Who would have thought that something as ordinary as sleeping would hold so many unfamiliar things? From how many hours we should sleep at night and which positions are the best to what should we avoid if we want to sleep better. All of these things and more are carefully collected and detailed in an infographic created by DisturbMeNot’s team, which helps us understand why sleep is so important and what we can do to increase its quality.
How long you should sleep depends on several factors
Saying that everyone should sleep 8 hours per night is completely untrue. As it’s reported, the biggest indicator of how many hours one should sleep is age. Therefore, the younger you are, the more sleep your body needs. So, we go from 14 to 17 hours a night of sleep as a newborn to about 7 to 8 hours as an adult. Unfortunately, many of us don’t get the recommended amount of sleep, while parents are more likely to experience insomnia symptoms.
Exercising is as bad as it is good
Although we can’t deny the fact that exercising is good for your body as well as your quality of sleep, it can interfere with your night’s rest if you don’t time it well. If you’re the kind of person that exercises right before going to sleep, it’s about time you changed your routine. The best time to work out would be early in the day, or if you have to do it later, make sure you exercise 3 to 4 hours before going to bed.
There is a different nap for a different purpose
If you are a person that takes afternoon naps, you should know that the nap’s effect depends on its duration. So if you want to heighten your level of alertness, then a 10 to 20-minute nap would be perfect. If, however, you want to increase your cognitive memory processing, then take a 60-minute nap. A 90-minute nap, on the other hand, would be just what you need if you want to increase your creativity.
So sleeping isn’t as simple as we thought. Just like everything in life, it needs to be done properly if we’re to enjoy its benefits. With that being said, if you like these facts, there is a lot more where that came from in the infographic below.
