These noises have audible frequencies that block all outside noises. Music can also block noises if it matches the frequency, but it has been proven to be less effective to block different frequencies. It does an excellent job at masking the sound of office machines, loud congestion area, co-workers, roommates, and it can create a more productive environment.

Helpful For Infants

It is a good sleep aid for adults, but it can also help babies. The noises have proven to have a calming effect on infants and newborns before their bedtime. They also have a relaxing effect during meals and feeding. It also helps older children that have sleep problems.

Improves Concentration

Adults or children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or even other disorders, have poor sleep problems. Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) usually happens to a child that is about to go into puberty, and it can continue to last in adulthood too.  The symptoms of these disorders can severely impact sleep. Children with ADHD have sleep issues and heightened daytime sleepiness. Among the symptoms are also difficulty waking up early, bedtime anxiety, occasional parasomnias, and sleep onset and/or maintenance problems. Noise therapy, especially white noise therapy, is often used to help increase cognitive function and concentration for individuals with these problems. Additionally, listening to white noise during the day – during work or studying, has positive effects on concentration too.

Improved Sleep Onset and Maintenance

Sleep onset is the process in which you fall asleep, and sleep maintenance is the ability to be asleep. Noise, in particular, white and pink, have proven to be helpful for falling asleep, and for improving sleep maintenance and sleep onset. There are white noise machines and apps that have sleep timers that are very effective for these issues. These machines can be programmed to last until morning, so you will be able to listen to ambient noise during the whole night.

Handy Travel Help

Individuals that travel a lot have many difficulties with falling asleep while traveling with trains, planes, buses or any other form of transportation. In these cases, white noise serves as a useful aid for sleeping and for blocking noise in any loud setting. Many white noise machines that are available on the market today have a headphone jack.

Welcoming a new baby into your life is an incredible experience, yet it’s universally acknowledged as one of the most hectic times you’ll ever go through. Despite how prepared you think you are, having read countless parenting books or taken numerous classes, the reality hits differently once the baby arrives. Suddenly, you’re thrust into the midst of chaos, and you truly start to empathize with all those weary parents you’ve seen before.

Sleep training refers to a series of methods you use to teach your toddler how to sleep well independently. Babies often rely on their parents’ presence and intervention to fall asleep or go back to sleep if they’ve woken up in the middle of the night. To ensure that you and your toddler get the best sleep possible, it is usually a good idea to use one of the techniques to help them learn to self-soothe and fall asleep on their own. Experts proposed many ways to accomplish this, but unfortunately, there is no formula that works in all the cases. Babies, like adults, are all different individuals, so you’ll probably need to try out a few things, and figure out what works best for your child.

Why Should I Try Sleep Training?

Sleep is one of those parts of your life where you should never make compromises. It is essential for our health and well-being, so it might be a good idea to teach your children how to get sufficient sleep from the early stages. As funny as it sounds for such a basic need, it doesn’t come naturally to everybody. Proper rest is even more important for infants, as they are learning about life, their body is developing, and they need adequate rest for growth and brain development. A life of a baby pretty much consists of feeding, playing with caretakers and sleeping. By training them to sleep well you’ll help your baby get the adequate rest, but you’ll also prevent yourself from all the sleepless nights and exhaustion.

When To Start Sleep Training?

It is an interesting question as experts are divided on this topic, and unfortunately, there is no solid scientific research that can objectively say what is the best time to start sleep training. Some experts say that you should start right away, the sooner, the better; some say that sleep training is not necessary at all, and that you should leave your children to develop their comfortable pattern, adjust to them and make sure they are comfortable. However, the majority of researchers agree that you shouldn’t intervene with your baby’s sleep habits before your child is 4-6 months old. They based this timeline on several developmental milestones. You should also remember that every child is individual and that they do things at their own pace, so don’t rush them into anything, and whatever you try, keep a close look on how they behave and if they benefit from sleep training.

For the first three months of their lives, babies have a hard time recognizing whether it is night or day. That is because their circadian rhythms have not yet been developed and synchronized with the environment. The circadian rhythm is a biological 24-hour cycle, like an internal clock that tells our body when is the time to go to sleep, be awake, and do other daily activities.

When our internal clock is working well, our brain produces melatonin, a hormone that tells our body that it is time to sleep. The production of melatonin begins in the evening, a couple of hours before we go to sleep, the levels then raise and peak during the night, ensuring that we stay asleep and allow our bodies and minds to restore during this time. The melatonin levels then drop, and they are low in the morning when we should wake up, and continue to be minimal during the day. In the morning starts the production of cortisol, a hormone that plays a role in our alertness, as well as other signals that tell our body and brain that it is the time to be awake and productive.

The immaturity of the baby’s circadian rhythm is apparent in the first few weeks, as their sleep is spread pretty evenly throughout the day. After that, they start adjusting and get used to sleeping mostly at night. The key is not to worry and try to make it through this period the best way you can. Let your toddlers sleep when they want, feed them if they’re hungry, play with them and keep them occupied during the waking hours.

Another thing that made researchers say that you shouldn’t start sleep training before your baby reaches four months is eating patterns. Newborns quickly digest breast milk and formula, and they need to be fed every two to three hours, which leads to 8-12 meals during the 24 hours. That limits their ability to sleep for longer stretches, and you should feed them whenever they show signs of hunger. At about three months of age, the baby’s stomach has grown a little bit, and they can eat more and be full for a little longer. At this point, they’ll require six to eight feedings per day, and they can likely go 8 to 12 hours each night without food.

