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Sleep is one of the most important things you can do. Doctors advise people to have between 6-8 hours sleep, and while the level of sleep you need/have will depend on both your lifestyle and personal preference, the need to get the sleep you deserve is huge.
People are often getting less sleep than they feel they deserve, with the report included above stating that people are missing out on around a night’s sleep a week, putting their body, and health, at risk in the process. Although this can be for many reasons – children, for one! – where you sleep and what you sleep on are often the biggest variants affecting the quality of sleep you get. If people are regularly missing out on the right amount of sleep, the sleep that they do get needs to be top quality, otherwise health really does start to become a problem.
What Stops Us Sleeping?
Technology
There are a whole variety of things that stop us sleeping on a nightly basis. One of the biggest things that comes across, especially from a personal point of view, is the amount of problems technology causes on sleeping patterns. Phones ringing, vibrating or even being checking during the night is becoming a massive problem, while other things such as bright-lights on TVs and standby buttons can often catch your eye when you sleep. Compared to 30 years ago, our homes have changed so much. Even the time your heating comes on in the house can wake you up if you’re a light sleeper. The noise of the heater and the change in temperature is something that also didn’t come into play a number of years ago. Technology has changed that, too.
Lifestyles
There’s so much going on in our lives now, it’s often hard to keep up. And even if you’re in total control, you can still mull over thoughts and ideas in your head until you’re blue in the face. Work, life and responsibilities are the biggest worries, while money is usually at the back of your mind when you’re alone with your thoughts. Giving yourself the best chance of sleeping well is switching off earlier than you usually do.
Your Choice of Bed
Your choice of bed and mattress will help your sleeping process massively. There’s so many different types of beds to choose from, and this includes pricing. You don’t need to empty your wallet to keep yourself comfortable and rested at night, you just need to know what to look for. The right style – memory foam, standard, gel foam – will help you find your perfect comfort zone, while making sure your duvet is good and you have the right sized mattress is ideal too. The health benefits of having the right mattress are huge. See below for our top 5 choice of benefits to you.
Benefits Of The Right Mattress
Allergens
It may be surprising, but different beds have different qualities, and one of them is the retention, or lack of, of dust and bedbugs. If you suffer from eczema, asthma or sensitive skin, this could well be a serious issue you suffer from. If you’re stuck with an old mattress, the likelihood is that it’s dirty and retains lots of skin and dirt, something that will aggravate your allergies. By getting a new, fresh mattress, you could calm these problems as well as find a whole host of other benefits to your sleeping arrangement. The same applies for pillows and bedsheets.
Sleep Better, For Longer
This benefit, hardly a surprise, but old mattresses become worn out, broken and harsh on your body. Getting a new mattress, of better quality and finer materials, can breathe a new lease of life into your night’s sleep. You need to be comfortable when you’re sleeping, and depending on whether you’re sleeping alone or with a partner, you will need to take this into consideration. Sleeping longer will give you more energy and improves metabolism because when you’re more tired, you start to crave different foods – usually food that substitutes the energy you are lacking.
Sleep and Mental Health
A lack of a decent night’s sleep will not cause serious mental health issues. Continuous trouble mixed with the stress of life can become a large factor in illnesses such as depression. Not only does sleep and rest improve our mood, but it helps restore our mind’s rationale.
Being tired can skew our thinking, and stop us from dealing and overcoming emotional trauma. These types of things can indeed lead to poor mental health. Insomnia and sleep deprivation are telltale signs of mental health problems, usually related to how we deal with emotions and difficult situations. If you can improve your mattress and find better comfort, you may find an extra few hours sleep a week.
Posture and Aching
If you suffer from poor posture or muscle aches, there is a good chance that is all stemming from how you sleep. If your mattress is unforgiving, you will likely suffer back pain, joint pain or bedsores. If your mattress has worn down and beat-up springs, this will also cause discomfort and minimise sleep you get of a night.
A new mattress can solve this problem. Try memory foam for getting a comfortable sleep and a mattress that cradles your body.There are many ways a mattress can be the key to happiness, both when you’re asleep and when you’re awake. If you’re spending too much time tossing and turning because there’s a spring in your back, you need to look at the cost and health benefits of investing in a decent, high-quality mattress.
Make sure you research them and know what you want from a bed, because they’re often expensive and it’s rare you make such an investment. The health benefits are fantastic, and not only to make you feel more awake in the night, but more relaxed of a night.
