World Sleep Day: 5 tips to get the best nights sleep
From severe insomnia, to waking up too many times and even nightmares – read on for the best tips in town
Text: Shin Yee Koh
No more sleepless nights
Sleep is important – it acts as a hard reset button and allows your body and mind to recharge and heal. In our quest to attain the perfect night’s sleep, we will try pretty much anything, hence an entire section of our site dedicated just to improving our overall sleeping experience. In honour of World Sleep Day, we share our top 5 tips on getting better sleep.
1. Try a Shakti Mat before bed
Though it looks like a medieval torture device at first glance, the Shakti mat has been touted as a wellness tool for bettering your overall health and well-being in recent years. The design is based on Indian beds of nails which have been used as relaxation aids for 5,000 years. It’s a unique form of sleep aid, but the premise is simple: you lay down on the mat on your back, and the thousands of sharp plastic spikes apply pressure to your skin and muscles. Other than improving sleep quality, it also boasts benefits including supporting better circulation and reducing stress – two huge factors that, according to Penn State researchers - affect how well you sleep. The Soothe’s Lynda Williams braved the 6,210 tiny plastic spikes found on the Shakti Mat for a few weeks to experience for herself if it could really help with getting better sleep. Click here for her thoughts.
Shakti mats are used to support deep sleep and healthy circulation
2. Switch on the pink noise
Studies have shown that your brain actively registers and processes noise even when you’re asleep, which is why sounds like a car horn or dogs barking can wake you up. Ambient noise is a natural sleep aid that’s been around for many years. It helps create a relaxing environment with just the right decibel level to drown out your thoughts and the disruptive environment around you. While some people prefer relaxing to white noise, studies have shown that steady pink noise reduces brain waves, which increases stable sleep. In fact, because pink noise has been found to be less intense even at higher frequencies, experts recommend it over the other sonic hues for blocking out annoying background sounds without sounding harsh or shrill. Click here to find out more about pink noise and where to access this sleep aid.
Ambient noise help drown out disturbances
3. Tune into a sleep podcast
There’s just something about a calm, soothing voice that helps us straight into dreamland. I personally believe this originated from our parents lulling us to sleep with fairy tales or bedtime stories. Regardless of its origins, podcasts designed to help us fall asleep have risen in popularity. Some say that the right voice tone and rhythm can help tap into our brain’s inherent rhythmicity, making it more conducive for our brain to enter the earlier sleep stages. Others hypothesize that podcasts distract us from the thoughts which chase around our sleepless minds. Now, there are so many podcasts that you might not know where to start. So here are The Soothe’s top 8 choices for sleep podcasts.
Credits: Rosewood, Miramar Beach
4. Practice Yoga Nidra
Yoga is an ancient practice originating from India that has been around for centuries. Over the years, various types of yoga have been proven to help with different things. Bikram yoga is often practiced in hot and humid environments, perfect for those seeking to lose weight, while kundalini yoga mainly deals with meditation and restoration of the mind and body. Yoga nidra, on the other hand, helps with sleep. It translates literally as “yoga sleep”, and because it’s most often taught lying down, this technique is perfect for those intimidated by complicated yoga poses. This form of yoga teaches you to consciously relax by simply taking awareness to each body part but not moving it. Yoga practitioners believe that yoga nidra offers numerous benefits not just limited to better sleeping habits and can act as a mindfulness practice for those seeking everyday well-being. The Soothe spoke to Camilla Knight, co-founder of Simply Pause Retreats, and a yoga teacher who teaches at Singapore’s The Body Temple and with private clients, for her thoughts on this practice.
Yoga is more than just meditation
5. Use a sleep tracking app
Knowing your sleeping patterns is an easy way to help prevent sleep deprivation and improve your overall well-being. With technology advancing so rapidly, non-invasive tracking can help you find your optimal time to go to bed according to your lifestyle and habits. This allows you to properly harness the full restorative power of a good night’s rest and wake up refreshed. The Soothe has rounded up our top five picks for sleep tracking devices in the market including watches, rings and something to slip under your mattress, Princess and the Pea style.
Tracking sleep cycles help us find the most optimal time to go to bed
Singaporeans are amongst the most sleep-deprived nation worldwide. In fact, Singapore is the 3rd most sleep-deprived of the 43 cities profiled in a report published recently. This could be due to our hectic work culture, or maybe even because of Covid-19. In any case, sleep is crucial to our overall well-being, so give these tips a try.
For more information on sleep, visit our section here
