Sleepmaxxing: Everything you need to know about this trend to improve sleep quality

Prioritising sleep benefits your physical and mental health. (Image: Canva)

A new trend that aims to maximise your sleep is going viral on social media platforms like TikTok right now called sleepmaxxing. While some aspects of sleepmaxxing can provide healthy benefits, others could have harmful effects, especially things like mouth taping and the use of supplements.

To help separate myths from healthy hacks that work, here are some sleepmaxxing trends that may help you get better sleep.

How sleepmaxxing helps

Prioritising sleep benefits your physical and mental health. Getting enough sleep helps a person:

• Lower stress
• Lower the risk of lifestyle diseases like heart disease and diabetes.
• Improve attention
• Reduces risk of illness

Can supplements and mouth-taping help you get more sleep?

TikTok believes so, but the commodification of sleep is one drawback of the trend to prioritise a healthy habit.

• Magnesium

A key ingredient in the viral Sleepy Girl mocktail (a soothing, delicious concoction made of tart cherry juice, magnesium, and soda, designed to help you catch some sleep) is magnesium. While TikTokers believe there might be truth to using magnesium, it can cause complications if you are on certain medications and therefore should not be used without a consultation with a physician. It can also cause stomach upsets.

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• Melatonin

Melatonin could help temporarily with sleep issues. It is also a product that the body produces naturally and is part of regulating the circadian rhythm. But too much melatonin can also be harmful. According to sleepfoundation.org, while there is no officially recommended melatonin dose, most people who take melatonin for sleep take between 1 and 5 milligrams.

• White noise

“Data shows that white noise significantly improved sleep based on subjective and objective measurements in subjects complaining of difficulty sleeping due to high levels of environmental noise. This suggests that the application of white noise may be an effective tool in helping to improve sleep in those settings,” states a report by Mathew R Ebben, Peter Yang and Ana C Krieger titled The effects of white noise on sleep and duration in individuals living in a high-noise environment in New York City. Some machines, like high-tech alarm clocks, have white noise functions, but a fan or an app on the phone can provide the same service.

• Mouth-taping

Mouth breathing increases snoring. Mouth-taping claims to help stop that, but there’s not enough research to support that claim. It can also be harmful for people with sleeping disorders, where snoring is a symptom.

How to improve your sleep

While not as tasty as the Sleep Girl mocktail, here are some basic sleep hacks:

• No coffee close to bedtime
• Drinking in moderation
• Putting screens to bed an hour before you plan to sleep
• Exercising regularly
• Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day
• Keeping your bedroom cool and dark

Sleepmaxxing can also backfire

• Too much good can also be bad: You can get stressed trying to get good sleep, and anxious about it and start tracking it, defeating the purpose of sleepmaxxing. The biggest sign, ironically, is that your sleep quest is making you lose sleep.

Disclaimer: This article, including health and fitness advice, only provides generic information. Don’t treat it as a substitute for qualified medical opinion. Always consult a specialist for specific health diagnosis.