Almost all gamers usually struggle with sleeping. And the reason for this is obviously the amount of screen time involved with nonstop gaming, and sometimes late night hours also.
This leads to poor sleeping patterns and quality. As a gamer, you should definitely game well, but sleeping well is also crucial.
How To Improve Your Sleep As a Gamer
When you sleep well your health will be better, and when you feel good you will certainly game well. If you are a passionate gamer and want to improve your sleep then check out the tips below. Here we have mentioned some tips to improve your sleep (and your habits) as a gamer.
1. Avoid Eating at Night:
If you eat late at the night does it really affect your sleep? This is the question many Scientists are debating over the years, and what they’ve decided is twofold.
Usually, our bodies react to our routines and ritual. If you are used to having a bedtime snack and it’s part of your nightly routine, It will be hard for you to stop eating that snack, it is fine if it’s a healthy snack and not one that contains sugar.
Our body naturally slows down its metabolic processes at night. And it gets ready for rest and focuses on various bodily functions that occur when we sleep.
If you eat after the point where the body has already slowed its metabolism, it leads to the slow conversion of the energy from those digested foods. This is also the reason for disrupted sleep and weight gain and slower metabolic rate also.
2. Blue Light Glasses Help:
Blue light glasses are particularly built to help filter out blue light and keep our sleep/wake cycles working smoothly. Most gamers know, that screens on our technology machines all emit what’s called blue light,
It’s similar to red light or ultraviolet (UV) light, and it’s one of the many wavelengths of light on the spectrum. Blue light comprises short wavelengths, very high energy, and usually scatters.
When the light is less focused, it makes your eyes work harder when you look at the machine and, thus, results in digital eye strain. Sometimes the blue light is good also. Blue light in the daytime helps our body to regulate its natural sleep/wake cycle.
Excess blue light at night usually disturbs the regulation and plays with our production and secretion of melatonin, which your body produces in the night so that it can keep the sleep/wake cycle in its perfect rhythm.
When you play video games or look at any screens, for hours on end, and particularly at the night it certainly affects that. But when you wear blue light glasses it can help.
As they are particularly built to help filter out blue light and keep our sleep/wake cycles working perfectly. You can get gamer-specific blue light glasses in several shapes and styles.
It will be much better if you turn off your machines, or at least stop looking at them, at least 30 to 90 minutes before you plan to go to bed.
3. Caffeine is Also Not Good:
Most gamers usually take Caffeine while playing during the day as it helps them focus and stay in the zone. But caffeine stays in our system for a while, so having more coffee or soda is not good for our body and it decreases the ability of our body to calm down and sleep properly.
If you are low on energy drink water and take snacks with protein and complex carbs. There should be a proper time for going to bed. If you don’t maintain proper timings for sleep then you are prone to have less brain power and focus throughout the day.
Many people usually don’t think about this, but it’s worth doing, and the reason is our bodies go through 90-minute cycles of REM sleep and non-REM sleep when you sleep. REM means “rapid eye movement” and it’s the lighter phase of sleep when you compare the two, this one is responsible for all the dreams we think about when we wake.
And when we look at Non-REM sleep, it’s much deeper and more restorative. You experience both types in every 90-minute cycle, But the ratio of the two changes particularly in the evening and it changes at that point no matter what time you went to bed.
The ratio is tilted more towards more non-REM sleep in the early hours of the night, and in the post-midnight and early morning hours, the ratio tilts to REM sleep.
This means if you go to bed late, then there are chances that you get less restorative sleep. But it’s hard for everyone to adopt an early bedtime.
If you observe your genetics will help you to decide whether you are a natural night player or an early bird and if you force the opposite of whichever you are naturally it doesn’t work out also.
But if you get sufficient sleep every night, normally around 8 hours, and go to bed early and then stay up later will help you get the most out of that deep non-REM slumber. And more importantly, as we have discussed above our bodies do better with routine.
And it’s the same for our sleep schedule also. When you don’t have the proper bedtime schedule, your sleep quality will definitely suffer, which results in daytime sleepiness and fatigue.
Many people go for meditation and that’s good also as it can help improve in-game focus. Normally meditation and deep breathing help in making the mind calm, This can be more fruitful as part of a post-gaming ritual.
Because you will come out of the high-intensity zone you’ve been in and calm your brain down to a place and speed more perfect for sleep. There are some apps also for guided meditation, and they provide a list of suggestions for gamers on how to manage sleep and gaming.
Conclusion:
Above we have discussed some factors that will help you improve your sleep if you are a gamer. Many doctors are also giving importance to getting good quality sleep.
Some doctors also say that you should get at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night and go to bed before midnight.
But not only can this if you want you also add some natural supplements to your routine if you didn’t fall asleep after using these tips also.
There are supplements like magnesium, inositol, and melatonin which are available but you have to ask the doctor.
Actually, these are the things that an average body comprises and uses for regular sleep. So take good care of yourself sleep well and then game well.