Changing Your Sleeping Habits

Sleep is something our bodies require to survive, function, and live up to our highest potential.

Sleep is something a lot of us which we took more time to do, but is also what others consider to be a “waste of time”. Most likely ranking somewhere low on a lot of people’s to-do lists around the holidays, how much should we be worried or willing to change our sleeping habits?

I would group people into two main categories. On one hand you have the group of go-go-go getters who run a million miles an hour tackling all the things. They barely get enough sleep to function and laugh in the face of naps. On the other hand, you have the early to bed, early to rise routinists. These people generally require a good amount of sleep each night to feel like themselves. They value the golden eight recommended hours a night rule and never turn down the opportunity to relax when it presents itself.

Throughout my adult life, I have slowly shifted from a go-getter (frequent 4 hours of sleep per night offender) to somewhere in the middle. I know I need 7-8 hours a night, but I don’t always get it. I often stay up in the wee hours of the morning to finish a project or something for the blog, then don’t have an issue rising early for the next day if I have to.

When I was consistently working early in the morning (6 a.m. classes or 6:30 a.m. serving shifts), I was really good about going to bed when I needed to. To be frank, I was pooped by the time 10 p.m. came around. With a night owl of a husband, I just got used to turning in hours earlier than him, and he understood. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked for us.

These days, I’m lucky if I get to bed any time before he does. Sometimes it’s more early morning than late night, and I hate when I let myself get there. Since I started working outside of the home again, however, I have done a much better job at hitting the pillows at a reasonable hour.

So… what’s reasonable? How many hours do we really need to be healthy and able to function properly?

In my early blogging days, I dedicated an entire post to this exact question. To summarize, according to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need anywhere from 7-9 hours of sleep per night, but your personal sleeping hour changes from person to person.

In an effort to actually make a change in my sleeping habits, I was happy to participate in a campaign with Relax the Back. They are promoting their PureRelax Mattress Topper and I was all over it.

The PureRelax Mattress Topper is made with the same eco-friendly memory foam materials as their PureRelax Mattress, reduces motion transfers on the sleep surface, and provides support to reduce muscle and back pain.

To be completely transparent, we probably didn’t need the memory foam topper on top of our King sized (already squishy) memory foam mattress in our master bedroom.

I’m assuming the product was made to layer on top of a regular (non-memory foam) mattress. But, since Scott and I are in dire need of a mattress replacement, I went ahead and ordered the King to try on top of ours in hopes of making ours last longer. I know, I’m ridiculous.

With all of the layers of stacked memory foam, I wasn’t sure how making the bed would go. I mean… you can only stretch sheets so much. Again, paired with a normal mattress, I’m sure adding the PureRelax Mattress Topper wouldn’t be an issue here.

After some struggling, I got everything under our sheets and laughed at how high it brought up the comforter.

Sidenote: We really need to replace our bed set. This one has definitely seen better days and was originally bought as a temporary fix. Three years later, here we still are.

Double Sidenote: We also really, really need end tables. Yes, those are our bedside lamps on the floor. Embarrassing.

Past those issues I brought on myself, I absolutely love this mattress topper. I have to admit, however, that it came with a distinct rubber smell that neither Scott or I are too fond of. The topper comes with Relax the Back’s exclusive bamboo fabric ticking layer, so I could have definitely washed it before assembling the bed if I was paying attention. I will next time I change the sheets!

It’s slowly going away, so that’s good.

We have been sleeping with the PureRelax Mattress Topper for over two weeks now, and I have definitely noticed changes in my sleeping pattern. Seriously. I haven’t been getting up as frequently throughout the night, I can barely feel when Scott or the animals (yes, all three of them sleep with us) are moving about on the bed, and it’s even harder to get out of bed in the morning. I just don’t want to leave it.

(Okay, that photo is super cheesy. But you get my point!)

If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing a memory foam mattress or mattress topper, I highly suggest you give it a try. (Maybe not both at the same time, like me.) It’s like sleeping on clouds, my friends.

The good news is that Relax the Back is doing a couple of awesome giveaways this week. Currently, they are teaming up with FitFluential for a giveaway on their Snoozer Body Pillow. Scott is a stomach sleeper (often prone to build his own pillow forts), so I am going over to enter right now for him! There are only two days left to enter that one, but keep an eye on their Facebook page for an additional giveaway to pop up later this week featuring the PureRelax Mattress Topper!

With a couple of weeks of solid sleep under my belt, I feel less tired and more me. It’s a wonderful thing. If sleep is somthing low on your priority list, I challenge you to knock it up to the top.

Give a solid effort at “turning off” when you need to at night in order to get a full night’s sleep multiple nights in a row and see if it makes a difference in your mood and energy level. I bet it will!

Since we’re talking about the importance of sleep, I thought I would end by sharing some related posts on sleep and relaxing, via Relax the Back:

• 10 Ways to Relax and De-Stress

• Tips To Prevent Pain During the Holidays (also… get a memory topper!)

• 9 Ways to Tame Chronic Pain

• Ways to Reduce Stress This Holiday Season

• Taking Work To Bed (I’m sure we are all guilty of this at some point.)

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Questions of the Afternoon

• How much sleep do you average a night?

• How much does that differ from the amount of sleep you actually need?

• What’s one thing you’ve done to get into a better sleeping routine?

Disclaimer: While the PureRelax Mattress Topper in this post was provided to me by Relax the Back through a campaign with FitFluential, I was not compensated for this review. As always, all thoughts and opinions remain my own!