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and never forget another password and keep all your online accounts secure! Are you the kind of person that wakes up and
always seems to feel tired? Sometimes you got eight hours’ sleep, sometimes
twelves hours, sometimes 5 hours, but never mind how well you think you slept you always
wake up feeling slightly groggy. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Let’s now attempt to put things right for
you. While waking up for you is nothing special,
a lot of things happen to your body when you awaken in the morning. For instance, your heart rate will get faster
and your breathing will become quicker. Your blood flow will increase and your brain
will start producing different kinds of brainwaves. Your liver and kidneys during the night were
in sleep mode, but when you awake they go back to waking mode. You basically rev up for the day and when
you open those eyes of yours the lots of external stimuli will flood your blood. During the night when you were in sleep mode
you will have experienced something called REM, or rapid eye movement. Most people have about five of these periods
during sleep, interspaced with non-REM sleep. If you want to know what REM looks like, just
watch your dog’s eyes flickering when it is enjoying some ZZZs. It’s during these rapid eye movements when
you dream, and you are in what we call deep sleep. If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of
a dream, you woke up during REM. This is important for today’s show, because
the experts say we need this deep sleep. Sometimes you might take a pill to sleep,
and while you may think you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep, the drugs may have affected
how much real deep sleep you got. Let’s say you didn’t get down with enough
REM. You’ll likely know this because you wake
up tired and feel mightily irritable throughout the day. If this keeps happening you’ll get more
irritable, and not getting enough sleep over a long period of time can actually affect
your health because when we sleep our bodies go into repair mode. When we are sleeping we are charging, and
if you want to wake up feeling super-charged then you have to get enough sleep. Dreaming is important too, it’s like allowing
your thoughts to spill out. It’s kind of psychological cleansing. So, we are told that the average adult should
be getting seven to nine hours of good sleep per night. Many of you now will be thinking, hmm, that’s
not me. Some of you will get that much sleep but still
wake up tired. Now we are going to tell you how you can wake
up feeling better. First of all, watch what you eat. You shouldn’t eat a lot before you sleep,
and if you’ve snacked on a bunch of processed carbs before bedtime you blood sugar levels
are going to be high and this can prevent you from having a good night’s sleep. You should have plenty of water, though, and
we suggest you keep water near your bed. If you wake up dehydrated it might not matter
how many hours you got and you might still feel sluggish. Being dehydrated can slow you down. Another thing is to exercise. We are not asking you to start doing 5 mile
runs every evening, but just move about a bit in the day. Exercise can oxygenate your blood and in turn
this provides nutrients to your brain and heart. If you are someone who is very lazy don’t
think you’ll sleep better because you’re so good at not moving. That’s not the case at all. We shouldn’t have to tell you this, but
during the night turn off the alerts on your phone. You might think that you don’t hear those
beeps, but each beep might upset those deep sleep cycles your body so much enjoys. It’s really not hard to turn off those alerts,
so start doing it now. Another thing you might not have heard about
is not hitting that snooze button. Small increments of sleep do nothing for you
at all. It’s that good sleep you want. If you enter into a new sleep cycle and then
disrupt it after a 10-minute snooze you are basically ruining that cycle. Your body doesn’t like this. The experts tell us there is something called
the 90-minute technique, which means setting your alarm 90 minutes before you really want
to get up. It’s like a long snooze. During those 90 minutes you’ll enter into
a REM period and that’s good for you. You could not press the snooze button at all,
but some people think it’s good to have that early wake up call. When you wake up the first thing you want
to do is stretch. We mean put some effort into this, and not
just do the arms in the air thing. Some people do some easy yoga moves. Why would you do this you might wonder? The answer is because when you sleep you are
in state of extreme relaxedness, which isn’t far from paralysis. The word for this state is atony. You need to come out of this to feel fresh,
but most people just saunter around in the morning. It’s been proven that doing a few easy exercises
in the morning stimulates your brain and endorphins start rushing in. This will make you feel happier and give you
energy. On top of this, hit that cold water as soon
as possible. In hot countries a cold shower might be the
thing to do in the morning, but that might not be possible when it’s cold outside. Nonetheless, wherever you are you should splash
cold water on your face first thing, not hot water. Some experts say that you should keep a spray
bottle next to your bed and spray yourself the moment you wake up. It’s a short, sharp shock and will get you
going. It might sound silly, but try it and then
tell us what you think. As for eating in the morning, well, these
days a lot of people like to skip breakfast and fast, but there is research that tells
us breakfast will give you energy in the morning and will provide you with energy throughout
the day. But if you look online you’ll find a lot
of people seem to cope with the day better not eating breakfast while others need their