Sleep Training Methods

If you have decided to sleep train your child, there are many different techniques developed by sleep experts. These methods are debated a lot in the scientific community, as there are no studies done that can highlight the real benefits and cons of a specific approach. However, they are widely suggested by the pediatricians, and so far, it looks like the anecdotal evidence goes in favor of them. Remember that every child is different, so even if something worked for one of your kids, it doesn’t mean that it will work for others as well. We present you the three most common approaches:

Cry it Out Methods

Some researchers think that crying is an avoidable part of sleep training and that you must endure this to get your baby to sleep well. The human brain is hardwired in a way that you can’t ignore a crying baby, it sets off the alarm in your head, and you can’t focus on anything else. Various methods fall into this category, but most of them include letting your baby cry for a certain period before intervening and offering comfort. The behavioral term for this procedure is extinction, and it is the most commonly suggested approach recommended by the pediatricians.

The idea method this technique is that your baby is well prepared to learn how to sleep on their own; they need a little support. If you have to carry them around or rock them to sleep every time they wake up, it can be very exhausting for all both parents and the child. However, hearing your baby cry and not doing anything about it can be extremely difficult, as people tend to feel bad and like they are hurting their child. Don’t worry, as pediatricians say that the crying is entirely reasonable for babies and that they’ll stop once they acquire the skills to self-soothe and realize that sleeping on their own is okay. Remember that this doesn’t mean that you should put your kid to sleep, shut the door, ignore them completely and open the door in the morning.

First, you want to set an adequate sleeping atmosphere in your toddler’s room. Keep it dark, quiet, and at the temperature that is comfortable for adults. Don’t overdress your baby as heat and sweating are not great for sleeping. Do the regular bedtime routine, put the baby in a crib, say goodnight and leave the room. If your baby starts crying, wait for a minute or two before reentering the room to reassure them. Don’t turn on the lights, keep your voice quiet and soothing, and remember not to pick them up even if they are still crying. This is very important, as you want to kick off this habit. Instead of picking them up, lightly pat them, with reassuring words, and try to calm them. Leave the room again even if they are still crying, and wait a little longer to come back this time. Repeat this routine until your child falls asleep while you are out of the room. Increase absent time intervals a little bit each time, and between the nights. After a week in your baby should be ready to sleep on their own.

There is no answer on how long you should be absent from the room; it depends on your child and also how comfortable you are with them crying. Hearing your precious kid cry is extremely hard for the parents, and that is why most of them give in right on the first night. If you have decided on this method, keep in mind that it needs some time, so prepare for hell during the first week. Also, this method is not ideal if you have other kids, since crying will most likely disturb their sleep patterns, so you should probably look for different approaches if that is the case.

No Tears Methods

If you are not a big fan of the idea of your baby crying, don’t worry, some approaches result in fewer tears. The experts who support this method think that nighttime is a special opportunity for building a connection and getting closer to your child. They feel that the nightly rest should be peaceful, quiet and that you should tend to your baby’s cry right away to maintain that relaxing atmosphere. They believe that “cry it out” techniques create a negative association with the sleep time, and that it can lead to a lot more problems later on. That’s why they want to build this calming sleep environment, and to make positive associations that will lead to good sleeping habits later on.

On the other hand, pediatricians and experts who support the “cry it out” approach, think that crying for short periods isn’t traumatic and that this little sacrifice is needed for the more significant benefit of your baby’s sleep quality. They also think that no tear methods makes toddlers overly dependent on their parent’s intervention, and prevents them from developing self-soothing skills. This dependence can lead to sleep onset association disorder.

Fading Methods

These approaches are somewhere in the middle of the previous two methods. It is a more gentle version of cry it out technique, and also suitable for those who think that tending to every noise your child makes is not a good idea. In fading approach, a parent gradually lowers his role in the baby’s falling asleep, giving them room to learn how to self-soothe. For many experts and parents, this is the best method, with least tears and more sleep for everyone.

There are two main approaches to fading: timed check-ins and camping out. With camping-out, the idea is to slowly move away from your baby’s crib until you can leave the room without them minding. You can do this by positioning your chair a little bit further every other night while remaining in your baby’s eyesight. Start right by them, and then slowly move away until you can stand by the door, and after two weeks you should be ready to leave the room. If they cry or fuss at any point, use a quiet shushing sound or a light pet for reassurance.

Timed check-ins require you to put your baby to sleep and then check them after some time to reassure them if they fuss or cry. That interval is usually 5 minutes, but you can make it as long as you feel is necessary. Repeat this until your baby is asleep. This is different than crying out the method as these intervals are fixed, and you shouldn’t make them longer.

How to Increase Your Toddler’s Sleep Quality?

