5 Tips for Optimizing Your Sleep Hygiene: Achieving a Restful Night's Sleep

There's more to a great night's sleep than supplementing with Knocked’s mineral and herb based ingredients. Sure, our blend can help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep through the night without the morning grogginess, but there are a number of other steps you can take to improve your sleep quality. Here’s an overview of our best tips for improving sleep. 

1. Expose your eyes to sunlight within ten minutes of waking up. This helps kickstart your body’s natural circadian rhythm. Think of exposing your eyes to light as setting a timer to help your body produce the chemicals required to feel sleepy later on that evening. Keep in mind, it’s best to actually go outside when exposing your eyes to sunlight. Viewing through a window filters like and reduces the effectiveness of this tactic. 
2. Pay attention to what you consume before bed. You shouldn’t ingest caffeine within 6 hours of going to bed, so make sure you aren’t consuming tea, coffee, or chocolate too late in the day. Additionally, alcoholic beverages might help you fall asleep, but you’ll wake up a few hours after as your body begins to process the alcohol.
3. Watch the sunset at the end of the day. Why? This also helps set your circadian rhythm. Similar to viewing light in the morning, viewing light at a low solar angle during sunset helps inform your body’s natural circadian rhythm.
4. Keep your sleep environment cool—ideally somewhere between 60-67 degrees fahrenheit. Additionally, make sure your bedding and blankets don’t cause you to overheat. Why? You want your body temperature to drop by around 3 degrees to begin and maintain deep sleep. 
5. Take a hot shower at night. This doesn’t just help you wind down at the end of a long day. It also heats your body up externally, which sends a post-shower signal to your body to cool down. 
6. Stay away from bright light a few hours before bed. Blue light in particular, which comes from smartphone screens, laptops, and televisions, actually suppresses melatonin. So just as your body begins to naturally release the melatonin that causes you to feel sleepy, blue light from electronic devices can stimulate you and keep you awake. Additionally, wearing an eye mask can also help reduce any light pollution in your sleep environment itself.  

We know, we know. A lot of these are a large departure from our normal routines. We love our afternoon coffee and late-night streaming binges too, but once you start to see the positive impacts these habits have on your sleep routine, you won’t think twice about it.