Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to maintaining optimal health. But poor lifestyle, bad food habits, and disorders like insomnia or sleep apnea can significantly impact one’s sleep quality. Lack of sleep due to these conditions can lead to daytime sleepiness, fatigue, and other health issues. Several remedies today can help one to manage these issues. Various devices and apps have come up to help one improve their sleep quality.

Sleeping aid devices
Here are some of the sleeping aid devices and products that can boost one’s quality of sleep. These are suitable for both kids as well as adults:

• Sleep masks
  Bright light can interfere with one’s sleep, especially when one’s traveling and does not have a way to control the lighting outside. Comfortable and soft sleep masks with molded eye cups can be a great solution.
• Air purifier
  Improved air quality can significantly impact one’s sleep quality. So, one can consider investing in good-quality air purifiers. Some of these products also come with pleasant white noise, which can help one sleep better.
• Smartwatches
  Many smartwatches come equipped with sleep-tracking features that allow one to determine the quality of one’s sleep the next day, including deep and REM sleep stages. This can be a helpful tool to make necessary changes in one’s lifestyle to boost sleep.
• Temperature-control duvets
  A useful product for sleeping aid is a duvet that comes in-built with temperature control. Body heat can interrupt one’s sleep during the night. These duvets have an in-built mechanism that senses the rise in one’s body temperature and initiates a cooling effect.
• Noise-canceling headphones
  This sleeping aid can block external noise and create an ambient and quieter sleep environment for the user. This is especially helpful for those who live in a city or noisy neighborhood.

Sleeping aid apps to download
Apart from these devices, one can also utilize other readily available and free apps on their smartphones that act as a sleeping aid. These apps usually offer features such as calming sounds, white noise, guided meditations, and sleep tracking to help users achieve better quality sleep.

• Relax Melodies
  This app provides relaxing sounds and melodies, meditation options, and a way for the users to create their own mix of sounds to induce sleep. Another similar app that offers most of these features along with a straightforward interface is Calm.
• Sleep Cycle
  Sleep Cycle helps monitor one’s sleep cycle, provides white noise and nature’s sounds, and comes with an intelligent alarm clock system that stirs one slowly from a lighter sleep phase. The Sleep Cycle insights can be later analyzed by the user. Some similar alternatives for Sleep Cycle include Sleep Time, Sleep Reset, and Pillow.
• Relax & Sleep Well
  Designed by renowned hypnotherapist Glenn Harrold, this app comes with a few meditation recordings and hypnotherapy, which can release anxiety and induce sleep. One can also find a host of information on the app that covers topics related to sleep problems. Apart from this, Headspace is another app that comes equipped with guided meditation programs.

Home remedies to improve sleep patterns
Apart from these sleeping aids, there are several other remedies that can help manage sleeping disorders and promote a restful night’s sleep.

• Practice yoga and exercise regularly
  Physical activity can help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression and improve sleep. Controlled movements and focused breathing patterns can also ground one’s mind and boost mental focus. Exercising regularly also improves one’s mood, health, and energy levels. However, one must consult a healthcare professional to find the best type of exercise routine that aligns with their physical needs.
• Indulge in aromatherapy
  Massage therapy can release any muscular tension, promote relaxation, boost blood circulation, and improve one’s quality of sleep. It can also help to relax those who struggle with stress or anxiety. Aromatherapy massage with lavender oil is one of the best sleeping remedies.
• Prepare herbal teas
  Herbal teas have antioxidant properties and are known to boost sleep. One can infuse herbs like valerian, chamomile, or lemon balm in warm water to support one’s sleep cycle. These ingredients tend to calm nerves, boost mood, soothe digestion, and relieve stress.
• Add magnesium-rich foods to daily meals
  Magnesium is a natural mineral that acts as a sedative and also helps with muscle tension. Some foods rich in this mineral include legumes and seeds, dark green leafy vegetables, almonds, cashews, and wheat bran.
• Eat light dinner
  The body has to work harder to digest the food at night if one eats a heavy meal before bedtime. This may cause discomfort, indigestion, and heartburn. To avoid this, one should have lighter meals at night and eat two or more hours before bedtime to improve sleep quality.

Apart from these remedies, keeping the bedroom dark and cool while sleeping, taking a warm bath with Epsom salt before sleeping, and avoiding phone or laptop screens an hour or two before bedtime are some simple ways to boost sleep quality. While these remedies are some quick fixes, they must not be a substitute for sleeping aids recommended by doctors in case of severe sleeping disorders.