The Power of Quality Sleep: Tips For Better Rest

‘Did you really fall asleep at your desk?’ I cannot tell you the number of times I heard that question or a variation of it during my first couple of years of working a full 9 to 5 role. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I fell asleep at my desk and in meetings regardless if I was sitting down or standing up. The obvious reason was I was tired, but why was I tired? Trying to balance a 9 to 5, commuting two hours a day, training and attempting to get 7 to 8 hours of sleep a day was a full time job in itself. My quality of sleep suffered heavily during that time period. Looking back, I believe it was due to not having an established sleep ritual.

Fast forward to today where commuting has been cut back significantly, I’m in a place where I’m enjoying prepping for bed. For the past year, I have slowly been curating a sleep schedule that allows me to fully enjoy my evening routine, as I wind down for the day. It works for me and my current lifestyle. One of my 2025 ins for health and wellness is to be more consistent with the power of quality sleep.

What do I mean by that? Good question. Of course getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night is important for restoration. Quality sleep is sleeping continuous hours of uninterrupted and adequate sleep each night. For example, you know those moments when you wake up during the night and end up scrolling for two hours on TikTok. Don’t be shy, I’ve done it multiple times too. That circumstance is evidence of what can break up your uninterrupted sleep.

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What Is Quality Sleep?

Quality sleep is not only about how long you are sleeping for, but also about how well you sleep. If you are repeatedly waking up during the night or have issues falling asleep. In addition, if you feel sleepy and tired after sleeping 7 to 9 hours, your quality of sleep may not be great. I didn’t know there was a difference between quality sleep and the quantity of sleep. I thought they were synonymous for a very long time. That was until I decided to start learning more about sleep, recovery and stress management. While my quality of sleep isn’t at its best, it has definitely started to improve in the last couple of weeks. I hope to look back at the end of the year and see significant improvement from today.

Tracking My Sleep With My FitBit

Ever since I got my FitBit back in 2023, I have been slightly obsessed with tracking my health. Okay, slightly might be an understatement. I’ve been more attached to it lately since I can track more things other than sleep. Once I realised that my quantity of sleep was not up to par and it was affecting my fitness progress, I decided to work on it. Going to bed early was something that I struggled with in the last couple of years. I believe that I was trying to accomplish too much at once. As a result, I was okay with losing sleep for that.

In comparison, whenever that time of the month occurred and my body needed to rest, I felt the difference. My body feels so refreshed waking up every morning. I felt that I could conquer the world. I want to experience that feeling for as many days as possible. Tracking my sleep with my FitBit has become my latest priority. To ensure that I am getting better rest and quality of sleep, I’ve cut back on trying to do too much in one day. Furthermore, I’ve learnt to be satisfied doing less things very well than doing lots of things at below 50%. I have to say that following this new structure, I feel more accomplished at the end of the day.

Investing In Better Beddings

Revamping my bedroom was one of the areas that I invested in last year. Let me tell you, going to bed every night since then has been an experience. I sink into my sheets and fall to sleep within minutes every night. One item that I bought, which I think has made a difference, are pillow protectors. Honestly, it feels like I’m sleeping on luxurious clouds if that is even a thing. I’ve said it before, I want my bedroom to be at hotel room standards. At the moment, having four pillows instead of two feels amazing. My next purchase is definitely a mattress protector so I feel like I’m wrapped around multiple clouds.

Since we spend pretty much half of our lives sleeping in bed, our bedrooms should be a place of peace and restoration. A little bit of fun too. If you have not invested in or are ready for a bedroom upgrade, you should definitely get these two things. You won’t regret it.

Relaxing Before Bed for Quality Sleep

Curating a sleep ritual or an evening routine that allows me to wind down slowly before I go to sleep has been a blessing. Last year, I really honed down on creating this but before that, I was going to bed frazzled. I had so much on my mind that I had trouble falling asleep or I would wake up during the night from whatever was circling in my mind.

My current ritual will definitely change as we move throughout seasons but at the moment, I really enjoy it. Before I share my routine for quality sleep, here are some things that I tested that you can also test out to see if they work for you:

• Setting an alarm to remind you to prep for bed and start your sleep ritual
• Keeping my bedroom window open during the day to keep the temperature cool
• Cutting out social media and other distracting tech devices 1hr 30 minutes before bed
• Listening to movie soundtracks or an educational podcast earlier in the evenings
• Drinking lavender tea 3 hours before bed
• Taking a lukewarm shower to relax
• Lighting the candles

Sleep ritual for quality sleep

Most days I work from home and on the days that I don’t, my evening routine pretty much looks the same. Once I finish work, I like to tidy up my workspace a bit and browse on social media as I get dinner ready. I light my candles and start playing movie soundtracks, if they weren’t done prior to that. Then around 7pm, I prefer to work on a creative passion project for 90 minutes. I try to do something creative every day as I can express myself in a different ways and discover more about myself. Once that 90 minute slot is finished, I start preparing for bed and there are three things that I like to do.

1. There is something about waking up to a clean flat, so I make sure everything is tidy.
2. My evening skincare, nail care and haircare routine because skin health.
3. If I’m going to the gym the next morning, I pack my gym bag (this is still very new so I hope to keep this up).

I try to get into bed before 10pm when lights go out so I can read whatever book is on my bedside table to fully wind down. Winter is the best time to establish this routine, in my opinion, because nothing is happening outside. Also, this is my first time being at home for winter so everything feels very new to me.

Associate Your Bed For Sleep

This has to be one of the most important tips that I have to share. Every room, nook and cranny is associated with something. My bed is associated with sleep only. I do not use technology in bed, you will never catch me eat or do any sort of work in bed. If you do too many things in your bed that aren’t sleep related, your brain will start to change its pattens. It will start to think that you can’t sleep until you do those other activities that you have been doing in bed.

If you constantly do other things in bed that aren’t sleep related, you need to try harder to associate those activities with other rooms, nooks and crannies in your space. For example, I used to sleep a lot on my couch to the point that I wasn’t able to relax there because I would always fall asleep there. I had to stop bringing my duvet to the couch and buy a separate blanket to associate it with relaxation. Whenever I felt like I was dozing off, I had to force myself to get up, prep for bed and fall asleep there. Now, it is not easy to re-associate activities to other places, but it is doable. You just have to try.

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What are other tips that help you sleep better and improve quality sleep? I hope this post has given you some ideas to test out and to take a deeper look into your sleeping patterns. Make sure to hit that subscribe button to join the community and never miss out on a post. Find me on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok for more powerlifting and wellness content.

Until next time,

Folakemi