We’ve all heard it before, “sleep in this position” or “if you sleep like this, you’ll hurt this”. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be left feeling confused about your sleep habits. At the end of day what really matters when it comes to sleep and how can you get the best night’s sleep? Let me tell you…

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT POSITION YOU SLEEP IN.

You may fall asleep on your back, with your neck supported, knees and ankles cushioned. Great. Guess what? You don’t stay like that all night. Thus, why put so much effort and stress into something when it doesn’t last 6-9hrs?

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT TYPE OF PILLOW YOU HAVE.

Stop breaking your budget to buy the newest, best pillow. Stop thinking your lack of quality sleep is because you only have 3 pillows on your bed and not 5 (or some other arbitrary number).

IT DOES NOT MATTER YOUR MATTRESS FIRMNESS.

If you have a soft mattress it doesn’t mean you need to go buy a firm mattress to fix your sleep problems. The same goes for the opposite. You don’t need to go find your exact number firmness in order to sleep well.

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU LET YOUR PETS SLEEP WITH YOU.

Don’t be so quick to kick your dog off your bed or your cat off your legs. Did you hear you need your personal space when trying to sleep? Mhmm, add that to the list of the many things everyone tells you you’re doing wrong with your sleep habits. But, do you really need to abandon the nighttime sleep habit of sleeping with your animals?

What SHOULD you do to get the best sleep?

I promise you it’s MINDBLOWING. I promise you you’ll go THAT’S IT?!

Well it starts here with this question: When you wake up from sleep do you feel rested or not?

If you DO feel rested, then boom, stop there, you’re good. Clearly the system you have for sleep is working! Now don’t beat yourself up over one night of poor sleep, because you had one too many glasses of wine with your friends. Or what about that time you swung through a fast food place? Don’t feel bad, you know that wasn’t a healthy decision for you, but you did it once a blue moon and that’s OKAY. Same policy applies here with sleep.

If you DO NOT feel rested, if you have trouble falling asleep, or you have trouble staying asleep, listen up.

5 Tips Proven by Research for quality sleep:

1. No screen time 1-2 hours leading up to going to bed. (1)
   • This includes tv, laptop, phone, ipad, etc.
2. Limit alcohol consumption. (2)
   • 1 drink/day for women, 2 drinks/day for men
3. Managing stable room temperature. (3)
   • Not above 70* Fahrenheit
4. Bathing before going to sleep. (4)
   • Approx 10min duration
5. Regular exercise. (5)
   • As recommended by AHA

Sleep research has been conducted for years. In one swift click on Google you can find all sorts of sleep research. NOTICE, research is limited on the topics at the start of this post: sleep position, pillow type, and mattress type. Research is limited on such topics because those topics are individualistic. In humans, there are too many factors in life to be able to determine through research that X mattress means decreased X health condition.

The sleep factors that can be accurately researched and extrapolated to the general public are the five listed above. These factors impact our internal system that regulates sleep, and such system is very similar amongst all of us. It is for these reasons they are what you should strive for to achieve better sleep.

1. Hale L, Kirschen GW, LeBourgeois MK, Gradisar M, Garrison MM, Montgomery-Downs H, Kirschen H, McHale SM, Chang AM, Buxton OM. Youth Screen Media Habits and Sleep: Sleep-Friendly Screen Behavior Recommendations for Clinicians, Educators, and Parents. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am. 2018 Apr;27(2):229-245. doi: 10.1016/j.chc.2017.11.014. PMID: 29502749; PMCID: PMC5839336.
2. Park SY, Oh MK, Lee BS, Kim HG, Lee WJ, Lee JH, Lim JT, Kim JY. The Effects of Alcohol on Quality of Sleep. Korean J Fam Med. 2015 Nov;36(6):294-9. doi: 10.4082/kjfm.2015.36.6.294. Epub 2015 Nov 20. PMID: 26634095; PMCID: PMC4666864.
3. Okamoto-Mizuno K, Mizuno K. Effects of thermal environment on sleep and circadian rhythm. J Physiol Anthropol. 2012 May 31;31(1):14. doi: 10.1186/1880-6805-31-14. PMID: 22738673; PMCID: PMC3427038.
4. Haghayegh S, Khoshnevis S, Smolensky MH, Diller KR, Castriotta RJ. Before-bedtime passive body heating by warm shower or bath to improve sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Med Rev. 2019 Aug;46:124-135. doi: 10.1016/j.smrv.2019.04.008. Epub 2019 Apr 19. PMID: 31102877.
5. Dolezal BA, Neufeld EV, Boland DM, Martin JL, Cooper CB. Interrelationship between Sleep and Exercise: A Systematic Review. Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:1364387. doi: 10.1155/2017/1364387. Epub 2017 Mar 26. Erratum in: Adv Prev Med. 2017;2017:5979510. PMID: 28458924; PMCID: PMC5385214.