Welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
I'm Oliver, and today we are going to be talking about something that's important for everyone, and that is sleep.
Getting a good night's sleep can improve our health, our mood and focus.
But many people struggle to sleep well.
So in this episode I'm going to have a look and talk about some tips to help you get better sleep each night.
And hopefully along the way you will learn some new English words and get some useful, helpful English listening practice.
Let's get started.
So first off, let's look at why sleep matters.
Why is sleep important?
So, when we sleep, our bodies recharge and our brains organize everything that we've learned throughout the day.
Good sleep helps our memory, our mood and our energy.
Without enough sleep, we can feel tired, stressed and kind of like it's harder to concentrate.
So harder to focus on things.
So if you want to feel healthier and more focused, a good sleep routine is key.
Sleep is a very important part of having a healthy lifestyle.
Just think even about yourself.
How many times have you had a bad night's sleep and the next day?
It is so hard to focus, to learn, to listen to new information and maybe to even learn English.
So by getting better sleep, you might be able to learn English better too.
So now let's look at some tips for better sleep.
Here are some simple changes that you can make starting even tonight to try to improve your sleep.
I try to do most of these because often I have bad sleep too.
And I think that we can all find something that we can improve to get a better night's sleep.
So let's get started.
The first point is pretty basic and it's something that we should all do anyway.
And that is to set a sleep schedule. to try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
It doesn't matter if it's a weekend or a weekday, we should go to bed and wake up at the same time.
This allows our body to create a natural sleep rhythm, which makes it easier for us to fall asleep and wake up feeling refreshed.
I don't know about you, but for me, I struggle with this.
At the weekend, I always want to stay up later.
I want to do things, maybe watch a movie, to read a book and relax, and then I find it hard to get up early.
I am definitely a night owl.
I like to stay up at nighttime.
I am not a morning person.
I don't like early mornings.
But of course, when we are working Monday to Friday on a weekday, we need to get up early for most people.
So I do have to get up early, but on the weekends, I don't want to.
So this is a tip that I can get better at for sure.
The second tip is to create a routine, ideally a calming routine.
Before bed, we should do something relaxing.
This can be like reading a book, maybe taking a warm shower or listening to some calm, relaxing music or a podcast.
Maybe even this podcast could help.
What you should do is avoid activities that might make you feel too awake, such as watching TV or using your phone, maybe to message or to type something.
Another tip, which I am quite bad at, is to limit caffeine and sugar.
So we should avoid coffee, tea and sugary snacks close to bedtime.
And, to be honest, I've heard some people say that we shouldn't drink coffee or caffeine in general after lunchtime.
And for me, this is very hard.
I love coffee.
And maybe you listened to the previous episode of the podcast where I talked about coffee and how much I love it.
So this is very hard for me.
But these things like caffeine and sugar keep you awake and make it harder to fall into a deep sleep.
So it's probably better that we drink maybe herbal tea or something without caffeine.
But I know this is easier said than done.
It is easier to talk about rather than to do.
Another point that we can do is to exercise during the day.
Regular exercise definitely helps us to sleep better, but it's better to not exercise right before bed, as this can make us even more awake.
And finally, our last point is to make your bedroom comfortable.
It is better for us to have a dark, quiet and a comfortable temperature room.
If our room is too bright or we have light coming from outside, we can use an eye mask to block out the light.
And for noise, you could try to maybe use earplugs or white noise.
I use white noise.
It really helps me because I am a light sleeper.
A light sleeper is someone that wakes up easily.
So anytime I hear a noise like someone opening a door or a loud motorbike outside, I wake up.
I wake up so easily to noise.
And I find that using white noise really helps me.
So it very much helps me to sleep more deeply.
So next we are going to look at common sleep challenges.
So some things that really affect my sleep.
But first I just want to quickly say that if you would like to support this podcast, there is a Patreon that you can click the link to in the description.
Every week I upload extra bonus episodes of the podcast to the Patreon with extra content and a brand new series called Easy News in English, where I read a news article and story in English for you and explain difficult words.
So the link is in the description below.
And if you'd like to support, please check it out and help our project.
Thank you.
Now back to the episode.
So some common challenges we've already talked about but others I would say are stress.
Stress is a really, really big challenge for sleep and, of course, if we feel stressed, it can be very difficult to get a good night's sleep.
There is nothing worse than lying in bed at night and thinking about work or about some kind of difficult task that you have to do.
So something that might help with this is to try to calm your mind.
That could be deep breathing, for example.
It could be listening to relaxing music or maybe even meditation or yoga, something like that.
For each of us, we have different things that can help us to calm our mind.
But those are just a few things that we can do to try to help.
Another thing that sometimes can be out of our control is noise.
I briefly mentioned this before but white noise or ear plugs can really help with this.
Trying to sound proof our room to keep noise out can also very much help.
Those are just a few things that we can do and some challenges that we face.
And I think that we can all try to get a better night's sleep.
So I hope that you enjoyed this episode.
If you're new, please subscribe.
If you're not, let me know in the comments below and maybe tell me how do you sleep?
Are you a light sleeper, heavy sleeper?
Do you sleep?
Well, let me know, and i hope you have a great night's sleep today.
Goodbye, and see you in the next episode bye.
