Summary

Improving your sleep quality starts with paying attention to your environment and sleep hygiene habits. Going to bed and waking up around the same time each day can dramatically help your body’s biological clock adjust to a regular schedule and help improve sleep quality. In addition, your bedroom should be dark and at a cool temperature between 65 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit for the best possible sleep. 

Do not lie in bed awake for more than 25 minutes. If you can’t fall asleep, get up and try an alternative activity until you feel truly sleepy. Then, return to bed to try falling asleep again. Lastly, be mindful of alcohol and coffee consumption throughout the day – both of which impact your sleep quality.

• Our biological, or “internal clock” plays a huge role in sleep quality.
• Temperature is huge, a cold room can help tremendously.
• Light exposure (in this case, darkness) and temperature matter!
• Do not lie in bed awake for more than 25 minutes. Changing the setting can often be very helpful. 
• Be mindful of coffee and alcohol consumption throughout the day. 

5 Tips to Improve Quality Sleep 

Fine-tuning your sleep and practicing good sleep hygiene are essential to function and feel your best. Despite it's significance, many people struggle to get high-quality sleep – night after night. Poor sleep regularly can wreak havoc on your brain power and pose serious risks to your physical health. However, improving sleep quality is easier than you’d think. Here are 5 tips to help you improve sleep quality and develop sleep habits that will last a lifetime.

Sleep and Wake Schedule

One of the simplest, yet most effective ways to improve the quality of your sleep is by sticking to a regular sleep/wake schedule. This means actively trying to maintain regularity – timing to wake up and go to sleep around the same time each day – including the weekends. This is due to your body’s suprachiasmatic nucleus, a structure responsible for managing the body’s circadian rhythm. This internal “clock” inside your body runs on a 24-hour schedule and is responsible for managing alertness and sleepiness.

Sticking to a similar sleep schedule each day helps provide regular for your circadian rhythm. In a 2020 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, researchers found that greater sleep variability contributed to adverse health outcomes. (1) Maintaining similar sleep and wake times is important to wake up feeling refreshed and protecting your physical health.

Room Temperature

Believe it or not, the temperature of your sleeping environment is also critical to supporting high-quality sleep. Because of a natural process called nocturnal thermoregulation, our body's need to drop about 1-2 degrees in body temperature every night as a natural part of the sleep cycle, especially during the onset of sleep. This process helps the body transition into deeper stages of sleep, as a lower body temperature is associated with promoting restorative rest, particularly during non-REM sleep.

 Your room environment’s actual air temperature, its ambient temperature, must be cold to allow your brain and body to drop temperature to fall asleep. In a meta-analysis of research by the Sleep Foundation, data suggests the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 65 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (2). 

Sleeping in a cold room is important to regulate the production of melatonin. In a Journal of Pineal Research study, researchers found that sleeping in a cool room helped support melatonin production and ultimately helped to regulate sleep patterns. Not only is the ambient temperature of the room important for the quality of your sleep, but it also can impact the duration of sleep and the ability to fall asleep as well.

Darkness

In addition to room temperature, you’ll want to pay close attention to the amount of light in your bedroom space. Our circadian rhythms are regulated by exposure to light and darkness. Darkness triggers the pineal gland in the brain to produce melatonin, which helps get us tired and ready for bed. On the other hand, when light is penetrating the eyelids, it can affect our ability to fall asleep and stay asleep (3).

With this in mind, aim to keep your sleeping environment as dark as possible to improve your sleep quality. Blackout curtains or eye masks are a great way to block excess light into the room. To prepare yourself for sleep in the last hour before bed, try to dim down the lights in your home to help promote sleepiness and help your brain produce melatonin. 

Walk It Out

If you have difficulty falling asleep, it’s normal to toss and turn out of frustration. However, if you’ve given it more than 25 minutes without any success – it might be time to try to change your environment. Try not to stay in bed for long periods awake. While remaining in dim light levels, move to another room to read a book, stretch, relax, and wait a while to return to bed when you get sleepy.

The reason for this “walk it out” tip is about training your brain. If you continue to lie in bed awake, it tricks your brain into associating your bed with a place where you are supposed to be awake. In a 2020 study published in Sleep Science, researchers found that staying awake in bed is associated with insomnia. Getting up and out of bed can help you break negative associations with bed and reestablish the relationship between bed and sleepiness over time (4).

Coffee and Alcohol

As you seek to improve the quality of your sleep, it’s also important to pay attention to the types of beverages you drink in the afternoon and evening hours of the day. The caffeine content in coffee acts as a stimulant which can greatly interfere with your ability to sleep and your sleep quality as a whole. 

In a 2023 meta-analysis published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, data suggests that caffeine consumption can affect sleep efficiency by 7% (5). In addition, to avoid sleep disruptions and maintain higher quality sleep, data suggests caffeine should be consumed at least 8.8 hours before bedtime. Consuming moderate amounts of caffeine (such as one cup of coffee) before noon should not affect sleep quality.

Consuming alcohol before bed can also disrupt your sleep quality. A 2018 study published in the Handbook of Clinical Neurology found that while alcohol can initially trigger sleepiness, it ultimately leads to decreased sleep quality later in the night (6). Additionally, overuse of alcohol regularly can lead to chronically poor sleep, lower slow-wave sleep, and more rapid eye movement sleep than normal. All of these disruptions contribute to poorer sleep quality.

Improving Sleep Quality with Lifestyle Changes

Simple lifestyle changes, such as adjusting your bedroom’s temperature or stopping coffee consumption after noontime, can make an impactful difference in improving your sleep quality. In turn, achieving optimal sleep helps support your brain performance, mental health, mood, and may even support improved physical performance as well.

References:

(1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33054339/

(2) https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment/best-temperature-for-sleep

(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4334454/#:~:text=The%20neurohormone%20melatonin%20is%20not,inhibits%20this%20mechanism%20%5B12%5D.

(4) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7856667/

(5) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36870101/

(6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821259/#:~:text=Acute%20administration%20of%20large%20amounts,sleep%20later%20in%20the%20night.