5 Bedtime Habits That Lead To A Happier, Healthier Life

POSTED ON January 12, 2017 BY Lindsay Sibson

5 Bedtime Habits That Lead To A Happier, Healthier Life

Written by: Lindsay Sibson

Goodnight Iphone.

Goodnight laptop.

Goodnight tablet.

Goodnight T.V.

No. NO. No. AND NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It’s time to get out of bed with ANYTHING electronic and hop into bed with these 5 habits instead that lead to a happier and healthier life.

1. Read An Inspirational Book

Benefits of reading include:

You Become Smarter:

- Helps you gain more knowledge.
- Kids exposed to reading books at an early age score higher on overall intelligence exams.
- Tip: choose a traditional book over reading on a screen.
- Screen reading can slow you down by 20-30%.

Helps You Relax:

- A 2009 study found that reading can reduce stress levels by up to 68%.
- Choose a book that interests you and you can “get lost in.”

Makes You More Open-minded:

- Reading can help you understand others and become more empathetic.
- Other benefits include:
  - Being less judgemental.
  - Understanding other people’s emotions.

Reduces Your Risk Of Alzheimer’s:

- Reading engages your brain and keeps your mind stimulated.
- Brain INACTIVITY puts you at a higher risk of Alzheimer’s.
  - Use your brain often by reading every day.

Boosts Your Brainpower:

- Your brain is a muscle that needs exercise to become stronger.
  - Reading gives your brain a great “workout.”
- Benefits of reading include:
  - Sharpening (and maintaining) your memory.
  - Lowering your risk of age-related brain function decline.
  - Reducing mental deterioration.

2. Stretch Your Body

To keep your body limber and flexible and to also prevent injury, daily stretching has many rewards, including:

Releases tension and stress throughout your body.
Improves your posture, which helps your spine have proper alignment, which relieves aches and pains!
Promotes blood circulation, which helps promote organ function and cell growth.
- Improves your overall health.
Do this 5 Minute Yoga Routine for a Good Night’s Sleep.

Add to the benefits of stretching by using a foam roller:

The benefits of foam rolling include:
- Improved flexibility.
- Increase in blood-flow.
- Loosening up stiff knots in your muscles.

3. Brush & Floss Your Teeth

Brushing your teeth cleans the outer surfaces of your gums and teeth.

Flossing is an interdental cleaner that is designed specifically to clean the tight spaces between your teeth (especially that gap between the base of the teeth and the gums where food likes to get caught).

In other words, flossing is able to clean the areas your toothbrush can’t reach.

Flossing can also help prevent diseases. An unhealthy mouth can harm the rest of your body and:

- Cause bad bacteria to flourish.
- Can lead to respiratory illness, heart disease and diabetes.

4. Write Down What You Are Grateful For

Spending a few minutes each night to write down what you are thankful for gives your health a boost by:

Strengthening your immunity.
- Gratitude is linked to optimism.
- Improves your body’s immune response.
- Helps increase white blood cells that help fight disease.
Creating peaceful and calm feelings.
- Make a nightly list of things you are grateful for before going to bed each night.
- Reduces stress hormones.
- Can help improve the duration and quality of your sleep.
Having psychological benefits.
- Helps lower the risk of depression.
- Improves self esteem.
- Enhances mental resilience.
- Reduces toxic emotions such as greed, anger, envy and resentment.

5. Meditate & Become Mindful

Thinking happy thoughts for 15 consecutive minutes a day can help keep you focused on positive emotions. Typically, when you have happy and loving feelings, they quickly come and go and then you move on to the next thought.

The goal is to keep your mind from becoming distracted by focusing and thinking happy thoughts NONSTOP for a stretch of 10-15 minutes.

Just 20 minutes of daily meditation can make you a much happier person overall!

Learn how to go from Mindless to Mindful in 5 Minutes a Day by watching the video below:

Now all that is left to do is to slip into something cozy and drift off into dreamland.

Sweet dreams to you.

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Lindsay Sibson

Lindsay Sibson turned her lifelong dream of traveling the world into a reality when she first stepped on a plan in April of 2014. With the simple intention of learning more about this beautiful world, she stepped away from corporate America to explore an alternative lifestyle of long term international travel, volunteering, blogging and pursuing a blissfully happy and fulfilling way of life.

Lindsay documents her journey in hopes of empowering others to find their passion, reignite their spark and freshen their outlook on life. Connect with her on her website and follow her travels on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/_traveloholic_).

Through her blog, Lindsay documents her journey in hopes of empowering others to find their passion, reignite their spark and freshen their outlook on life.