Sleep hygiene: Tips for a better sleep
The fact that some people manage to fall into a restful sleep every night and sleep through it contentedly like a baby, while others toss and turn restlessly in the sheets, only to be at ease as best they can, is mainly due to differences in sleep hygiene. But finding the right rituals and behaviour for regenerating sleep and putting them into practice is not that difficult. Here we share our best tips with you, so that you can quickly fall into a deep sleep and sleeping right through!
- What is sleep hygiene?
- Good sleep hygiene begins during the day
- How diet affects your sleep hygiene
- Observe biorhythm
- Why the smartphone interferes with your sleep hygiene
- The right sleeping environment for optimal sleep hygiene
What is sleep hygiene?
Sleep hygiene is the term used to describe behaviour that promotes healthy sleep. Especially if you are one of those people who have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night, following certain habits can help you sleep better. Sleep hygiene measures generally include rules concerning the organisation of daytime activities, sleeping habits, nutrition and generally the attitude to sleep. Good sleep hygiene also includes avoiding factors that contribute to disturbed sleep.
Good sleep hygiene begins during the day
If you thinking about the ideal sleep hygiene shortly before bedtime, it is usually already too late and you can no longer benefit from the potential of a recovery night's sleep. In fact, proper sleep hygiene starts much earlier, during the day. You often hear that exercise in the fresh air helps you to relax later at night. But why is that so? If we move our bodies during the day, adenosine is produced. This substance makes you tired naturally and it is released when we have been awake for a long time. One of the reasons for this is that adenosine inhibits activating neurotransmitters like norepinephrine. The release of adenosine therefore helps us to feel tired in the evening and is therefore a practical aid to healthy sleep hygiene. 
So use your lunch break for a refreshing walk around the block, or simply move the meeting with colleagues outside: the walking meeting, where meetings with the team are held during an invigorating walk instead of at the conference table, is not without reason in vogue. Your body, circulation and the mind are activated and provide an extra boost of energy for the day and additionally all involved employees sleeps better at night. Especially in times when more and more of us are working in our home office and can organise our working and resting times more flexibly, some of us are perhaps flirting with a little afternoon nap. However, it is better to avoid this in the interests of healthy sleep hygiene. If you can't get to sleep at night, it's perhaps simply because you've already slept enough during the day. If you still want to take a little siesta, remember that naps are not just naps: replace the extended nap with a refreshing ten-minute power nap. This will give you the time out you need without disturbing your sleep rhythm at night.
How diet affects your sleep hygiene
Nutrition also has an impact on your sleep hygiene, which you should not underestimate. Avoid eating heavy food before going to bed, because you will only put unnecessary strain on your body. Instead of resting, your digestion runs at full speed in the evening and impedes falling asleep easily. Instead, try our light summer recipes, which taste great without weighing you down. Alcohol in the evening should also be consumed with caution. While the occasional glass of wine may well be part of proper sleeping hygiene, the dose alone makes the poison: too much alcohol prevents you from sleeping through the night, as it dries out the body and stimulates thirst. The result is more drinking and, as a consequence, the odd nightly visit to the toilet. Enjoying coffee before going to bed is another no-go. The contained caffeine inhibits your tiredness because it stimulates the same receptors in the body as adenosine does.
Observe biorhythm
How you organise your sleep-wake rhythm has a significant effect on the quality of your nightly bed rest. The key word here is regularity. In order to get the different biological rhythms of our body to harmonise perfectly with each other, it is essential going to bed at the same time each night and waking up the same time each morning. If you make sure that you always fall into bed at the same time at night, if possible, you will help your body to come to rest. Much more important for good sleep hygiene, however, is when you wake up. In a way, this is the anchor point for our biorhythm. Sunlight in the morning ensures that we wake up as it stimulates serotonin production, which has an activating function. You can take advantage of this when you have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning - let the sun's rays wake you up and get you going. If you want to extend your sleep time, you can also make sure that you block out the sunlight for a while with dark curtains or sleeping glasses. 
As far as the sleep-wake rhythm is concerned, we are not all the same. In morning types, the so-called larks, as well as in evening types, also known as owls, the dictation of the inner clock is innate and can hardly be changed. No matter how much caffeine an owl uses to try to wake itself up early in the morning, it will never reach the peak form of a lark, for whom getting up early is a child's delight. On the other hand, larks suffer particularly during nights of partying and rarely make it through the full-length blockbusters on TV without yawning. So when it comes to sleep hygiene that is good for you, pay attention to your individual type. Extra tip: We'll tell you here how to keep your sleep rhythm intact, even with special challenges such as time change. 
Why the smartphone disturbs your sleep hygiene
Our non-stop society, which often turns night into day with fluorescent lights and dancing through the night is at odds with our inner clock. No wonder that the human organism cannot keep up with this and gets out of step. For a relaxed sleep hygiene you should therefore set your smartphone and laptop to sleep mode in the evening. This is because the blue light is even more disrupting than normal daylight and hinders the production of sleep-promoting melatonin. When checking e-mails and writing messages at night, the time for falling asleep is therefore shifted further and further back, which makes a regular sleep routine more difficult. However, if you absolutely don't want to let the day pass while looking on your mobile phone display, newer smartphones with blue light filters offer a compromise. They reduce the activating blue light and thus ensure that your melatonin production is not inhibited to the same extent.
The right sleeping environment for optimal sleep hygiene
A quiet and darkened bedroom is the best friend for your optimal sleeping hygiene. A good guideline for an ideal sleeping climate is a temperature of about 18 degrees. This is neither too warm nor too cold and creates a particularly pleasant and sleep-promoting environment. Also avoid tight clothing that you do not feel comfortable in - it can be the reason for a disturbed night's sleep. Pyjamas, in which you can have cool nights even in summer, can be found here. 
Your lying position is also important for a good night's sleep. While the foetal position (lying sideways and rolled up tightly) can cause tension, side sleepers deal with numbness in the arm, as this is often used at night to support the head. An optimal sleeping position is one that does not interfere with your sleep in any way and gives your body a relaxed lying position. Ergonomically shaped pillows from Swissflex ensure an ideal head position and, thanks to various options for pillow height, promote sleep hygiene tailored to your individual needs. Last but not least, the right sleeping mat is a particularly decisive factor for health-promoting sleep hygiene. A comfortable bed and a good mattress are absolute must-haves for restful sleep. If you want to feel catered to your every need, try our Swissflex Hybrid mattresses. The unique combination of spring core and foam technology combines the best of both worlds and creates a heavenly lying sensation - with Swissflex you will enjoy top-class sleep hygiene!