Many pediatricians think that sleep training is essential and that you should start it right away if you don’t want your baby to have sleep problems. But don’t worry, it’s not like that. If you are satisfied with your child’s sleeping habits than there is no need for intervention. It is also okay to wait; there is no need to start sleep training at four months. Wait and see how it goes, and try to create a good sleeping environment and develop healthy habits in your child. Most parents go for sleep training when their baby’s sleep problems persist, and after they are so sleep deprived that they can’t sleep. Here are some tips on how to improve sleep in your toddler:

• Develop routines as children thrive on them. Feed them, play with them, and put them for naps and sleep at the same time every day. Also create a relaxing bedtime routine, like bathing, reading, singing a lullaby, and then kissing them goodnight. Putting your child to sleep at the same time every evening will help set their internal clock.
• Make sure the crib is safe and comfortable, and keep their room dark and quiet. If there is light coming from the street, get the blackout curtains to stop it. You can also get a white noise machine to prevent other disturbances that are coming from the outside. There are some more baby products you might want to consider.
• Stimulate your kids daily. Play with them, get them age-appropriate puzzles to exercise their minds, and shower them with love and affection.
• Don’t compare them to other kids as some are naturally good sleepers, while others struggle with this part. If you have decided for some training methods, stick with them as every routine needs some time to kick in.
• Whatever you want to do, consult with your pediatrician first. They know your child closely, and they can give you the best advice specially tailored to your baby’s needs.

Maintaining a balance between mental and physical health is crucial for developing a healthy, reasonable sleep routine, as well as for overall health.Anxiety and stress are well-known for disrupting sleep, leading to various sleep disorders and issues related to sleep. Nonetheless, it’s far easier to observe someone’s physical well-being than to gauge their mental status. This is largely because many of us consider suppressing our feelings and worries as part of behaving like an adult. As a result, obtaining an accurate psychological evaluation can be challenging because the field of mental health is not as precise as the science of the body.

Humans are social creatures and thus susceptible to loneliness – the feeling of being socially abandoned and alone, which often comes with negative interpretations of social scenarios and similar issues. Much like depression (which it is often associated with), loneliness can negatively impact your sleep and can arise from a lack of sleep, which makes it a vicious cycle that leads to more and more daily fatigue and further problems. In this article, we will go over how loneliness and sleep are connected, so you can make informed decisions when seeking medical intervention and following your doctor’s guidelines. Let’s get into it.

Note: If you’re dealing with sleep deprivation regularly, start tracking your sleep as soon as possible. A good sleep journal is crucial in helping your doctor create an accurate diagnosis. Write down when you fall asleep, when you wake up, how often you wake up during the night, how tired you feel in the evening and morning, and every similar piece of information.

How It All Works – A Study Examination

Sleep deprivation is the most common consequence of every sleeping disorder, and it is a constant looming problem in our daily lives in general. It’s incredibly easy to become sleep-deprived, as all it takes is a single night of sub-optimal rest to rack up a considerable amount of “sleep debt” and suffer the consequences of fatigue and excessive daytime sleepiness. Ask any working adult you know about their experiences with daily fatigue, and you may even hear workplace accident horror stories because fatigue affects you in many negative ways, including but not limited to:

• A higher level of irritability, making the fatigued person more irritable, aggressive, and prone to taking risks. Depending on where they are, this can manifest in different ways, the most dangerous ones being during traffic. Their willingness to socialize and tolerate other people drops, which obviously leads to feelings of loneliness.
• Worse awareness of one’s surroundings. When you’re sleep-deprived, it’s harder to detect stimuli and visual cues from the world around you. This is incredibly dangerous for people working in positions that require sharp spatial awareness, such as driving transport vehicles.
• Weaker hand-eye coordination is another common consequence of fatigue. It usually matters when performing delicate work, or work that requires precision, such as surgery.
• It becomes much harder to commit things to memory or remember already known information. Studying is much harder when you’re tired, and it can also be difficult to remember important dates and other things to consider that you would need in a social scenario.
• Fatigued people have difficulty concentrating on tasks. Most math problems or logic puzzles take longer to perform or (in case of time limits) are performed to a lower standard.
• In part due to the above reasons, sleep deprivation and fatigue cause stress and anxiety. It can create a dangerous connection between fatigue and depression, and lead to or link up with feelings of loneliness in a person.

Worst of all, the ways we try to “make up for lost time” and deal with sleep deprivation are not usually healthy. There is a thin line between useful and healthy daytime naps and a ruined sleep schedule that loops the problem back into fatigue, causing escalating health issues.

The part we are most interested in when it comes to sleep deprivation is its social outcome or manifestation. Someone who is irritable, exhausted and unfocused is likely to avoid social interactions and naturally develop a sense of loneliness, especially if the sleep deprivation is chronic or similarly severe. A study was done recently on how sleep deprivation leads to social withdrawal and eventually causes loneliness, and the researchers conducted a handful of exercises to explore this theory. One of the exercises included footage of a person approaching the viewer with a neutral expression on their face.

The subjects were told to press a button when the person gets too close for comfort. This was done with well-rested and sleep-deprived subjects, and the results were clear – sleep-deprived people stopped the recording anywhere between 20-60% earlier than well-rested subjects. It didn’t stop there, either. Brain scans of all involved subjects showcased a different set of patterns between well-rested and fatigued brains. The most important result is that the section of their brain responsible for social interaction was nearly completely inactive when they were under sleep deprivation – but their threat response section was lit up, indicating that exhausted people feel at least mildly threatened by the prospect of social scenarios.

The study didn’t end there. The subjects were asked to rate their own feelings of loneliness, once after having a good rest the previous night, and once while sleep-deprived. Their ratings were much more negative when they were tired, which made sense given the previous results. The next step was recruiting participants via the Amazon Mechanical Turk to view footage of recorded conversations involving the original subjects. The new participants were tasked to rate the subjects based on their level of perceived loneliness and social desirability. The results were clear – sleep-deprived individuals were considered less socially desirable (meaning that the viewers were less interested in interacting with them) than rested ones.

