As the world goes into a complete lockdown, we all are forced to stay at our home all day long. This has disturbed everyone’s daily life cycle, from spending time on social media platforms all day long to tossing and turning on the bed throughout the night, to having nightmares and worries about the coronavirus. There are plenty of reasons your sleep schedule has been disrupted during this pandemic.
A good night’s sleep is extremely vital for the health of your body and it is more important now than ever. Sleep is directly related to the power and effectiveness of our immune system, if we’re not taking a proper and healthy sleep, it can affect our immune system and make us more vulnerable to any form of diseases including coronavirus.
In simple words, your quality of sleep plays a direct role in your body’s ability to keep you safe from the novel coronavirus. So, in addition to all the recommended guidelines like hand-washing and social distancing, consider your own sleep health as another way to stay protected.
Here are some quick tips doctors and healthcare professionals recommend on improving the quality of your sleep, and boosting your productivity the next day:
1. Set Your Schedule and Routine
Being at home all the time because of the lockdown has resulted in a complete disruption in everyone’s daily schedule, Some staying up later now because they don’t have to get up so early for work while some are adjusting to working from home, others are managing work and family as they have to look after their children as all schools are shut as well.
Whatever the case maybe it’s of the utmost importance to keep a routine to get good sleep. you should adopt to keep your schedule and work on track. If you’re working from home, get up at the same time and get dressed, if you used to go to gym daily in the morning, get up and do some workout at your home itself, if you are used to of catching up with friends in evening, try to connect them over a group video call, just have that same sense of routine and regularity.
2. Watch What You Eat and Drink
Maintain a healthy diet, have nutritious foods and avoid eating junk food also keep a track on the timing of having your food, don’t skip on your meals, avoid eating food two hours before the bedtime, you don’t want to force your digestive system to work when your body is trying to don’t want to force your digestive system to work when your body is trying to unwind. Have good and regular intake of water throughout the day and lastly be cautious with the intake of alcohol and caffeine, especially later in the day, as both can disrupt the quantity and quality of your sleep. Follow these tips to have a healthy diet as this will promote good sleep.
3. Get some exercise
Yes, the gyms are closed, but exercise is vital and it should be a part of your daily life. Social distancing and stay-at-home orders may have narrowed down your options but there are several ways you can effectively exercise without leaving your home such as many gyms and yoga and dance studios are live-streaming free classes during this period of social distancing to keep your body fit and active. You can even try meditation, stretching, focused breathing or prayer to calm your mind and thoughts. However, timing is important. It’s best to avoid regroups exercise two hour before bedtime as this may affect our sleep duration and quality and also make it harder to get to sleep on time.
4. Don’t nap excessively
If you’re home all day in a self-quarantine or work-from-home situation due to the lockdown, the bedroom or couch might end up calling — a little too frequently, you may be tempted to take more naps, while a short power nap early in the afternoon can be useful to boost up the productivity but it’s best to avoid long naps or naps later in the day that can hamper night-time sleep.
5. Structure your news intake
Whenever we go to the news channels, it’s always about the novel coronavirus and it’s quite disturbing, don’t get this wrong but binge-watching the coronavirus news can harm your mind and thoughts, it can increase your anxiety level and can affect your sleep as well. We suggest scheduling and structure news updates, limit how many times per day, and for how long you will check your phone to read news related to the pandemic. This will keep your body at the poise and will help you in getting a quality sleep.
6. Leave your phone in another room
We know this one is a tad difficult to follow. With the internet being the ultimate source of entertainment especially during lockdown days, we start using our phones in the dark, scrolling on memes and surfing various social media platforms in hopes that this will help us drift off into sleep, but it’s doing just the opposite, it disturbs your entire sleeping schedule and you end up sleeping late at night and then find yourself dizzy the next day. We recommend limiting the blue light exposure from TV, phones, or any similar device at least two hours before your bedtime. As an alternative you can read a book or listen to music as a means of entertainment before bed.