8 Ways to Get a Good Night Sleep for a Healthy Heart

We’ve been learning about the different ways we can take good care of our heart. In the past blog posts, we discussed exercise and diet. In this post, we will look at how having a good night sleep can help keep the heart healthy. We will also look at some ways to get a good night sleep.

Getting quality sleep every night is one simple way to protect your heart. When you have problems getting enough sleep, you will feel fatigued. You will possibly gain weight, too, as a result of eating more to satisfy your energy needs.  Lack of sleep can also cause high blood pressure, irregular heart rate, and increased heart rate, thus increasing your risk of heart disease.

How to have a good night sleep

If you are having some difficulty getting to sleep, here are some ways you can improve your sleep so you lower your risk of cardiovascular disease as well.

• Set aside stressful things. Stress can keep you from getting a good night sleep especially when you think about the problems right before bed.  Handle any major stressors long before you go to bed and be sure to keep your evenings free from stressful activities.

• Exercise daily. Exercising can help improve sleep.  But do not do it before bedtime or you may actually find it harder to fall asleep.  The rule of thumb is “Exercise at least four hours before bed so you can go to sleep without difficulty.”

• Avoid caffeine before bed. If you must drink caffeinated coffee or tea, do it several hours before going to sleep.

• Keep the TV out of your bedroom. Studies show that watching TV before bed or sleeping with the TV on actually keeps people from falling asleep earlier and staying asleep.

• Read a book. Reading is a good activity for calming the mind and allows a person to sleep better.

Read a book before going to bed to calm the mind.
Imge by Ldorfman via Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.

• Take a hot bath or drink a warm milk. If you do any of these, it can help you get to sleep. The process of cooling down the body after a hot bath or beverage actually causes a person to feel sleepy.

• Meditate. Try meditation or stretching, as in yoga, before bed to help relax your body.

• Follow your bedtime schedule.  Changing bedtimes can make it hard for your body to get to sleep when you should.  The recommendation is to develop the habit of going to bed at about the same time each night and then waking up at about the same time each morning.

It may take some time to get into a regular sleep pattern, but when you do, it  can help you stay focused and refreshed.  It will also prevent the heart disease that results from poor sleep patterns.

Sleep Apnea

Still can't sleep? One reason a person cannot get enough sleep is sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a condition that affects about 10% of the general population. People with sleep apnea stop breathing while sleeping. They have to wake up in order to breathe again.  Waking up out of deep sleep over and over again just to breathe is disturbing and causes lack of sleep and rest.

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea

Most people who have sleep apnea do not realize how much they are suffering from the condition. Symptoms of sleep apnea include snoring, feeling very sleepy during the day, feeling depressed and agitated.

Sleep Apnea Treatment

If you suspect you have this sleep disorder, you should talk to your doctor and get immediate treatment. You may need to lose some weight, use a special breathing machine or have a surgery in some cases. But doing something now helps to avoid the high blood pressure, the higher heart rates and possibly the heart attacks that result from this disorder.