What Causes Restless Sleep & How To Prevent
Tossing and turning all night is a frustrating experience that can leave you feeling exhausted the next day. Restless sleep can stem from various factors, each playing havoc with your ability to get a good night's rest.
In this article, we’ll get into the reasons behind your sleep struggles and offer some effective solutions. The sooner you get to the source of your restlessness, the faster you’ll get back to good, quality sleep.
If you’ve been sleepless for a while, you may have forgotten, so let us remind you — there is nothing in the world that feels as good as waking up well-rested and energized after a great night’s sleep.
What Causes Restless Sleep?
Restless sleep is a pervasive issue that affects millions. The reasons behind why you might find yourself tossing and turning can vary widely, encompassing both internal states and external influences.
Let's delve deeper into some of the most common culprits that disrupt our nightly rest.
1. Anxiety and Stress
Anxiety and stress are prime culprits behind restless nights. Increased anxiety can significantly impact your sleep quality by keeping your mind active when you should be winding down.
Stress also triggers a cascade of physical responses in your body, like muscle tension, that make it difficult to relax and drift off to sleep peacefully. In the stillness of the night, worries and fears can seem magnified, keeping the brain in a state of alertness that obstructs the natural sleep process.
2. Overstimulation
In our digital age, overstimulation is a common issue. The blue light emitted by screens can interfere with the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep cycles.
Additionally, external noises and lights can keep your senses alert, making it hard to settle down for the night. Beyond digital devices, our environments are often filled with stimuli that can delay sleep onset, from street lights shining through curtains to the hum of household appliances. Creating a nightly routine that includes winding down without screens and ensuring your sleeping environment is dark and quiet can greatly improve your ability to fall asleep.
3. Poor Sleep Schedule
Irregular sleeping patterns can disrupt your body’s internal clock. Whether you go to bed too early, too late, or at inconsistent times, such irregularities can prevent your body from establishing a rhythm that facilitates smooth transitions to sleep.
Sticking to a regular bedtime, even on weekends, can help anchor your body's internal clock to a consistent sleep-wake cycle, enhancing overall sleep quality. This includes establishing pre-sleep rituals that signal that it's time to wind down, perhaps reading a book or taking a warm bath, further aiding in the transition to rest.
4. Daytime Oversleeping
While short naps can be beneficial, napping too much during the day can make it tougher to fall asleep at night. If your body isn’t sufficiently tired at bedtime, you’re likely to find yourself staring at the ceiling instead of snoozing.
This generally is about your circadian rhythm, so even if you don’t take naps during the day, if you’re drinking caffeinated beverages late in the evening, working out too close to bedtime, or otherwise doing things that will keep you awake too late in the day, it can make for a truly restless night.
5. Dietary Impacts
What you eat affects how you sleep. An imbalanced diet can lead to deficiencies in essential nutrients that support sleep, such as magnesium and B vitamins, disrupting your body’s natural ability to wind down at night.
6. Underlying Medical Conditions
Restless Legs Syndrome, Sleep Apnea, and Insomnia can directly cause sleep disturbances. These conditions create physical discomforts or physiological challenges that make it difficult to stay asleep throughout the night.
If you’ve tried the other solutions and restless sleep is still a persistent problem for you, it’s worth a visit to your doctor to discuss whether there might be an underlying issue. Ultimately, no lifestyle changes are going to fix your restlessness if there’s a larger condition at play, so it’s important to take it seriously.
What Can You Do To Prevent Restless Sleep?
There are many small changes you can make to improve the quality of your sleep. If you’re really frustrated with the quality of your sleep, it might be tempting to follow all of these suggestions at once, but it’ll be more helpful if you make simple changes that will be easy to maintain in the long term.
1. Fix Your Sleep Temperature
If your room is too warm or cold, it might be contributing to the quality of your sleep. A too-heavy comforter can be a recipe for disaster on this front, locking too much heat in and leaving you sweaty and uncomfortable and, consequently, wide awake.
Our Miracle Made® Comforter is designed with cutting-edge technology to keep you at the perfect temperature all night, reducing the common problem of waking up too hot or cold. Thanks to its NASA-inspired thermoregulating technology, the comforter remains fluffy yet effective in maintaining optimal sleep temperature.
With its 300-thread count Miracle Clean & Cool™ fabric, this comforter brings hotel luxury to your bedroom. Its silver-infused, anti-bacterial properties prevent up to 99.7% of bacteria growth, offering a cleaner sleeping environment.
These self-cleaning capabilities mean it requires three times less laundering than traditional bedding. Fewer washes not only save time and energy but also preserve the fabric’s integrity and performance longer.
2. Practice Relaxation Techniques
If you have a sense that your restless nights are more mental than physical, getting into meditation or progressive relaxation techniques can help teach your mind to relax when your body is ready to rest.
Deep breathing exercises can be useful, and there are all kinds of tapes and apps available to help you with both that and visualization techniques so that you can fall asleep and stay asleep.
3. Maintain a Consistent Schedule
Going to bed and waking up at the same time can work wonders for restlessness. Even if it’s a weekend, if you’re struggling with sleep, sticking to your work-week timings can be crucial. Consistency doesn’t just apply to bedtime and your alarm, however.
This also applies to when you workout, when you shower, and when you eat. Make sure you’re not doing anything close to bedtime that might interfere with your sleep by developing a consistent, easy-to-follow routine that supports your body’s natural rhythm.
4. Upgrade Your Bedding
There’s nothing like tumbling into the soft, fresh bedding at a fancy hotel. Other than upping your laundry game so that your blankets stay soft like that, you can also upgrade your sheets so that you look forward to wrapping yourself in them every night. The right environment and habits can significantly improve your sleep quality.
Transform your bed with our ultra-luxurious Miracle Made® Sheets, designed to complement the perfect sleep environment created by the Miracle Comforter. Like our comforter, these sheets are infused with silver to keep them free from up to 99.7% of bacteria and odors.
The result? Fresher sheets for longer, less frequent washing, and a significant reduction in nighttime disturbances caused by discomfort and allergies.
The Bottom Line
Restless sleep doesn’t just steal your nighttime comfort. It robs you of next-day energy and focus. Understanding what disrupts your sleep is the first step toward finding solutions that work.
By creating an ideal sleeping environment and making some simple lifestyle adjustments, you can address many of the common causes of sleep disturbances. Ready to say goodbye to restless nights?
Embrace the change with Miracle Brand, and experience the profound difference a night of truly restful sleep can make.
Sources:
How Blue Light Affects Kids’ Sleep | Sleep Foundation
Understanding Circadian Rhythms | National Sleep Foundation
Restless Legs Syndrome | Mayo Clinic
