Sleep is one of the most important elements of life. It’s hard enough getting the right amount of sleep when you’re not busy, it’s even harder when your sleep becomes crucial to your daily routines. Getting the best sleep at college isn’t only hard, its a nightmare.
Most of us get into bed when we are exhausted but we still have to do our daily routine of checking social media, answering texts, and reading Society19 articles. Instead of cutting it out fully, which can be hard, just do it earlier.
Washing your face with warm water, brushing your teeth, and using the bathroom is most people’s way of telling their body its time. By starting this process earlier, our body gets ready to accept it earlier. Plus the longer you’re laying in bed, the quicker it will feel like bedtime.
With so much going on in college, this could be a hard step to take, but sometimes we have to step away from that party (or homework) just a little bit sooner to get the best sleep possible.
Working out, meditating, reading, walking and talking with friends or even going for a drive, could help get the last bit of energy out of your body.
If that last bit comes with you under the covers you know you’ll be scrolling your phone. And scrolling for just, “one minute” it’s going to energize you and keep you going, by habit and by the bright white light.
College seems like an easy place to tire yourself out, and most students find themselves napping often, especially those dorming. But, napping only makes it harder to stay asleep later. The best sleep at college will only happen if you can sleep for the whole night.
Some people use their bed for homework, studying, eating, etc. don’t be like those people. Study’s show we get specific feelings in specific places. Like, when we enter a kitchen and automatically get hungry. This tends to be the issue for most students trying to get the best sleep in college.
So, the more time we spend doing activities other than sleeping in our beds, the harder it’s going to be to sleep there. And the more you sleep in other places, the less likely your body will sleep in your bed. It takes seven days to start a habit, and our body takes that rule very seriously. And if it doesn’t affect your sleeping it will affect whatever else you’re trying to do in bed. Ever wonder why it’s so hard to do work in bed? Our bodies automatically go into the zone it is used to, so if your bed is strictly for sleep, there would be no confusion.
So save the college dorm sleepovers, on bed study dates and lazy late-night snacks for a time when sleep is easier to navigate.
Everybody’s body is different. But, there is a certain amount of time everybody needs to get in order to wake up feeling refreshed.
Our circadian rhythm is our internal alarm clock. It regulates our feelings of sleepiness and wakefulness. If we figure out that perfect timing, we could make waking up so much easier.
Luckily there are apps like Sleep Cycle. It allows you to set an alarm for the time you need to wake up and it tells you the time you need to go to sleep or vice versa. By doing this, Sleep Cycle is calculating the perfect amount of time you need to wake up easily. We sleep in cycles, and during the lightest stage of that cycle is the best time to wake up. It’s the closest our mind feels to being awake, which makes it easier to become awake.
The more nutrients we give our body, the better our body will treat us. All foods can be linked to helping the body in different ways. Some foods are known for seriously helping us get to sleep.
Foods liked almonds, walnuts, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, and grapes (yes that includes wine) contain melatonin. Melatonin is basically known as our sleep hormone. There is also an array of Melatonin alone products, gummies, liquid drops, lotion, and these are all known to help speed up the process of falling asleep.
Sometimes our body has a hard time creating melatonin itself, vitamins and minerals like calcium, magnesium, B6, and potassium help create more of it. So having a mineral-rich diet consisting of nuts, seeds, fish, greens, and beans will actually help stimulate sleep. Warm tea also promotes an easier bedtime. Chamomile, ginger, peppermint, and even warm milk are most commonly used. Considering we have meal plans and a majority of these foods are on campus, they’re super easy fixes to help get the best sleep at college.
The best sleep at college doesn’t just have to do with that rejuvenated feeling in the morning. Dreams also play a big factor in the success of our sleep. Different types of dream sprays can assure different types of dreams. So whether you look forward to dreams you can analyze, laugh about, or smile about, it’s another reason to get excited about bedtime.
Dream Sprays are made up of water and all types of herbal ingredients (depending on the type you’re using). They range from psychic dream sprays to lucid dreaming sprays and even needs as simple as promoting quicker sleep.
All you need to do is mist the spray around yourself and on your bed, and get ready for a night of clarity.
Some of my favorite sprays to use are:
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