So what does all this mean? It’s quite easy to understand – sleep deprivation makes the person in question much less willing to engage in social interaction because they see other people as a threat, at least to a small extent. Largely because of this, other people are more inclined to consider them socially undesirable or repulsive, which creates a scenario of social isolation and eventually leads to feelings of loneliness. This problem is severe enough that loneliness is considered a public health crisis by experts. A whopping 46% percent of people in the United States experience loneliness either sometimes or always. Not only that but their mortality risk increases by as much as 30%, often depending on other biological factors.

Obviously, not every lonely person is sleep deprived; it’s not a 1-1 correlation. But with how sleep deprivation is creeping into every corner of our society, it may not be far from the truth. Both sleep deprivation and social isolation have negative consequences for your health. Because of this, loneliness is considered a potential contributing factor to a number of sleeping disorders, since it’s closely linked with stress, anxiety, and depression. This means that sleep deprivation and loneliness frequently lead into each other, making it very hard to break out of the vicious cycle and fix your health problems and work performance. It takes a considerable amount of effort to maintain good social relations with people if you’re chronically sleep-deprived, as your desire to interact with them drops, making you less fun to be around. Make sure to contextualize it all properly in your head – being isolated is not normal, and if you sleep poorly, it is a huge reason why you’re feeling lonely. The sooner you can set your schedule straight, the sooner you can fix your social life.

Fixing your sleep schedule is done by a variety of methods. We recommend consulting your doctor about your sleeping problems, as they’re equipped to prescribe methods that will work the best for your specific needs. Not everyone responds to every treatment method optimally, so make sure you know what you’re getting into. A simple bedtime routine or planned physical workouts can drastically reduce sleep onset latency and let you get proper rest, which can alleviate the feelings of loneliness and social anxiety. A diet plan is not only useful for healthy sleep, but it brings a whole host of other benefits when it comes to your physical well-being. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind, so all these small changes to your lifestyle can contribute a lot to a positive mental state. Include relaxation exercises such as yoga, meditation and breathing exercises into the mix if you are still experiencing issues. If you have a sleep disorder (or even suspect you have one), get it checked out by signing up for polysomnography (with your doctor’s approval) and maintain a sleeping journal.

The debate over sleeping with socks on is quite polarizing; individuals are either in favor or vehemently against it, finding themselves either unable to sleep without them or baffled by the thought of wearing socks to bed. This longstanding discussion often elicits strong opinions, so it might be best to steer clear of this topic when with friends or during family gatherings to avoid any heated exchanges.

Socks have until recently been pretty neglected in terms of fashion, they were probably the only part of clothing without any particular innovations or progress, but the wheel of fashion has turned again, and socks are now trending. Basic socks were mostly hidden inside of the shoes, but nowadays socks are designed to be seen and spice the outfit. However, it does not mean that they are gladly seen in bed.

One survey showed that around 44% of Americans think that it is horrible to sleep in socks, 29% have mixed feelings about it, and 28% love it. Regardless of the group you identify yourself with, keep up reading to see what science has to say about this intriguing topic.

A Sleep Inducing Trick?

Those who prefer sleeping with their socks on like to point out that cozy and warm feeling when they go to bed in socks, but is there a scientific explanation or something more behind that? According to the latest news, sleeping with socks might have its advantages.

The thing is, nobody likes the feel of cold feet, not even those who despise the idea of wearing socks in bed. Some people are more sensitive to the cold and feel the slightest temperature drop on their skin, but most of us face cold feet during winter months, and that is not a pleasant experience. Except for that, cold feet can keep us awake and be the cause of many restless nights, because when they are cold, our blood vessels are constricted which causes lower blood circulation. And what is the easiest way to solve that? Wearing socks, of course! The temperature of our body is regulated by the circadian rhythm or internal clock, which controls the timing of our bedtime. During the daytime, the body temperature rises, reaching its peak during the afternoon when we feel most awake, but then as we prepare for sleep the temperature drops from 1 to 2 degrees, and it reaches its lowest point around 4 AM.

Once the cold feet get warmer, our blood vessels will go wider and cause vasodilation, which signals to our brain that it is time for rest. When the blood vessels are open in feet and hands, the heat is spread evenly across the body to prepare it for sleep. Researches have shown that the higher vasodilation in feet and hands will make us fall asleep faster, so maybe that is the reason why people believe that placing a bottle of hot water close to the feet is good for sleep.

Socks in bed may not be the most pleasant thing, but neither is the cold feet. The best materials for socks are natural fibers such as cashmere or merino wool, they will cost you more than the average cotton or polyester socks, but they are worth it. Just be sure that they are not too tight or tick, because if they are they can hinder the blood circulation by constricting the blood vessels, and hinder the proper warming of your feet leaving them semi cold. Socks for sleeping should be medium thickness, and breathable, compression socks should not be worn in bed unless a doctor advised you to do so. Although they are known for enhancing the circulation, compression socks are not meant to be used while you are laying down because then they can block the blood flow.

Why Should I Sleep With Socks On?

The main advantage of sleeping with socks on is the fact that it will heat the feet and induce sleep. If you are not having problems with cold feet, here are some other reasons why you should consider sleeping with socks and how it can be beneficial for you.

