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You may often wonder why your doctor always advise you to get enough sleep regularly. Well, just like nutrition and exercise, sleep is critical to our health, and when we don’t get quality sleep, it catches up with us in other areas, especially our productivity, focus, and concentration.

Although our modern-day living does not allow us to see the necessity for adequate sleep, we always encourage our patients at our Chiropractic office at Elizabeth City NC to get a good night’s sleep and keep a regular sleep pattern.

In this article, we’ll be showing you some importance of a good night’s sleep and steps you can take to get better sleep.

Importance of a Quality Sleep

You may think of sleep as a time when your brain and body temporarily shut off. But the truth is that while you are resting, your brain is busy overseeing a wide range of biological upkeep and preparing you for the next day.

Here are some benefits of adequate sleep:

• Replenish: Adequate sleep gives your body enough time to repair the damages caused by stress, muscle injuries, UV-rays, traumas, and other harmful exposures.
• Boosts energy levels: You enjoy increased energy levels when you take adequate sleep. This helps to improve your mental awareness. Besides, you need quality sleep for improved athletic performance, including agility, greater speed, and reflexes.
• Supports your immune system: Sleep helps to strengthen your immune system to ward off infection. When you don’t get enough sleep, it makes you more susceptible to illness.
• Stay Alert: Your mind regains focus when you take enough rest. This helps to tackle those tricky mental challenges and stimulate your creativity.
• Boosts memory: Your sleep time is the best period to shape memories and make the connections between feelings, events, and experiences. It is also needed to form new learning and memory pathways in the brain.

You become vulnerable to a lot of short- and long-term health risks like obesity, depression, automobile accidents, etc. when you don’t get enough sleep over time. Hence, ensure you get enough sleep every day.

Simple Natural steps to get better sleep

You might have tried many sleeping pills and prescription just to get better sleep, but it only left you feeling worse the following day. You may not need to take such sleep remedies. Here are some simple natural steps to help you get better sleep:

• Create a good sleep environment: Sometimes, all you need to get better sleep is to make your bedroom more restful. You can use an eye mask or blackout curtain to help you stay in the dark. Also ensure that the temperature stays below 67 degrees to help your body cool down, making you fall asleep.
• Cut back on caffeine: If you want to get better sleep, you need to reduce your caffeine intake to 250 mg per day. You can take more water or decaf later in the day.
• Exercise more: Studies have shown that physical activities like walking help people to sleep faster.  You can increase your daily exercise to keep your body active, and during the night you’ll feel more rested.
• Stay away from your devices: You can begin by shutting down all electronics like two hours before bedtime. This includes your phones, tablets, laptops- and all devices that emit blue light. This way, you tend to fall asleep faster and sleep better. If you have to, wear blue light blocking glasses. 

Other measures to get better sleep includes:

• Deep breathing or meditation to calm your mind
• Create a sleep schedule and stick to it
• Draw a hot bath before bed

If you truly want to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you need to get enough sleep to keep your body and mind working properly. You can consult Dr. Jason Jones at our Chiropractic office at Elizabeth City, NC to get recommendations on the best natural measures you can take to get better sleep and improve your overall health naturally.