breakfast. We guess you should try both and see what
works for you. If you do eat something, though, don’t go
for sugary stuff. If you do, your blood sugar will spike, and
then it will drop. You don’t need this kind of hit as the comedown
will slow you down. As for caffeine, some studies have shown that
a lot of caffeine can wear a person out later in the day. We are not saying don’t drink coffee, but
experiment with how you feel drinking certain amounts of it. Coffee before bed is a no no. Most people might think that a coffee a few
hours before bed is ok, but the stuff has a half-life of 5 to 8 hours. Make sure your last coffee is a long time
before you plan to sleep. Believe it or not some studies have shown
that if the sun is out then stick your head out of the window and get some. We found a study called “Vitalizing effects
of being outdoors and in nature.” It said participants felt refreshed just looking
at nature, so open those curtains in the morning ASAP. If you get some sun on your face that is good
because sunlight can increase serotonin levels. Another thing you should do is some mental
accounting first thing. It’s simple. Tell yourself what you might find difficult
in the day and how you might address that. It’s a literal weight off your mind. Now comes the good part, because then you
should think of at least one thing you are looking forward to in the day. People generally don’t do this, but they
should. It sets the day for you. Be clean. What we mean by this is don’t go to bed
feeling sweaty or dirty, it could affect how well you sleep. In many Asian countries people always shower
before bed, but it’s not the same in other countries. Make sure you go to sleep in a clean and comfortable
bed and when you wake up make sure you make that bed. Making the bed is like preparing for the day
ahead. It shows you are ready to face the day. On top of this, try to wake up at the same
time each day so you maintain your circadian rhythm. If you’ve never heard of that, it’s your
sleep/wake cycle. The National Sleep Foundation tells us this
about it, “The more you pay attention to your body and notice feelings of alertness
and drowsiness, and the more time you spend developing good sleep hygiene habits, the
better your slumber will be and the better you'll feel.” Your body just loves consistency and it will
pay you back for it. Before you sleep it’s best not to play games
or do anything that might stress you out. For the hour before bedtime try and do something
very relaxing, such as reading a book or just relaxing on the sofa. You shouldn’t really be looking at screens
right before bedtime because the lights can disrupt the production of melatonin in the
brain and this chemical helps you sleep. We shouldn’t have to tell you this one,
but go to the bathroom before you sleep. Your bladder can fill up in the night and
the feeling might wake you up even if you don’t go to the bathroom. You might not feel like you need to urinate,
but you’d be surprised how often you can squeeze some out. Always hit the bowl before bed is our advice. Don’t hang out in the bedroom before bedtime
as much as is possible. We know you might like to do this, but your
brain should be associating that place with one thing and that’s sleeping. If your bedroom is your castle you will subconsciously
be more energized in that place and it will be harder to sleep there. As for drinking alcohol, many of you will
know that it can help you sleep. Still, it’s said booze can interrupt REM
sleep and do other bad things such as give you nightmares. As the booze can relax throat muscles it can
also bring on a bout of snoring, which is not good for sleep. We are sure some of you can attest to the
annoyingness of sleeping next to a drunk person. Booze in the system almost always fills the
bladder, too, so a trip to the bathroom might be needed during a drunken sleep. Smoking is also not good for sleep because
nicotine increases heart rate and alertness. If you are super-addicted your body might
also crave a smoke during the night and wake you up. If you are not willing to give up, we suggest
at least trying not to smoke an hour before you go to bed. Colors might be important, too. That’s at least to one study we found undertaken
by Travel Lodge. It found that certain colors produced better
sleep and so that’s why you might find hotel rooms often being painted or decorated in
the same colors. The study found that blue, yellow and green
were the best colors for sleep while the worst colors were purple and brown. Why? One expert said this, “The color blue is
associated with feelings of calm which, when picked up by your ganglion cells and relayed
to your brain, helps reduce blood pressure and heart rate, all of which help you receive
a solid night’s sleep.” So there you go, paint the bedroom blue, don’t
drink booze, don’t smoke, don’t eat too much, and when you wake up do so with purpose
and move around a lot, wash that face and open those windows. And our last, probably best tip for getting
a good night’s rest? Making it so that you don’t have to lie
awake at night worrying about your online accounts being vulnerable because you stupidly
used the name of your first pet as a password! And you’re not fooling anyone by putting
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out about losing your notebook full of handwritten passwords? Head on over to www.dashlane.com/infographics
for a free 30 day trial, and if you use the coupon code ‘infographics’ you can get
10% off a premium subscription today! Are you one of those people who has been able
to wake up feeling rested? Have you used any of these techniques or do
you have one of your own? Tell us in the comments. Also, be sure to check out our other video
I Slept 3 Hours A Day For A Week And This Is What Happened. Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t
forget to like, share and subscribe. See you next time.