• Sock sleepers might not be aware of it, but wearing socks and maintaining temperature regulation helps with the prevention of Raynaud’s syndrome, which is a medical condition that causes our skin to become significantly pale and later even blue, due to the reduced blood flow. Once the blood flow returns, the affected area will become red, and it would feel like it is burning. Those episodes can last briefly, a few minutes, but in more severe cases they can last for hours.
• Socks will nurture the feet during those cold and dry winter months by preventing dryness or cracks, and you can increase the effect by applying some moisturizer before putting your socks on.
• Traditional Chinese medicine recommends wearing socks. They believe that it contributes to the flow of positive energy, circulation and qi energy, while the cold feet would drain the energy out of the body.
• Usually, women who are going through menopause experience occasional hot flashes or flushes, most common symptoms of it include sweating, a sudden intense feeling of warmth all over the body and palpitations. Socks can be very helpful for the body’s temperature regulation during the night by maintaining it around optimal 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
• If you have a fever, try soaking your socks in apple cider vinegar and wear them, you can also put another dry pair of socks on top of them, it will supposedly help you recover faster.

Can Kids Sleep With Socks On?

One thing can lead any debate to the boiling point, and those are the kids, add them in, and it all goes on another level. Parents are sometimes overprotective and worry too much, but when it comes to infants and children, there is no reason why they should not sleep with their socks on, it is only essential that they are made from natural materials and that they are not tight. With kids, it is best to avoid heat socks or any heat inducer such as an electric blanket. A nice warm bath will do the trick and make them sleepy right on time. Socks or no socks, parents should always pay attention to their child to see if it is overheating, sweating or flushing, remove blankets and change their clothes quickly.

Babies are more sensitive so it is important that the layer of clothes which touches their skin is from cotton. Their onesies or socks should not be from wool for example. Not all babies will enjoy the feel of socks on their feet during the night, so parents need to pay attention and not put any unnecessary layer of clothes on their baby. If you notice that the baby’s palms and soles are warm or sweating, remove the socks or booties, sweating and discomfort will make the baby cranky and upset.

Overheating has been recognized as one of the causes of SIDS, which is why parents should never exaggerate with the amount of layer they put on their child, including socks.

Recently, many smart clothing products popped up on the market, and smart socks are one of them. It is claimed that they will monitor baby’s vital signs, but doctors and scientists are warning that there is no actual evidence about the efficiency of these smart devices and that they can cause more harm than benefit.

Side Effects of Wearing Socks While Sleeping

Considering how many people hate wearing socks to bed, there have to be some disadvantages that support their point of view, and that is our next topic.

• If your feet get too hot, they will start sweating inside of socks, which will create a damp environment perfect for any bacterial or fungal infection. If you are already dealing with some type of infection, it is best to avoid wearing socks at night until you solve the problem. Foot hygiene is essential, during the daytime we spend a lot of time in socks, especially athletes or anyone with an active lifestyle, that is why fungus, athletic foot and other kinds of infections are so common. You should never ever go to bed in the same socks you been the whole day, always remove them and wash your feet before bedtime.
• Many believe that while they are sleeping with bare feet, their feet are breathing and there are no chances for any unpleasant odors to occur, which is somewhat true. Sock sleepers should not walk around the house in them because they will pick up dirt and transfer it to bed.
• Overheating because of socks is possible, and it can easily wake us up several times during the night, it is easy to remove them and throw them next to the bed but it causes unnecessary heat waves, and it can be annoying.
• If you have tiles or polished wood floor, socks can cause you to slip and fall in the middle of the night if you wake up to go to the bathroom. This can be particularly dangerous for seniors, as they are more prone to accidents. Older people tend to have problems with blood circulation which is why they usually prefer wearing socks at night, but since with age, their balance is not at its best and any slippery surface is their enemy, they should use socks with rubber anti-slip soles, which will keep them safe on their feet.
• Aesthetics. Now, this may not be a valid reason, but it can be a slight disadvantage. Most couples argue about the socks in bed since usually one of them dispase socks and the other one loves them. They are not the sexiest thing, especially if they have a weird design or if they are not matching, but they are probably the coziest thing to the person who is wearing it, while their partner might not enjoy the touch of socks on their feet.
• Eventually, you will double the number of socks you use, and you will have to wash and dry them more frequently which takes some extra time.

Tips For Anti Sock Sleepers On How To Warm Up Their Feet

Some people fear that wearing socks to bed is unhygienic, they believe that it might cause them to overheat and wake up during the night due to sweaty feet, but others just do not find it comfortable enough. We wear socks for the most of our day, and at night our feet can finally be free to breathe and be bare, so if wearing socks is still not an option for you, do not worry, there are plenty of alternative ways to deal with icy cold feet.

• You can always put some extra layers or the blanket on top of the bottom half of your comforter, that way there will be more heat in that area, and your cold feet will heat up quickly.
• As much as they look gimmicky and funny, heating pads do what they are intended for. Just place them at the foot area of your bed a few minutes before you go to sleep, they will prepare and warm up the place for your feet. These heating pads are widely available, and their price varies from 15$ to 80$, but a more inexpensive alternative is a simple plastic bottle filled up with hot water.
• Wearing some cozy footwear before bedtime such as insulated slippers will maintain the optimal temperature in your feet and help you prepare for your sleep.
• A hot bath or even better, a brief foot bath before bedtime will quickly increase your body temperature and prepare you for snoozing time.

DIY Heat Pad

Filling up the plastic bottle with hot water is a widely spread DIY solution for heat pads; the only downside is that the water will eventually cool down. You need to place it in your bed around 15 minutes before you lay down, so that it will remain warm. But, there is one more highly popular DIY project which is more suitable for today’s topic since it includes socks, and it is called rice socks.

