According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over a third of Americans are not getting enough sleep, which is bad for a number of reasons but especially detrimental to people trying to lose weight. It’s right around this time of a year that gyms start to empty out as people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions, frustrated by lack of results despite reasonably good diet and consistent exercise, but there’s another factor that plays into physical fitness. You have to get a good night’s sleep, too. Not doing so could be undoing whatever hard work you’ve already done.

Good Sleep Energizes You

One of the things that keep people from exercising as often as they should is a lack of energy to do so. After a day of getting the kids ready for school, working all day, making dinner and running errands, it can be hard to find the energy to exercise. Studies have shown, however, that better sleep results in more energy for exercise, and one specific study from Stanford University even showed that increasing sleep helped athletes’ speed, accuracy and perceived feelings of well-being. More sleep means more energy, and that’s ideal for exercising.

Sleep Affects Your Metabolism

Surprisingly, a poor night’s sleep also can affect your fat cells. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that after just four consecutive days of poor sleep, your metabolism starts to change and your body no longer properly uses insulin.  This is bad because when insulin is doing its job, fat cells remove fatty acids and lipids from your bloodstream, which is what keeps fat from storing itself in your body. Bad insulin function, which is aided by bad sleep, means your body is going to store more fat. It even can be a factor in a diabetes diagnosis.

Sleep Helps with Muscle Growth

After you’ve spent a good hour of your day lifting weights, you’ve done half of the work toward meaningful muscle growth. The other half is getting the rest necessary for your muscles to repair and rebuild themselves. That is, effectively, why weightlifting works. Muscles are challenged and then repair themselves stronger than before. Sleep is necessary for ensuring that happens, though.

Poor Sleep Makes You Crave Food

Hunger is controlled by two hormones, leptin, and ghrelin, but one study found that sleeping fewer than six hours a night depresses your body’s ability to create these two hormones. In other words, if you’re not sleeping well enough, your body will be physically unable to control its hunger. That, obviously, can cause big problems in terms of physical fitness.

Many of us tell ourselves that there’s no time for a good night’s sleep, but those people working so diligently to improve their physical fitness absolutely need a good night’s sleep. We obviously can help with that here at Ben’s by offering comfortable mattresses for all types of different sleepers, but what you do with those mattresses, as well as what you do in terms of fitness and diet, are entirely up to you.

There aren’t many human beings on the face of this planet that wouldn’t indulge in a daily nap if they had the time and lack of responsibilities to do so, but even those who do manage to squeeze one in occasionally can’t always make the most of them. Few things are more frustrating than waking up groggy and still tired after an exceptionally unsuccessful snooze.

So how do we make the most of our naps? The following are a few tips to ensure that you end up using your precious nap time in a way that leaves you refreshed and energized to finish out your day:

#1 Don’t Sleep Too Long

Making up for your sleep debt with a long nap sounds like a great idea until you wake up from a three-hour nap with a headache and an overall sluggish feeling in your body. The ideal nap is somewhere in between 20 and 60 minutes, so get the sleep you need without overdoing it, otherwise, you may have a hard time falling back asleep at your normal evening bedtime.

#2 Nap in the Afternoon

Science has proven that human beings really do go into a biological lull approximately six or seven hours after they originally wake up. That means planning naps for the afternoon for most people.

#3 Make Sure You Own a Comfortable Mattress

Here at Ben’s, we provide several different mattress options to help people get comfortable, but having the perfect spot for a nap, whether it be your own bed or a beloved couch somewhere else in the house, is key for making the most of your snooze time.

#4 Train Yourself Not to Need Alarms

While some people will crash for an excessively long nap if they don’t set an alarm, those that have trained themselves to have healthy napping habits will find that they can wake up themselves after 20-60 minutes. Being jolted awake by an alarm is stressful, so training yourself to wake up naturally is the much more desirable option.

#5 Don’t Exercise Beforehand

Wait at least 45 minutes after exercising to take a nap so your heart rate can return to its resting state and allow you the best possible sleep. Done the right way, sleep can actually help with recovery after a good workout.

#6 Avoid Alcohol or Sleep Aids to Get Started

Plenty of people seem to think that booze will help them initiate sleep, but there are few periods of sleep as restless as those caused by alcohol or sleeping pills. Waking up from a nap that started off with chemical assistance is almost sure to leave you feeling gross and exhausted the minute you wake up.

If you can do all of these things, you will enjoy some truly refreshing naps, which is important when there isn’t an especially big window for most people to nap during the day anyway. Here at Ben’s, we always want the best sleep for our customers, and there’s nothing quite like a comfy bed in the middle of the afternoon to gear you up for the rest of the day!

The term “sleep hygiene” makes it sound as though it would refer to how clean a person is when they hit the hay every night, but the definition of “hygiene” extends well beyond cleanliness. In fact, sleep hygiene really is a blanket term for the set of sleeping practices, habits and environmental influences that impact one’s quality of sleep. All types of hygiene are integral to ensuring that human beings remain happy and healthy, but sleep hygiene is especially important because, frankly, not everyone is getting the quality sleep that they need every night.

The following tips are best practices for getting the most quality of out your sleep routine.

Establish Healthy Personal Sleeping Habits

Part of practicing good sleep hygiene is establishing healthy personal sleeping habits, which focus primarily on the things you can do as an individual to ensure a better night’s sleep.

Establish a Bedtime Routine

Try to do the same thing every night. Whatever your usual routine consists of, trying to carry it out at a recurring time helps your body maintain a sense of consistency. Go to bed at the same time, brush your teeth, wash your face, and read a book. The more you train your body to know when to sleep, the easier it will be to fall asleep.

Exercise

It’s proven that working out during the day leads to a better night’s sleep, so while it isn’t always possible to exercise every day, some physical exertion is better than none, and it will help you sleep better at night.

Avoid Eating or Drinking Too Close to Bedtime

Eating before bed triggers stomach acids that can drum up the sort of acid reflux that keeps you up all night. Alcohol and caffeine before bed are even worse, as they both disturb sleep in their own ways, as well.

Relax Before Bed

Try to make the hour before bedtime as relaxing as possible. Do things that make you feel calm rather than things that hype you up or raise your heart rate.

Create a Healthy Sleeping Environment

The other aspect of good sleep hygiene is ensuring that your sleeping environment is appropriate for a good night’s sleep.

Get Rid of Screens

Your devices can mess with your circadian rhythms, so removing them from your sleep environment is an easy way to ensure your body knows when to sleep.

Keep Your Room Dark

Your body wants to sleep when it’s dark, so no matter when your sleeping hours are, try to make the room as black as possible.

Sleep in Cooler Temperatures

Studies have shown that humans sleep better when the evening temperature is in between 60 and 67 degrees, so keep your own bedroom cooler at night to get a better night’s rest.

Make Sure Your Bed is Comfortable

Finally, and this is an important one, a comfortable bed will help you practice good sleep hygiene as well. If you’ve had your mattress for more than eight or nine years, it may be time for you to start considering some new mattress options at Ben’s.

If you can do all of these things, you will enjoy much more quality sleep. Here at Ben’s, we can help by getting you in the most comfortable bed possible, so allow us to take our small part in ensuring better sleep hygiene by getting you into one of our most comfortable beds today!