ANCSLEEP BLOG

It's not news that exercise has a positive relationship with your sleep. Exercise has been proven to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Cardio exercises have especially been shown to help you get a good night's rest.

However, those types of exercises are only part of the story. It is recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans to incorporate two days of resistance training to your workout regiment. These extra days of lifting weights could actually have an even bigger impact on your health than just cardio. Continue reading to learn what this means for you and your sleep.    

Shift workers, or those who work long hours at increased risk for drowsy driving. Drowsy driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents in the United States. However, it's more difficult to determine the exact prevalence due to the discretion of drowsy driving.

You may feel like you are stuck at a crossroad. You're tired, but you have to get home, right? Maybe you've worked over 24-hours if you work in a profession such as medicine. These crazy shifts may fall outside of your normal sleep hours, making it very hard to get enough rest before falling asleep. Continue reading to learn some tips for how to stay alert while driving home when you're tired.  

You may be so excited when your baby starts sleeping through the night, and then very confused and frustrated when that suddenly stops. This is called sleep regression, and some babies to through it at various times of their development. Continue reading to learn more about what a sleep regression is, and what you can do about it to help you and your baby get better sleep. 

On this site, we talk a lot about sleep hygiene and creating a good sleep routine. One activity that is often recommended is reading a book before bed. Reading before bed is a fun, relaxing activity that often does not expose you to blue light (unless you read on an electronic device) and can help your brain wind down before bed. 

Continue reading to learn the benefits of reading before bed and other tips to help optimize this activity.

Trying to interpret dreams has been a practice for many years. People have been fascinated with what they think dreams might actually mean. Even in ancient cultures, they used to think that dreams had a spiritual or religious meaning behind them. Some cultures and people still believe that, while others believe that dreams actually have very little meaning.

Books on how to interpret dreams are widely available. And some mental health professionals use dream analysis in their practices. However, scientist still do not understand the precise reasoning behind dreaming, and if they actually do you mean anything. Although there has been no definitive answer on why we dream, and what dreams may actually mean for our lives, what we do know is the diving into dreams. Can be a very fascinating practice. Continue reading to learn more about if your dreams actually mean anything, and how to interpret them. 

Have you ever been sleep and felt like you saw or heard something that ended up not being there? This can be quite an unsettling and frightening experience, especially when you're transitioning between sleep and being awake. Hallucinations can be caused by a lack of sleep, underlying condition, or the use of a certain substance. 

One of these hallucinations is called hypnopompic hallucination which is a specific type of hallucination that happens right when you are waking up. If you experience these often, it can be helpful to determine what exactly could be the cause. Continue reading to learn more about them, and what you can do about them. 

The schedule of most obligations - work, school, kids, etc. - is not conducive towards those who enjoy sleeping in. Therefore, you may be motivated to turn yourself into a morning bird. You may have also heard that it's impossible to flip your chronotype, you are what you are. This may not be entirely true. Although your body has specific times that it likes to got to sleep and wake up, there are adjustments that you can make to help your body get accustomed to an earlier time. Continue reading to learn tips for how to turn yourself into a morning bird. 

At the end of another long day that came after another bad night of sleep, the last thing you may want to do is exercise. You may be trying to maintain your fitness goals and overall health. But at that point, nothing sounds better than going home to sit on the couch and get some much needed rest.

But what are the experts say? Is it safe for you to workout even thought you are tired and unfocused. Sleep deprivation makes it harder for you to make good decisions, pay attention, memorize things, and do much other than function at baseline. Working out involves coordination, awareness, focus and motivation - all of which go out the window when it comes to being so tired. 

Continue reading to learn what experts say about exercising when you're tired. 

Growling or twisting stomach right when you lie down for bed? Nothing is worse than a stomach going off like a marching band when you're trying to get a good night's rest. Even discomfort like heart burn tends to get started at night due to the force of gravity and your position in bed. These can all be uncomfortable situations that prevent you from getting a good night's rest. But, did you know that poor sleep can also affect digestion? Continue reading to learn more about this relationship, and determine if there are any changes you may need to make! 

You need two things to fall asleep: a relaxed mind and a relaxed body. Overstimulation disrupts your ability to have a relaxed mind. One source of this overstimulation could be your unmade bed. A clean room represents a clean mind, and a cluttered room could overwhelm the brain.

Even if you don't have time to clean your room everyday, starting with your mattress and bed may be key to helping your mind relaxed. A little less than half of people who make their bed and turn down their covers fall asleep within the typical time it takes to fall asleep - 20 minutes. Comparatively, only about a third of adults who don't make their bed fall asleep in this same time frame.

Making your bed every morning could give you a renewed sense of purpose. The average number of days that one makes their bed is 4.1 days per week. It's as if that one task builds momentum for another to be completed. Continue reading to see the impact that making your bed can have on you falling asleep faster.