How to Improve the Quality of Your Sleep

The quality of your sleep is crucially important for the regulation of hormones, metabolism, and energy balance. Lack of sleep or poor-quality sleep can be a big contributor to weight gain and other health problems. Exercising regularly can improve the quality of your sleep by inducing deep and restorative REM (rapid eye movement) cycles in your brain. Here are several ways you can improve the quality of your sleep with exercise and just common sense!

1. Exercise before bedtime helps induce deep REM cycles that improve the overall quality of our sleep while we're asleep.
2. 20 minute walk after dinner will help us feel more relaxed before bedtime - this will lead to deeper levels of relaxation during sleeping hours as well.
3. Yoga, especially the corpse pose and deep breathing exercises has been effective for getting you to relax prior to sleep.
4. Stretching - limbering up before bedtime can help improve quality of our sleep by relaxing tense muscles that may be causing us discomfort or pain while we're sleeping. This will reduce the chances for nighttime aches and pains from pesky repetitive motions such as tossing and turning in your sleep cycle.
5. Swimming is a great exercise to improve the quality of our sleep because it has been found that swimming in cool water at night can improve both REM and deep sleep cycles.
6. Avoid caffeine at least six hours before going to bed if possible. Caffeine has a diuretic effect which promotes dehydration with long term effects on health (such as headaches) when we are dehydrated during these periods of time where exercise is crucial for improving the quality of our deep sleep!
7. Maybe this is something your mother always told you but fresh air and sunshine will improve sleep quality! Outdoor activity regulates our circadian rhythms and increases serotonin levels which help suppress hunger cravings through out the daytime hours.

 Can you improve sleep quality with exercise AND supplementation?

 Exercise AND supplementation are a "sought after" combination to help improve sleep quality. But what do you look for in a sleep supplement?

Melatonin is a hormone that our bodies release when it's nighttime. Supplementing with melatonin can improve deep sleep cycles since the body will be in tune to its natural rhythm of night and day! This is one of the most sought after ingredients to improve the quality of your sleep.

Valerian Root is a herb native to Asia and Europe and its root has been used to promote relaxation and sleep since ancient times. This is good from the standpoint no one had beauty rest mattresses back then!

Gaba promotes a calming effect and may help to naturally induce sleep by reducing nerve excitability - that is if you stay away from caffeine close to bedtime!

Tryptophan (think Turkey dinner!) may help bring on a natural calming effect, lifting mood, and inducing sleep.

And then 5-HTP helps the body to produce more serotonin and may help promote sleep, relaxation, and help decrease stress reactivity.

These five sleep ingredients are found in the Xendurance Deep Sleep formula!

So do some yoga and stretch, swim, take a long walk after dinner or get in a late day workout, then splash down two capsules of Deep Sleep and see if you wake up rested. By making a habit of implementing both exercise and supplementation, we are convinced you will improve you sleep score and dream the night away!