Causes of poor sleep and insomnia in adults and children, bad habits leading to sleep disorders

CEO of sleep products company Blue Sleep

Why do we sometimes suffer from insomnia at night? What daily habits have a bad effect on the quality of sleep?

Do you know the feeling of tossing and turning at night trying to fall asleep? Even though you are tired during the day and feel fatigued. Most likely, the problem is the habits that have become your daily routine – they are harmless on the surface, but can negatively affect your sleep.

Съдържание

1. Daytime naps

It’s common to feel drowsy after lunch, especially if you’ve had a big meal. With the transition to a remote job, snuggling up during the day can become a habit. There’s nothing wrong with a short nap of up to 20 minutes – on the contrary, it can help you feel better and refresh your mind. It will not disrupt the regimen, unlike a prolonged sleep of more than an hour. During this time, the body enters a deep phase of sleep, and after waking up you will feel broken and in the evening – have difficulty falling asleep.

A group of scientists from Guangzhou Medical University conducted an experiment on 300 thousand subjects. 39% of them slept regularly during the day, and they were found to have a 34% higher risk of developing heart disease.

2- Cell phone use before bedtime

Perhaps everyone knows that it’s best not to sit on your cell phone before going to bed. But let’s be honest, how many of us manage to follow this rule? After all, the refusal of a smartphone a couple of hours before going to bed has a very good effect on sleep.

The fact is that even scrolling through Instagram feeds excites our nervous system. Also, cell phone screens emit the so-called “blue glow”, which blocks the production of the sleep hormone – melatonin. It will take time for its levels to return to normal and make you want to sleep.

Make a habit of not looking at your phone or watching TV a couple hours before bedtime, and get rid of fluorescent lights at home – they are also a source of “blue glow”.

A good practice before bedtime is to light candles. The warm light of the flame will help you relax and sleep better.

3. Coffee and strong tea in the afternoon

Coffee or tea in the evening for many of us – a familiar ritual and attribute of meetings with loved ones. But if in the morning a portion of caffeine will come in handy, then in the evening can have a detrimental effect on sleep. Caffeine itself is not harmful and even useful in reasonable amounts, but it also increases the tone of the body.

It is believed that caffeine is eliminated from the body in 3.5-4 hours, so calculate the optimal time of intake of these drinks. By the way, not only coffee and black tea contain a lot of caffeine, but also green tea, cocoa and bitter chocolate.

5. Cold shower before bedtime

Taking a cold shower is a great immunity-boosting practice, but it’s best left to the daytime. It triggers a long chain of production of different hormones. First, cold activates the sympathetic nervous system, and the body produces the hormones norepinephrine, cortisol, and norepinephrine – it is responsible for heating the body. That is, when a person takes a cold shower, the body temperature drops dramatically, and this makes the body “nervous”. A defense reaction is triggered, and it throws all its strength to warm up, which leads to a rapid heartbeat and accelerated metabolism. Energy levels, mental alertness and concentration levels increase, but cortisol, the stress hormone, also rises. And its release affects sleep in a bad way.