Jayanti Krishnan
When it comes to your beauty routine, sleep is one of the key regimes to look at.
Your body repairs itself and recovers while you snooze, and that leads to immense benefits in the long run. The key is to get enough shut-eye each night. Though counting hours of sleep is important, but so is measuring the soundness of your sleep. In order to get the most out of your shut-eye, you need to focus on the peacefulness of your sleep as well. The quality of that sleep also plays a role in a person’s well-being. It is well known that sleep quality relates more strongly to overall health than sleep quantity.
The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) recently released the key indicators of good sleep quality, as established by a panel of experts:
- Sleeping more time while in bed (at least 85 percent of the total time);
- Falling asleep in 30 minutes or less;
- Waking up no more than once per night; and
- Being awake for 20 minutes or less after initially falling asleep.
Improve Sleep Quality: While these are some of the indicators to find out the sleep quality, here are a few tips to ensure healthy sleep habits from my personal experience. To each his/her own and there is no general rule for everyone. 
However, I follow these points religiously and would like to share that I literally take 5 minutes to go to sleep, wakeup no more than once every night and usually wake up energised in the morning.
Try it. I am sure some points, if not all, will help your sleep quality.
- Stick to a sleeping routine. This helps in regulating the body’s clock and improving some of the parameters above of getting quality sleep.
- Perform ‘YogaNidra’. the yoga asana promotes deep rest and relaxation. I remember my mom used to help us do YogaNidra during our examinations days.
- Digital Detox. This is a must, about an hour before sleep time. A digital detox highlights the importance of a wind-down routine before bed. Replying to emails or playing games late at night keeps your brain engaged, making it more difficult to switch off and relax. Spend the last hour of your day in some calming activity like reading.
- Exercise daily in any form. Activities that get your heart rate up, such as running, brisk walking, cycling, and swimming, have been shown to improve sleep and battle insomnia.
- Evaluate your room, bed and pillows. Design your room and environment as per your sleeping conditions. The mattress you sleep should be comfortable and supportive.
- Avoid caffeine/ alcohol/ heavy meals in the evening. These disrupt sleep.
- Have warm milk before going to sleep. Warm milk has sleep rich ingredients.
- Get a massage therapy if you face insomnia. This will ensure a good night’s sleep.
Benefits of Beauty Sleep: A good night sleep is vital to our overall physical and emotional well being. While we rest, our skin and body is actually in repairing mode. Not only do the optimal 6 to 8 hours a night leave you looking luminous, there are many other benefits of beauty sleep:
- Many hair, face, and body products are most effective when applied overnight, because they penetrate better when you are at rest.
- The good news is that quality sleep helps in reducing the wrinkles and improving skin texture.
- It helps in getting rid of dark circles/puffy eyes.
- It helps in reducing stress and puts you in a better mood.
- The mind works faster and better – many a times you find better solutions to problems after a good night’s sleep.
In summary, sleep is an extremely important part of keeping our bodies operating in fit and healthy condition. It is pretty easy to tell the difference between how you feel after a good night’s sleep, and how you feel when you’ve been burning the midnight oil.
When it comes to sleep, quality outweighs quantity. No matter how much you sleep, there is no substitute for quality sleep each and every night. By slightly altering our lifestyles and making the right choices, sleep right and wake up to a glowing YOU!
Eyra 