Improve your REM sleep? These 9 tips will help you stay in REM sleep longer.

Are you looking for ways to improve your REM sleep ? Poor sleep significantly impacts how you feel during the day. You need your sleep to rest well, recover, and process the day's events.

After a sleepless night, you may experience difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and low mood. REM sleep, the periods of nighttime dreaming, is crucial for how you feel. If you want to improve your REM sleep without medication, check out these 9 tips to help you stay in REM sleep longer.

REM sleep is part of a healthy sleep pattern. Once you fall asleep, you go through several sleep stages. The first and second stages are light sleep, where you transition from wakefulness to sleep. Then comes deep sleep, where your body recovers and rests. Then comes the fourth stage, REM sleep. This is the sleep stage where you dream.

After these four sleep stages, the cycle begins again. Each stage is important to experience. It's crucial to stay in a sleep stage long enough to recover optimally.

How long and deep you remain in REM sleep is partly determined by your own biological clock. This regulates your body temperature and your sleep-wake rhythm, among other things. However, there are also external factors that can negatively impact your REM sleep. These include:

• Stress - Under the influence of stress, your body produces stress hormones, which can disrupt your sleep pattern.
• Eating late at night – eating late at night, especially spicy, fatty, or sugary foods, speeds up your metabolism and raises your body temperature. This can make it harder to fall asleep.
• Too much light in the evening – light affects the production of sleep hormones. Too much light can cause melatonin production to slow down, preventing you from feeling sleepy at bedtime.
• Sleeping in a new place - Where you sleep also affects your sleep. If you sleep in an unfamiliar place, you'll feel more restless and less able to relax.
• Drinking alcohol - Alcohol disrupts your sleep pattern and can make you sleep less well.
• Medications - Certain medications can negatively impact sleep. Think of Ritalin and modafinil, as well as sleeping pills.
• Stimulants such as coffee and tobacco - These substances make you active both physically and mentally and make sleeping more difficult.
• Poor sleep rhythm - Do you sometimes go to bed early and other times late? A poor sleep rhythm creates a lack of regularity, making it harder to fall asleep.

Sleep is influenced by countless factors and it is wise to look at this very critically on an individual basis.

Besides REM sleep, your deep sleep phase is also very important. If you don't get enough deep sleep, I recommend reading our article on improving deep sleep .

Want to sleep better and stay in REM sleep longer? You don't need to take sleeping pills; all it takes are a few small adjustments to your habits. Use these 9 tips, and before you know it, you'll be enjoying a healthy, undisturbed night's sleep.

A strict sleep schedule is a powerful support for your body and mind. If you go to bed and wake up the next day at the same time every day (even on weekends), your body can adjust to that rhythm. Falling asleep and sleeping through the night will then be easier.

A longer REM sleep period coincides with a drop in body temperature, which usually occurs early in the morning. This is regulated by your sleep-wake cycle. If your sleep times fluctuate frequently, this can disrupt the regulation of REM sleep.

Do you drink coffee late in the day or even in the evening? This can disrupt the normal progression through the sleep stages. Caffeine is a stimulant, and consuming it after noon will prevent you from feeling tired when it's time to sleep [1] . In fact, caffeine disrupts healthy sleep patterns.

If you want to improve your REM sleep, it's a good idea to avoid caffeine after noon. Try it for a while and see how you feel.

Nicotine is also a stimulant. It increases your heart rate and raises your blood pressure. If you smoke before bed, the nicotine will prevent you from relaxing. Falling asleep will therefore be more difficult.

Anyone who smokes and wants to sleep better should at least not smoke in the evening or simply stop smoking altogether.

Many people enjoy a glass of alcohol, often in the evening. But alcohol can disrupt sleep cycles. As mentioned, you go through several sleep cycles every night: deep sleep (NREM) and dream sleep (REM). Each cycle lasts between 90 and 120 minutes.

Alcohol causes an imbalance between NREM and REM sleep. If you drink alcohol before going to bed, you will not experience REM sleep during the first two sleep cycles. This means you will have more NREM than REM sleep [2] .

For a healthy night's sleep, it's advisable to avoid alcohol. If you still want to enjoy it, save it for special occasions.

A relaxing sleep routine can help improve your REM sleep. A sleep routine includes all the activities you do before bed, such as showering, brushing your teeth, writing in a journal, or meditating.

It's important to do something calming and relaxing. So, no heated discussions before bed, and preferably no exercise. You can do yoga, read a book, listen to soothing music, take a bath, or do visualizations. All these calming activities signal to your body and mind that it's time to sleep.

If you suspect that anxiety and stress are factors that negatively affect your sleep, I recommend our article about not being able to sleep due to anxiety .

Exercise is also very important for the quality of your sleep. By moving every day, your body produces more endorphins and dopamine. These calming neurotransmitters ensure you sleep better. Exercise also optimizes metabolism and lowers your heart rate. People who get enough exercise sleep more deeply and longer.

There's no need to exercise intensively. Any form of exercise is good, so choose something you enjoy.

Is your bedroom a comfortable place to sleep? It could be contributing to your sleep problems. Make sure your room is dark and quiet when you go to sleep. The room shouldn't be too warm or too cold either; around 18 degrees Celsius is an ideal temperature for sleeping.

It's also wise not to look at smartphones or tablets right before bed. The blue light from screens disrupts your sleep pattern. Anyone who wants better REM sleep should avoid using smartphone screens for an hour before bed [3] .

Another way to improve your REM sleep is to meditate. Meditation is suitable for everyone, and there are many different ways to do it. So you can definitely find one that works for you.

Meditation can help reduce stress and promote physical and mental relaxation. This can help you fall asleep faster and sleep better through the night. When you meditate, you can focus on your breathing. If thoughts arise, you let them go. You distance yourself from worry and focus solely on the here and now.

If you're new to meditation, start simple and keep your meditation short. Use an app to try out different forms of meditation.

The 4-7-8 breathing technique is also a great way to achieve deep relaxation and improve your REM sleep. By following a specific breathing rhythm, you can calm your nervous system and mind. The breathing is simple: inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, and exhale for a count of 8.

This might be too intense. Try doing a few more repetitions or adjusting the count.