How Sleep Hygiene Impacts Wellbeing

In the fast-paced, demanding culture that many of us live in, good sleep can sometimes feel like a luxury.

In reality, however, healthy sleep habits are a basic foundation to your overall wellbeing, and just as non-negotiable as hydrating, eating right, and exercising.

Though many people only think about healthy sleep in terms of the hours they get each night, there’s many more factors to sleep hygiene it’s important to consider, such as sleep stages, breathing patterns, and micro-awakenings that can undermine true, restorative rest.

In this guide, we’ll explain what sleep hygiene is, share practical strategies you can use for your sleep, and explain how to improve sleep with accessible habits and modern sleep monitoring tech.

What is Sleep Hygiene?

Sleep hygiene refers to the habits, routines, and environments that help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling well-rested. This can include simple things like lights-off routines and going to bed at a consistent time, all the way to bedroom temperature or overlooked breathing issues during sleep.

Poor-quality sleep can impact almost every system in the body, most noticeably affecting your attention span, decision-making, and memory consolidation - the crucial brain processes that allow you to think clearly and retain information.

In the long term, persistent sleep problems have also been linked to weaker immune systems, low-grade inflammation, and an increased risk of metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes. For countless people, the difference between enough sleep and consistent, genuinely restorative sleep is dependent on the quality of sleep cycles, and not simply when they set their alarm clock.

Practical Sleep Hygiene Strategies

Though poor sleep hygiene is an issue that affects countless people in the US and across the world, there are accessible ways you can start to improve your hygiene and see better results.

Here are 4 science-backed and realistic habits that can help you start to achieve consistent, high-quality sleep.

Keeping a Consistent Sleep / Wake Schedule

One of the most important steps you can take to improve your sleep hygiene is going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day, even on weekends. Sticking to a predictable circadian rhythm can help improve your sleep efficiency (the percentage of time spent in bed when you’re actually asleep) while maintaining REM and slow-wave sleep balance. Tracking these stats for 2-3 weeks will help you determine the exact sleep cycle your body prefers.

Reduce Screen Time Before Bed

Reducing screen time, especially before bed, can be a hugely effective way to give yourself an earlier sleep onset, and a higher quality of sleep overall. 

One study by the European Society of Endocrinology looking at the effects of blue light on adolescents’ sleep patterns found that participants who “had more than 4 hours per day of screen time had on average 30 minutes later sleep onset and wake up times than those who recorded less than 1 hour per day of screen time”.

Making a habit of putting your screen away 60-90 minutes before bed, or only using screens for calming, low-stimulation activities like reading or guided meditation, will help you achieve a shorter time-to-sleep and reduce moments of wakefulness during the night.

Adopt a Calming Bedtime Ritual

Having a 10-20 minute wind-down before bed, for example meditation or progressive muscle relaxation, can help shift your nervous system from a sympathetic (high concentration) to a parasympathetic (rest and digest) state. Mindfulness exercises are a common feature of modern cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatments for dealing with insomnia and other issues with a psychological cause.

These habits are simple, low-cost, and are known to provide measurable benefits for your quality of sleep. These kinds of habits provide the best results when they’re followed consistently.

Optimize Your Bedroom for Light, Noise, and Temperature

Even small adjustments to your bedroom environment can greatly improve the overall quality of your sleep.

Some examples of positive bedroom adjustments include:

• Use blackout curtains or a sleep mask to keep the light out of your eyes.
• Playing white noise through a Bluetooth speaker to mask disruptive sounds.
• Keeping a cool bedroom, aiming for roughly 16 - 19°C.
• Try out different pillows or bedding to maximize your comfort.

Why Awareness and Monitoring Matter

Many people assume that getting the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep a night is all you need to ensure high-quality sleep hygiene. However, the way you spend that time is just as important as the amount of time you spend sleeping.

Let’s look at some of the key reasons why awareness and monitoring of your habits is crucial for long-term sleep hygiene.

Sleep Stages and Disruptions

Healthy sleep cycles encompass light sleep, slow-wave deep sleep, and REM sleep. Different stages of the sleep cycle support different mental and physical processes, and repeated reductions in any stage can worsen the effects of sleep deprivation like daytime fatigue, and limit the positive long-term effects of sleep. By tracking your sleep habits, you can better understand sleep stage distribution and tweak your routines as needed.

Keeping Track of Sleep Apnea

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a condition in which your airway repeatedly narrows or collapses during sleep, causing a drop in oxygen intake and brief interruptions in sleep. According to medical journal Respiratory Medicine, approximately a billion people worldwide are affected by some form of sleep apnea, though it often goes undiagnosed. 

When left untreated, OSA can lead to higher risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and generally impaired daytime functioning, so monitoring for this is essential for anyone looking to maximize their sleep hygiene.

Using Data as a Tool for Behavior Change

By objectively tracking your sleep patterns, you can turn simple observations like “I feel tired today” into “my REM is down by X% and I woke up Y times last night.” We’ve found that this clarity can help motivate people towards better sleep habits, and test how changes to your habits can help you towards better nightly sleep.

RingConn reports a 90.7% accuracy in identifying obstructive sleep apnea patterns, and the RingConn Gen 2 measures sleep stages, SpO₂, and breathing patterns every night, giving you the information you need to develop better sleep hygiene.

Combining Smart Monitoring With Healthy Habits

Testing different variables of your sleep with reliable monitoring can give you a clearer idea of your body’s relationship with sleep, and the best way for you to achieve progress.

Some mini sleep science experiments you might want to try include:

• Trying blackout curtains for a week and tracking its effect on REM.
• Swapping out alcoholic drinks in the evening for non-alcoholic alternatives.
• Introduce a short mindfulness session to your bedtime routine.
• Documenting oxygen dips and breathing pauses, and sharing your data with your physician for a sleep apnea evaluation and advice.

Achieving Sleep Hygiene With Good Habits and Handy Data

Good day-to-day habits and an optimized bedroom will all have positive effects on your sleep hygiene. However, maximising long-lasting improvements quickly requires supporting your habits with objective and repeatable data.

We hope this guide has given you a good starting point to better understand your sleep hygiene and mental health, and begin changing it for the better. If you’re ready to start tracking and improving your sleep, check out RingConn’s features and product options today, or explore our intuitive platform for deeper, easier self-awareness around sleep.

By Sophie Bishop, Contributing Writer