For this DIY project, you will need one pair of socks from natural fibers, and around ½ cup of rice. Simply pour all the rice in one sock and tie a knot at the end, place this sock into the other one and tie its end too. This sock-pad is meant to be heated up in the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes, but keep an eye on it because it can sometimes start to smoke. You will be surprised how long it can retain the heat, and it can be used for your feet, neck, or any other area.

The daily grind often brings with it a considerable amount of stress. Juggling work responsibilities, family commitments, and various other duties can sometimes be overwhelming. This overextension can take a toll on our sleep. It is documented that stress negatively impacts the quality of sleep, which is crucial for every part of our lives. Insufficient sleep can trigger numerous adverse mental and physical conditions, including depression, anxiety, insomnia, diminished concentration, reduced learning capabilities, elevated blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, among others. To counteract this, finding a means to alleviate stress is essential, and yoga could be an effective approach to relax and improve sleep quality. Yoga nidra, or yogic sleep, is a meditation practice accessible to everyone, with many adherents touting its numerous benefits.

What Is Yogic Sleep?

Yoga nidra or yogic sleep is a state of deep relaxation achieved by its practitioner. Its goal is to enter the unconscious mind by entering a state of mind somewhere between wake and sleep. The experience is quite similar to hypnagogia, a dream-like feeling you experience while you are falling asleep. It is very common, and during this time your thoughts look like they are floating around, and you can have mild auditory or visual hallucinations. You might see or hear a certain shape or noise, or maybe your brain is producing a repetitive pattern of signals that you might find interesting. Unlike regular dreams that are usually coherent and you are an active member of them, these sensations are more passive, and you find yourself as an observer. Because of this, some people believe that hypnagogia enhances creativity, and they actively seek to experience it. For instance, Salvador Dali regularly tried to induce it, as he thought it helped his creative process and inspiration.

Yoga Nidra is just like the hypnagogic state, your mind is relaxed, your thoughts are floating around, and you forget about the everyday stressors. Classic meditation requires active involvement and being the master of your focus, which can sometimes be frustrating if you are not able to do so. In contrast, yoga nidra can be practiced by anyone, from children to seniors, it is much easier to master, and it usually involves auditory guidance, so you have something to focus on at all times.

Yogic Sleep vs. Normal Sleep

Some practitioners are claiming great benefits of yoga nidra, and they say that a 45-minute session can be equivalent to 3 hours sleep. There is no objective evidence to support this claim, so don’t think that anything can replace your nightly rest. Go for 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, but you can incorporate yogic sleep to help you get rid of stress, as that is a part where it has proven benefits. With the regular practice, it can help you get better quality sleep.

Your body and mind are deeply relaxed during the nightly slumber. You are unconscious and most of the time unaware that you are sleeping. In contrast, while you are awake, you are very well aware of everything that is happening around you, and you are receiving and experiencing external stimuli continuously. The goal of yoga nidra is to access the middle of those states, a stage where you are profoundly calm and relaxed, while still maintaining consciousness and being alert to your surroundings.

Parts of your brain are emitting specific patterns of brain waves that can be picked up by the EEG. Betta waves are a characteristic of a wake state, but as you start to relax, your brain waves change as well and shift to alpha state. These waves are usually found on the transition between wake and sleep, but they can also be achieved when you are most relaxed. As you enter light sleep, your brain waves start to slow down, and theta waves are dominant here. Finally, as you reach deep sleep, your brain is producing delta waves, the slowest of them all. What’s interesting about yoga nidra is that the brain scans of those practicing it showed a mixture of specific brain waves for both sleeping and wake state. And this makes sense considering that they are trying to achieve that state between being conscious and asleep.

Benefits of Yoga Nidra

Yoga nidra is meant to evoke the feeling of calm, relaxation, and peacefulness. Ideally, you should feel more grounded and restored after the session. Like meditation, visualization and other kinds of yoga practice, it is a spiritual experience that should bring some benefits to your life. It is supposed to relieve stress and make you feel like you can get easier control of your life by better controlling your emotions and well-being. Sometimes it is enough to just sit back for some time, and ease your mind from going all over the place. You might feel more alert and focused afterward, or the session might leave you feeling like you are more connected to the people and the world around you.

Numerous studies are looking into the benefits of yoga nidra, and the results are mostly positive. One such study from 2012 looked into the impact that yogic sleep had on female subjects experiencing anxiety and depression symptoms due to menstrual disorder. The group of 150 females was randomly divided into two groups. One group practiced yoga nidra, while the control group didn’t, and they wanted to see the effects. The results are that the mild and moderate symptoms of anxiety and depression significantly improved in the group practicing yogic sleep. However, it didn’t have the same observable effect in individuals who suffered from severe symptoms.

Similar findings were observed in a study done one year earlier. After six months of practicing yoga nidra, women were experiencing fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression, and they generally had a more positive outlook on life and also rated their well-being higher.

A 2014 study, researchers wanted to look into how yogic practice affects blood glucose levels and stress in nursing students. One group has taken yogic exercise for 60 minutes weekly, for 12 weeks. It consisted of two parts; the first part was the active yogic exercise, while the second part was relaxation (yoga nidra). The results after 12 weeks were reduced stress, as well as lower blood sugar levels in medical students with yogic intervention.

