If you’re looking to improve your cognitive function, immune response, muscle development, general health, learning capabilities, mood, and productivity, look no further than your mattress.
To improve the length and quality of your sleep, check out these creepy solutions!
Mouth Taping for Sleep
Taping your mouth closed to sleep has many proven and anecdotal benefits.
This study was conducted by taping shut the mouths of 30 patients suffering from obstructive sleep apnea with porous oral patches. The results show that their breathing was improved and snoring reduced.
Anecdotally (widely), many people claim mouth taping provides benefits like:
- a reduction in disordered breathing
- a reduction in cavities and gum disease
- a reduction in ADHD symptoms
- increased cognitive function
- better quality sleep
- better learning
Mouth taping works by forcing you to breathe through your nose. Breathing through your nose cleans, warms, and moistens the air that you breathe, improving lung health, and filters allergens from the air.
While we need more science on the benefits of mouth taping, we have plenty on the dangers of mouth breathing, such as the effect it has on cognitive function. Mouth breathing is even known to stunt growth in children.
Mouth taping can deepen your sleep, reduce unwanted symptoms, and make you smarter!
If you’d like to try mouth taping, this kinesiology face tape lasts for a long time.
If you find mouth taping uncomfortable (or just weird), we can’t really blame you. Another option to promote nose breathing are nasal strips that force your nose to stay open, relieving congestion and snoring.
The science on nasal strips for sleeping suggests that even placebo strips work to improve nose-breathing. Anecdotally, people love them, so it may be worth trying if you have difficulty breathing through your nose.
You without mouth tape.
Blindfolds for Sleep
Nighttime light exposure suppresses melatonin production, which negatively affects a regular sleep pattern. Night lights are shown to create shallower sleep and more sleep disruptions.
This study shows that using eye masks to sleep improves learning and alertness. This makes sense, because complete darkness is shown to increase the amount of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep you can get in a night, and REM is associated with memory consolidation.
Fun fact: THC affects memory by disrupting the REM cycle, thus preventing the brain from effectively codifying the day’s events and experiences into actual memories.
Similarly, screen use and blue light exposure before bed disrupts your natural rhythm, creating worse sleeping conditions.
Some eye masks, particularly weighted ones, apply gentle pressure around the eyes and forehead, which can reduce tension, making it easier to fall asleep. If you’re prone to anxiety, headaches, or migraines, weighted masks can also help alleviate those symptoms.
Sound Machines for Sleep
Playing a consistent audio, like brown noise or rain sounds, can improve your sleep by masking disruptive noises, promoting relaxation, and helping you better establish a sleep routine.
Blocking visual and audial input improves sleep because, as Dr. Samuel Gurevich explains, “Staying alert is the body’s response to a dangerous environment. Thousands of years ago, the people who fell asleep easily, especially if it was loud and busy outside, were the ones eaten by the saber-toothed tigers. Those who were appropriately alert survived, and so did their genes.”
We’re fighting evolution and biology every time we go to bed. Blocking out stimulus helps us to relax, fall asleep quicker, and stay asleep more consistently.
Since another high-ranking sleep tip is to leave your screens out of the bedroom, try a noise machine like this one.
The Pillow Cage
The position you sleep in has a huge effect on the quality of your sleep. While all bodies are different, there are many potential health and wellness benefits for most people to sleep on their back.
Better spine alignment. When you sleep on your back with proper support for your neck and knees, your spine rests in a more neutral position, which helps prevent neck and back pain.
Clearer skin. Sleeping with your face touching (or smashed into) your pillow causes skin irritation, bacteria transfer, and premature wrinkles. Sleeping on your back keeps your face skin unbothered, plus stops blood from pooling toward it, which prevents issues like under-eye darkness, puffiness, and discoloration.
Fewer headaches. Sleeping on your stomach or side contributes to jaw and head tension, creating tension headaches. Sleeping on your back relieves that pressure. Additionally, sleeping on your back prevents sinus buildup throughout the night, so you won’t wake up congested or with a sinus headache.
Acid reflux prevention. Sleeping on your back with your head slightly elevated helps prevent stomach acid from rising into your esophagus, reducing acid reflux at night.
Healthier joints. Back sleeping puts your body in a less strained position, easing pressure on your joints and reducing the likelihood of waking up stiff or achy.
Of course it’s worth noting that back sleeping isn’t necessarily for everyone, but for most people, back sleeping provides many of the listed benefits, which also contribute to deeper, more restful sleep.
It can be difficult to transition from a side or stomach sleeper to a back sleeper. I was a chronic, immovable tummy sleeper until a surgery forced me to sleep on my back for a month. I caged myself in with stacks of pillows to support my head, arms, and knees, making it pretty difficult to flip over, and pretty comfy to stay on my back.
So yeah, pillow cage.
A Solid Beddy-By Routine
The best change to implement if you want to improve your sleep quality is to establish a good nighttime routine. It can look however you want it to, but in general, you start at least an hour before you intend to be asleep.
Limit or eliminate exposure to blue light. I do this by “leashing” my phone charging in another room, so I have to go to that room to use it, and I just never do, so I have screenless evenings.
A consistent bedtime helps train your brain and body as to when they should start implementing their sleep functions.
Relaxing activities like a bath, stretching, reading, cutting off electronics, doing some light housework, or prepping for tomorrow will help you gradually wind down to bed, rather than trying to go from 100 to 0 as soon as you lay down.
Optimize your sleep environment by controlling light, sound, and temperature–it’s typically better to sleep in a cooler room. You can also use aromatherapy if that suits you.
Avoid heavy meals and caffeine after lunch. Processed sugar is known to disrupt sleep even more than caffeine, so keep an eye on that.
Regular exercise and mindfulness practices help you fall asleep quicker and achieve deeper levels of sleep, improving your memory, energy levels, and overall wellness.
Mindfulness practices help by giving you moments of quiet throughout your day. If you’re someone who tosses and turns with your mind running at Mach speeds, ask yourself if you offer your brain any quiet time other than when you’re trying to sleep.
If you don’t give yourself downtime for reflection and processing, filling every minute of your day with activity and noise, your mind will take the first opportunity it has to work through things, which is when you lay down to sleep.
Is sleep actually important?
If I haven’t convinced you yet, here’s a cute list of what improper sleep can cause:
- diabetes
- mental health disorders
- obesity
- impaired cognitive function
- strokes
- sleep apnea
- cancer
- immunodeficiency
- cardiovascular disease
- hormonal imbalances
- EARLY DEATH!!
Yes, sleep is important, you knob. Go to bed!
