Struggling to have sound sleep? Inculcate these 7 habits before you hit bed

Follow 10 3 2 1 0 rule before sleep

Remember to cut off caffeine 10 hours before bed. Do not indulge yourself in drinking alcohol 3 hours before bed. Stop working entirely 2 hours before, get away from your screens before 2 hours and hit the snooze button zero times.

Reflect on your day

Try to remember the happy moments that you had for the whole day. Give equal weightage to your successes and failures, try to reflect on your abilities and weaknesses, and take a pledge to do better the next day.

Stretch

Before hitting the bed, you should stretch a bit to relax your body as you must have spent a considerable amount of your day either hunching over a computer or travelling. Simple things including stretching, deep breathing exercises or progressive muscle relaxation can help relieve mental and physical drain.

Maintain a sleep diary

You can monitor your sleep record and uncover elements that may be promoting or hindering your sleep by keeping a daily sleep journal. Your sleep journal can be a useful tool for tracking the effectiveness of any new sleep schedule.

Unplug

The blue light emitted by your computer and other gadgets can keep you up, so as experts have always pointed out, say bye to your beloved gadgets an hour or two before bed.

Check your pre-bed diet

Our body is not designed to digest and sleep at the same time, so you have two options. Either you can have a heavy dinner early in the night or stick to lighter foods if you will be eating late. You can prefer consuming food that can help to optimize the release of melatonin. Warm milk can be a good option.

Adopt a bedtime ritual

Your body and mind need a signal that it is bedtime, so develop a ritual consisting of a series of relaxing actions that you can perform each night and act as your switch. You will observe that soon these actions will become your habit. Reading and taking a bath can be good picks.