A 2016 study looked into the benefits of easing menstrual irregularity symptoms. One hundred women were recruited and divided into two groups, where one practiced yoga nidra for six months, while the other didn’t. The results were consistent with the previous research, the group with the yogic intervention showed improved symptoms of anxiety and depression, women felt more positive about their well-being, and they also had better health and general vitality scores, as well as more balanced hormonal levels. The control group used medications to fight off menstrual symptoms, but they showed no difference at the beginning and after six months of observation. That means that yoga nidra could potentially be used as an alternative to relieving menstrual symptoms, but more valid research is needed to confirm this.

One study looked into effects yogic sleep could have on adolescents. Thirty-six students aged 13-15 had 30-minute sessions three times a week for a month. After that period, participants reported improvement in the feelings of happiness, enthusiasm, being more inspired, alert, active, having more control over negative emotions such as anger, and being more confident.

Keep in mind that all of these studies have certain limitations. They all have small sample sizes, most have undergone some kind of preselection of the participants, and in most of them, all of the subjects were female. Although they do show positive benefits, there needs to be more research done in this area with bigger sample sizes, without the preselection of the candidates, and with the more objective methods of evaluating the results of studies.

How To Practise Yogic Sleep?

If you want to practice yoga nidra by yourself, you can look for the nearby studios or workshops, as it has become quite popular. There is also a ton of videos online if you feel more comfortable doing it at home. You can also try one of the many apps that provide guided meditation including yoga nidra.

This is what a typical yoga nidra session looks like:

1. First, you lay down on your back with your arms stretched beside your body. Be free to use blankets, cushions, or blocks to make yourself as comfortable as possible. Close your eyes.
2. The start of relaxation begins through breathing exercises. You can try the alternate nostril breathing technique, or simply inhaling and exhaling more deeply while holding hands on your chest and belly. While focusing on your breath, your mind and body can slow down and become calmer.
3. Keep in mind that the goal of yoga nidra is to stay alert while achieving a state of deep relaxation, but don’t worry if you fall asleep.
4. Now is to do some recognition of your muscles and body parts. Start from the left side and gradually go to the right. First, move your left pinky toe, then go through your legs, body and all the way to facial muscles. By systematically moving and then relaxing your muscles, you become more grounded, and you allow your body and mind to become calmer. Go through this process as quickly as you can, but don’t force yourself as the goal is to remain calm. You can repeat step 4 as long as you want, and then when you feel relaxed enough, you can proceed to the next stage.
5. Visualize a place that you consider beautiful, and let your senses explore it entirely. For some people, this is a beach with waves hitting the rocks, a beautiful garden with the intense smell of flowers, deep forest with lots of birds chirping, or simply a relaxing campfire in the evening with a sky full of stars.
6. Embrace the surroundings, set a positive affirmation for yourself, and after feeling optimal, slowly come back to your surroundings.

You can take as much time as you need, but it is usually recommended that your sessions last between 20 and 45 minutes to let your body relax fully. You can do these sessions before the bedtime to help you unwind and fall asleep more easily, or you could do them in the morning or any other part of the day when you feel like you have too much on your plate, and need to calm yourself down.

Individuals may face numerous barriers that continuously hinder their ability to achieve restful sleep, impacting their health, day-to-day effectiveness, and overall well-being. Whether it’s unforeseen emergencies that deprive you of sleep for a night or two, sleep conditions that consistently make you feel tired throughout the day and restless at night, or poor lifestyle choices that disrupt your natural sleep cycle, losing sleep can happen for many reasons.

Visiting a doctor is always the best course of action if you identify sleeping problems, no matter how they manifest (i.e., whether you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up on time, etc.). Regardless of what type of diagnostic method they opt for, the advice you get will often sound the same, at least partially. A lot of what causes sleeping problems lies in our daily life, and the habits that we adopt almost without noticing. Those habits could include eating unhealthy food, avoiding exercise, spending too much time in front of screens, staying up late to watch films, or any other similar thing. During your examination(s), you are asked questions about your lifestyle that help the doctor determine where you’re making mistakes.

One of the most common suggestions for dealing with sleeping problems of any kind (including those caused by sleep disorders) is to establish a bedtime routine or engage in sleep preparation. In this article, we will go over common sleep preparation practices and tips on how you can help yourself fall asleep without the use of risky prescription medication or over-the-counter solutions. Let’s get into it.

How It All Works

Sleep preparation is a flexible process in that you can customize your routine based on your personal preferences, medical history and a variety of other factors. The only common factor ends up being the time invested into this routine each day. Most doctors suggest starting a bedtime routine about an hour before you get into bed, but that’s only because people’s schedules usually don’t allow more. Ideally, you’d start unwinding around two hours before trying to fall asleep, and slowly remove sources of stimulation that keep you awake.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia works this way, too. The idea is that a good bedtime routine and some stimulus control helps you make a mental connection between your bed and sleep (and sex). If you can eliminate sleep-destroying habits in the evening and avoid using your bed other than for sleeping and sex, it can reduce your sleep onset latency without you even noticing. Sleep preparation often also comes down to creating a healthy sleep environment that keeps distractions away and improves things such as air circulation and the levels of lighting in the room. We will list off various things you can try to establish a bedtime routine that suits you specifically.

