Sleep Mask

We live in a time where everything around us is lit up, blinking, and shining. We’re constantly surrounded by countless pieces of technology which provide us with infinite opportunities during the day, but perhaps may not be so beneficial at night.

The technology and light sources that surround us such as our air conditioners with the “on” indicators, our phones with the charging stations, street lights outside our home windows — all these emit enough light to disrupt your sleep.

The human body is biologically predisposed to rest when it’s dark outside and to wake when it is light. Since it’s only in fairly recent times that we, as humans introduced artificial sources of light into our lives, these sources can serve as disruptors to the natural sleep cycles.

Therefore, if your bedroom has any artificial sources of light streaming in, including street lights, various indicators from the tech that surrounds you or any other light, you will likely benefit from a sleep mask to assist you in getting that restorative sleep you need.

We think this mask is pretty cool, it has the look and feel of restful sleep and has the fond approval of author Tim Ferris who’s a self-proclaimed human guinea pig and has tested numerous sleep optimization techniques.

This mask can completely eliminate light helping you get the restful light-free sleep you need.

Ear Plugs

Noise during sleep can be extremely disruptive. Cars driving by, your partner snoring, heat or air conditioners turning on and off — all these can interrupt your sleep cycle during the night.

Even if you don’t wake up from these noises, you can be taken our of the deeper phases of sleep during which you’re getting the most effective rest. Deep sleep phases are necessary for restoring daily depleted resources from your body and brain.

If you think your sleep may be disrupted by noises at night, you might consider getting yourlself some earplugs and trying them out for a couple of nights, it’s likely you will wake up more rested. There are plenty out there — from reusable to disposable, foam to gel ones, but to get you started, we tested these and found them really helpful for blocking out disruptive noise.

Super Sleep earplugs are great because they come in a shorter length than most, and are not bothersome if you turn to sleep on your side.

They have a noise reduction rating of 29 decibels which we found keeps the noise at bay but still lets us hear our alarm clock!

They also come with a handy carrying case, so you can reuse a pair for a little while.

Night Guard

With life today being super fast and at times stessful, we often don’t realize how these factors impact our body — especially during sleep. While you’re sleeping and your body is attempting to restore the depleted resources it has spent throughout the day, it’s cycling through the events of the day, filing away memories, thoughts, and events as well as dreaming.

All of these factors during sleep can affect your body physically — for example, you may move your eyes involuntarily, experience muscle movements, twitching, or tightening, and you might clench our grind your teeth.

Although most of these physical factors happening during sleep contribute to the overall restoration of your depleted resources, gridning or clenching your teeth is actually the opposite.

Between stress factors and the high amounts of sugary and starchy foods people consume these days, our teeth are very susceptible to extensive damage from clenching or gridning.

As a matter of fact, not only the teeth may suffer, but a person who clenches or grinds their teeth while sleeping can become victim to chronic headaches, migraines, muscle tension around the neck, head or jaw, and overall deprivation of restful sleep.

This is where a nightguard can help.

A nightguard is best obtained from the dentist as it can then be optimized precisely for the shape of your teeth and bite.

The device can be made soft or hard, and the choice will depend on the nature of your bite and the extent to which you clench or grind.

Even the soft version of the nightguard can stave of permanent structural damage to teeth which would otherwise be cause by continuous clenching or gridning.

We hope the above tips can help you achieve the restorative, restful sleep you deserve.