‘Biohacking’ has become an increasingly popular method of accessing a more balanced sense of wellbeing, and quick, by those who’ve been interested enough to try it. But what exactly is biohacking, and how can we use to our advantage without hoping for overnight change?
Biohacking basically refers to the manipulation of your body’s physiology in order to promote healthier, more balanced ways of living. This could be something as simple as taking a cold shower for more energy, to something more complex such as drastic diet measures to lose weight quicker.
It is important when doing your research to ensure the tips you adopt into your own life are sustainable, truly healthy, and not just shortcuts to wellbeing. Getting better sleep is a biohack in and of itself, but there are ways in which you can induce it, whether it’s by investing in the best mattress for your sleep position, or by building a nightly routine that promotes peaceful feelings.
At a time when rest and time doing nothing is thought of as wasteful, it is important to take a step back and recognize the importance of healthy sleep cycles to our general levels of productivity. Here are a few ways to ensure you’re using the principals of biohacking to make healthier steps moving forward:
Making sure you have the right set-up for the job
Nothing induces sleep better than the best mattress tailored to your needs. While there’s always going to be a wide range of options, you’ll find memory foam mattresses tend to be the best mattress for those looking to be equally supported and comforted through their night’s sleep.
The best mattresses will be engineered for ease of maintenance, so look out for ones with hypoallergenic and stain-resistant qualities to ensure you’re not spending more money in looking after it than you’ve actually spent on it.
Keeping healthy patterns up during the day
Before wondering if your nightly routine is in order, it’s important to reflect on how important daily habits become to having a healthy sleep cycle. This includes eating the right foods, having healthy and regular social connections, and exercising regularly. While the right type of workout may vary from person to person, ensuring you have some level of cardio on a daily basis can go a long way in regulating sleep cycles.
Whether you’re an athlete or you’re simply starting out with exercising on a regular basis, the best mattress should also be able to relieve your pressure points and give your body the opportunity to restore itself throughout the night.
This may be made easier by using an adjustable base, which allows you to adjust the height and angles of your bed, ensuring you’re really in the best mattress position you can be to maximize recovery from injury through the night.
Finding the right sleep accessories to help
If you’ve struggled with sleep deprivation before, you’re likely to have heard of weighted blankets. Studies on weighted blankets have looked into the root cause of their success with troubled sleepers, especially since they started out as a way to help children with autism get to bed faster.
The general consensus surrounding weighted blankets is that they’re able to utilize something known as gentle pressure stimulation to evoke feelings of security and comfort in those who use it. It’s important to choose a weighted blanket that clocks in at about 10% of your overall body weight so that you aren’t feeling overly weighed down or overheat through the night.
The feeling of being uniformly weighed down upon that weighted blankets cause is akin to being embraced tight or being swaddled, which our brains associate with the same levels of rest we were used to as children. Weighted blankets can, therefore, be an equally effective way to ensure you’re dealing with your lack of sleep in the best way you can. When it comes to picking the right weighted blanket for you, it’s important to do your research – ensure it meets your needs and is worth your investment.
Staying away from blue light close to bedtime
Our phones, laptops, and other electronic devices have become, for better or worse, extensions of ourselves. While they’ve helped and optimized our lives in so many ways, one way in which they’ve hurt more than helped is to disrupt our body’s production of melatonin, which alerts you to when you need to be feeling tired, and when it’s time to rest.
Even the best mattress won’t help if you decide to keep your phone lying by your side while trying to get a good night’s rest. Similarly, try to make your bedroom a place of rest and recharge when it comes to the evening. This might mean ensuring very little light is able to enter your room, so your body can really switch modes when it has to. The best way to sleep involves ensuring that your external environment helps the tools you’ve invested to keep yourself having a good night’s rest.
When it comes to trouble sleeping, every article you research online might have a different take on how to achieve a good night’s rest quickly.