How to Have Better Sleep During the Cold Season

Depending on where you live from time to time you experience the winter season or some sort of cold temperature for some time. Cold temperatures affect our sleep in various ways. Therefore, we should be able to know how we should maintain our routine during the cold seasons. Regardless, maintaining a sleep routine during a cold season could be a challenge due to the urge of wanting to stay in bed for long. After all, during the cold seasons, the nights are long and snuggling up by a fire or staying in bed with cozy blankets is the norm for most people. During this season sleep is different for most people. However, there are several ways to ensure you get better sleep in both quantity and quality as mentioned below.

Beware of overeating

During the cold season, people tend to eat more since the warm food comforts them and makes them feel better. Plus, many people do not exercise as much during this time. Through this many people add some weight and as the overeating continues the need for more comfort food grows more. By overeating, your sleep will be affected first in quality and then in quantity. For eating too much before bedtime will cause poor sleep, a lot of turning and tossing. At times it leads to stomach upsets or heartburns that keep you up most of the night. Eventually, you have fragmented sleep and by morning you feel fatigued due to the sleep cycle disruption.

Enjoy the morning sun

Enjoy the morning sun

To have better sleep during the cold season get light in the morning. This will help your sleep-wake upcycle since the sunlight helps suppress the melatonin hormone that helps the body prepare for sleep. Through this, your system can wake up with ease. It’s also important to realize that during the cold season the sun sets earlier causing melatonin productions to be higher by the evening. This makes you tired earlier in the evening. Therefore, with these changes during the cold season ensure you control your melatonin levels with the exposures to light and avoid disrupting your cycle at night with a bright light at nights to lower it and make you more alert. Which will make you more alert instead of sleepy at night.

Prevent colds and flu

A cough, sneezing spells, and a stuffy nose always interfere with good night sleep and in cold seasons they are almost inevitable. Regardless there are several ways that you can practice to keep them off and remain healthy. Getting a flu shot is a great prevention measure and also avoiding those with flu helps a lot. Wash your hands frequently for the flu germs are everywhere you pass through while outside. In case you get the flu over the counter medicines like, antibiotics, decongestants check their side effects they could be having ingredients that interfere with sleep, especially when overdosed.

Discipline your nap time

 

During the cold season, most people feel the urge to nap a lot or sleep more in the morning. It is important to resist the urge for either of them to avoid affecting your sleep routine. By disciplining your naps, you will be able to have better sleep at night. For many or long naps during the day make you alert at night making you sleep late hours to waking up too early in the morning. This will make you sleep deprived and affect your whole day simply by over napping. Discipline is a necessity for those who have to nap to be able to get out of the cozy trundle bed during the cold season.

Control the heat in your home

Most people overheat their homes during the cold seasons with heaters or adding piles and piles of wood to be warm. Yet, our bodies are designed to sleep better when the body temperatures drop. Therefore, overheating our houses to keep the cold out only makes our ability to sleep impossible and uncomfortable as well. Turn down the heat of the house when bedtime is getting closer to prepare the body for sleep. Reducing the many covers on your bed also helps a lot to promote sleep and have better sleep during the cold season.

Continue with the exercise routine

 

Those who exercise regularly when the weather is perfect and it’s warm and sunny outside. Enjoy the benefits of exercise to sleep in that your sleep quality improves for the better with more exercising. When the cold season comes do not skimp on exercise due to the dropped temperatures, early sunsets and late sunrises. Push yourself out of bed to enjoy the benefits during this different seasons. Commit to exercise even when it’s half the time of your usual exercise routine to be able to fall asleep with ease and boost your energy levels during your day.

Avoid Alcohol

If alcohol is limited hours before sleep it rarely affects sleep quality. But during the cold season and holidays, many people tend to overindulge due to the opportunities that are involved. Alcohol maybe a sedative but how the body feels after affects sleep. The many wake ups at night cause a lot of fragmented sleep. Plus, the fatigue in the morning causes you to have a long day leading you to take caffeine to keep up, which eventually affects sleep. Take a bottle of water with every bottle of alcohol to dilute its effects and protect the quality sleep you should get later on.

To sum up, sleep should be considered as a priority during the cold season. This should not mean that people should oversleep or rather sleep less. It is good to also keep stress levels low during this time for some people could be feeling depressed for they get seasonal affective disorder. Which affects them and eventually interfere with their slumber. Have time to meditate and drink some relaxing teas like chamomile to calm you down and help you sleep. consulting a sleep specialist also helps if you are not getting better sleep.