If you ask any health expert about the best thing you can do for your health, they will tell you to get better sleep. This might sound like too simple an answer, but sleep really is that important. Sleep is the foundation of a healthy lifestyle. It is how your body grows when you’re young and it’s how everyone’s body regenerates after a day spent awake. Sleep is important for both your physical and mental well-being. Studies have conclusively proven that getting longer and better sleep leads to higher production of a human-growth hormone (HGH) in the body, which is the building block of all muscle, tissue, and bone repair. To put it simply, people who sleep better live better, healthier lives.
Now that we’ve established that, the question is as follows: what are some healthy exercises we can do to get better sleep? In general, any amount or type of exercise is better than nothing, but that’s the easy way out. There are a couple of forms of exercise that will absolutely maximize the quality of your sleep, and we’ll discuss them below.
1) Breathing
Breathing exercises can be helpful in reducing stress and anxiety. You can do them at any time in the day, but they may be most helpful before bedtime. It can be as simple as maintaining awareness as the breath goes in and out. You can also count with each breath up to a certain number, perhaps one hundred. Alternatively, you can visualize your lungs expanding as you inhale and emptying as you exhale.
2) Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise has the benefit of working out the lungs and promoting increased circulation throughout the body. This will boost the blood’s ability to transport vital regenerative materials to where they’re needed most during sleep. Aerobic exercise will also tire you out, which will lead to deeper and longer sleep.
3) Couples Yoga
Yoga is a simple, elegant, and endlessly customizable form of exercise. The practice of yoga stretches back hundreds if not thousands of years and has been conclusively proven to positively impact physical and mental health in every way. It stretches and breaks down muscles so that they will grow back better and more flexible than before. The breathing aspect of yoga calms the mind and body, allowing for a more peaceful sleep. This breathing also oxygenates the blood, which during sleep will then do a better job of supplying vital materials to the body so that it can properly regenerate during sleep. Another huge benefit of yoga is that it is incredibly simple. You can do yoga anywhere you can spread your body out and feel comfortable. There is no need for equipment or other materials. Yoga can be done individually, and it can also be done by couples. Couples yoga is an excellent way for partners to exercise together and deepen their bond.
4) Running
Running is perhaps the fundamental form of exercise. It’s the simplest way to stay in shape because you don’t need anything except your own two feet. Running will work the lungs and oxygenate the blood, but it will also work the leg muscles, which are the biggest muscles in the body. The bigger the muscle the more HGH that’s produced, and the better your sleep will be.
5) Swimming
Swimming can be tremendously beneficial for promoting good sleep. Sleep works every muscle and joint in the body constantly, which is one of the only forms of exercise that does so. Additionally, swimming works the lungs and oxygenates the blood. Not only adults but even kids get a pleasant sleep after a good swim, and that varies from toddlers to youth. Now, toddlers can only splash around, but that too move their muscles and significantly help them in getting good sleep. However, remember, always wear them a good toddler life jacket to ensure their safety and never take a chance. Infant and youth love being in the water and swim around which gives them a good sleep too.
6) Meditation
Like yoga, meditation is wonderful because it requires no equipment and nothing other than a quiet, peaceful place to sit down for fifteen or twenty minutes. Meditation will quiet the mind and decrease stress, worry, and anxiety. These will let you fall asleep faster, sleep longer, and sleep better. Many studies have shown that meditation’s benefits are without bound, they extend to every area of life and will improve the quality of every second you spend asleep or awake.
The six exercises above are wonderful ways to get exercise during the day as a means of promoting long, deep, quality sleep at night. As an added bonus, all six exercises can be incorporated into a personal exercise routine. Perhaps you could plan on doing one per day with the seventh day reserved for rest. Doing all six of these exercises is a fabulous routine that will get you sleeping better.