Natural Sleep Aids

If you’re afraid of prescription medication for sleep (and we don’t blame you, it comes with a variety of really unpleasant side-effects), there is a safer alternative you can try – natural sleep aids. Understanding natural sleep aids requires having a solid grasp on how your circadian rhythm works, so we’ll explain it briefly here. The circadian rhythm is maintained by a sort of biological master clock that’s located in your brain stem. This clock uses light receptors to tell the time of day to convince your body to start winding down for the night when the time comes. Many processes in your body depend on this rhythm, and things like appetite, blood sugar regulation, and libido are all easily connected to it. However, there are many ways to disturb your circadian rhythm, which throws your entire body off balance (figuratively) and causes potentially severe health concerns. Once your circadian rhythm is disrupted, it can be very hard to get it back on track without serious discipline (and often help).

For the purposes of sleep, the main process that is hurt by a disrupted rhythm is melatonin production. Melatonin is the hormone that forces you to fall asleep eventually, and its production can be crippled by things like alcohol consumption and excessive caffeine intake, among other factors. Natural sleep aids aim to improve your melatonin production, relieve anxiety and induce relaxation through ingredients such as tart cherry juice (which can and should be consumed on its own if you can find it near you), lemon balm extract and valerian root. Some products just give you a straight shot of melatonin directly, which helps you fall asleep quicker once the effect kicks in.

If you can’t afford these aids, you can rely on more accessible substances to improve your chances of falling asleep quickly. We’ve mentioned tart cherry juice, but milk is probably in your fridge right now, and it can be used as an improvised sleeping aid if you implement it as part of your bedtime routine.

Creating the Ideal Sleeping Environment

Environmental factors in your bedroom or outside your window have a huge influence on how well you can sleep during the night. For example, the difference between noisy traffic outside and perfect silence is massive in the context of falling or staying asleep. While this is the most expensive part of sleep preparation, every penny is worth making sure you can get enough rest to stay healthy and productive at work – appropriate bedroom accessories can “pay for themselves” through this benefit. The first step towards solving problems in your immediate sleeping environment is to identify them. Once you’re aware of what’s damaging your sleep, you can get products that solve those problems for you.

If you have to deal with noise while trying to sleep, no matter where it comes from (i.e., from other rooms or the outside), you want to invest in something that either reduces that noise or drowns it out. White noise machines or bedroom fans are popular options for many people, as we’re often more capable of relaxing when exposed to a consistent source of sound (usually a car engine, bedroom fan whirring, etc.). Keeping a bedroom fan active also helps improve air circulation, which is essential for healthy sleep. A stuffy room can single-handedly cause a headache for some people, so its effects on sleep should not be ignored – and since opening windows might expose your home to burglars, a fan could be the ideal solution.

Speaking of burglars, home security can play an indirect role in hurting your sleep prospects. Feeling like your home is never safe creates a lot of anxiety and stress, which can destroy your sleeping schedule. For this reason, it may be wise to invest in security cameras, door bolts, window bars and similar ways of keeping unwanted guests out. Being prepared for emergencies such as floods and fires can also contribute to a sense of safety and help you relax.

Blue light and electronics interfere with your biological clock by making it confused about the time of day. It is no coincidence that people who watch TV a lot or spend a ton of time in front of smartphones or computer screens tend to have poor sleep quality overall. If you can afford to do so (that is, when you’re not expecting an important call or alarm), turn off your smartphone during the night, or at least place it on the opposite side of the room. The same goes for any personal computers or TV monitors; everything should be turned off for at least an hour before you go to bed if you can help it.

Physical Well-Being and Relaxation

One of the questions you can expect to encounter when you visit a doctor and explain your sleeping problems is related to how much exercise you get. Exercise plays an important role in your body in multiple ways, from muscle development and immunity to improved hormone balance and relaxation during sleeping hours. No matter what’s causing your sleep problems (including a full-blown sleep disorder), the chances are that regular exercise is a great habit to pick up if you want to alleviate the problem. Make sure not to overwork yourself, as this can cause pain for as long as several days, which naturally keeps you from falling asleep easily, even with a top-quality mattress supporting your body. Additionally, avoid any intense exercises in the evening hours, and instead perform them in the morning or early afternoon to avoid putting stress on your body when it needs to unwind.

Exercise isn’t the only option, however. Planning your diet is equally important, as eating sugary, greasy or otherwise unhealthy food is harmful to your sleep onset latency and sleep quality in general. Above all, steer clear of alcohol and coffee in the evening hours – these two substances are listed as contributing factors to a massive number of sleep disorders and similar problems. A light meal in the evening is not a bad idea, as going to bed on an empty stomach doesn’t help you get good rest.

Relaxation techniques are an excellent way to improve your bedtime routine. These include different meditation techniques, breathing exercises, yoga routines, and similar activities. Don’t exert yourself too much, and focus on stretching and relieving pain and pressure from your body. Meditation can also train your mind to create a positive association with your bed, so you can avoid feeling bedtime anxiety. If you’re dealing with back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain or any similar problem, getting a massage is a great idea from time to time. Naturally, you should aim to avoid the pain before it can occur, so invest in a good mattress for your chosen sleeping position and avoid putting a lot of weight on your joints if you don’t have to.

A trip or two each week to the local sauna can do wonders for your body in many ways, and sleep quality is one of them. You don’t have to make it a daily thing, but make sure that you head in one or twice per week for decent results. The increased body heat starts to drop once you leave the sauna, and that effect pairs well with how your body naturally gets colder as it starts to switch to “sleep mode.” Some toxins and metals like mercury also vacate your body primarily through sweat, so a combination of healthy, planned exercise and sauna visits can keep you healthy and ready to doze off in the evening.