Most adults have probably heard that they should be getting at least eight hours of sleep per night. However, the length of time that you remain asleep isn’t the only factor that can influence your sleep quality.
What Is Sleep Quality?
Experts often use the following four measurements to assess a person’s sleep quality:
- Sleep efficiency: This refers to how much time you’re actually asleep while you’re in bed each night. It is expressed as a percentage, with total minutes asleep divided by total minutes in bed. A sleep efficiency of 80%–90% is considered healthy for an adult. As an example, if you go to bed at 10:30 p.m. and get up at 7 a.m., you would need to be asleep for at least 408 minutes (or six hours and 48 minutes) to have a sleep efficiency of 80%.
- Sleep latency: This is the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep after you turn off the lights. For adults, a sleep latency of 10–20 minutes is considered normal.
- Sleep duration: This is the total amount of time you spend asleep at night. For most adults, a normal sleep duration is 7–9 hours.
- Wake after sleep onset: This is how much time you spend awake after initially falling asleep. If you wake up twice during the night, and each time it takes you 15 minutes to get back to sleep, your WASO would be 30. Having a WASO of 50 or less is considered to be a sign of healthy sleep quality for most adults.
What Causes This Condition to Worsen?
Declines in sleep quality can result from a variety of personal and external factors, including:
- Age: The impact of aging on sleep quality includes shorter sleep duration, increased sleep latency, and elevated WASO.
- Weight: Several studies have found a link between obesity, lower sleep duration, and diminished overall sleep quality.
- Mental health concerns: Researchers have identified anxiety and depression as strong predictors of poor sleep quality.
- Stress: The American Psychiatric Association (APA) reported that adults who average fewer than eight hours of sleep per night are more likely to report several stress-related symptoms than are those who typically sleep for eight hours or longer.
- Environment: Research into what experts refer to as the “neighborhood disadvantage” have found that environmental characteristics such as violence, limited walkability, lack of green spaces, population density, inopportune light, vehicular noise, and air pollution can degrade the amount and quality of a person’s sleep.
How to Improve Sleep Quality
Sleep deficiencies can contribute to physical health problems, cognitive challenges, psychological concerns, and an increased risk of automobile accidents.
Thankfully, there are a number of steps you can take to improve your sleep quality, such as:
- Staying active during the day: Multiple studies have established a link between regular, moderately intense physical activity during the day and improved sleep quality at night. The benefits of exercise, which include reduced sleep latency, even extend to people who have been diagnosed with insomnia. However, high-intensity exercise, especially later in the evening, can negatively affect the quality of a person’s sleep.
- Following a consistent schedule: Sleep experts advise that you should wake up at the same time every day (yes, even on weekends and holidays). This also means you should have a consistent bedtime every night. Following a consistent routine helps your body function more effectively, which includes improving sleep quality.
- Creating a sleep-conducive environment: For most people, an ideal sleep environment is a comfortable bed in a room that is cool, dark, and quiet.
- Avoiding alcohol, caffeine, and food at night: Yes, alcohol can make you drowsy – but it can also have a detrimental impact the quality of your sleep. A good general rule is to avoid alcohol, caffeine, and full meals within four hours of your bedtime.
- Minimizing screen time before bed: The blue light that’s emitted by phone, tablet, and laptop screens can disrupt your body’s ability to produce melatonin, a hormone that plays a key role in the sleep/wake cycle. Also, online activities such as checking work emails, reading the news, or scrolling social media can boost your stress levels, which can diminish your sleep quality.
How NAD+ Improves Sleep Quality
Sometimes, lifestyle changes alone aren’t enough to elevate your sleep quality. For example, if your sleep problems are related to a mental health concern, some level of professional treatment may be necessary.
Traditional talk therapy and prescription medications are common elements of care for mental health disorders, but these aren’t your only options. A range of emerging evidence-based interventions have also proved to be quite beneficial at helping people achieve improved sleep quality and better overall well-being.
One such innovation is NAD+ infusion therapy.
NAD, which stands for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is an essential coenzyme that is found in every living cell. NAD exists in two forms, NAD+ and NADH, which are differentiated by the whether the molecules can accept or give up electrons. This ability to exchange electrons with other molecules is crucial to NAD’s role in converting nutrients into energy.
Among its many functions, NAD also influences circadian rhythms, or your internal body clock. Unfortunately as people age, their body’s production of NAD+ declines, which can contribute to problems such as cognitive decline, persistent fatigue, and poor sleep quality.
NAD+ infusion therapy can help to remedy these types of concerns by boosting a person’s NAD+ levels via an intravenous (IV) drip.
During a NAD+ infusion session, patients sit or recline in a comfortable chair while a solution containing NAD+ flows through a small needle directly into their bloodstream. While this is occurring, patients can read, watch videos, listen to music, or simply close their eyes and relax.
As a patient’s NAD+ levels increase, the results can include healthier circadian rhythms, increased energy, and improved cognitive functioning. From the perspective of sleep quality, NAD+ infusions can promote:
- Decreased sleep latency, which means you fall asleep more quickly
- Deeper sleep, which can minimize nighttime wakefulness
- Longer sleep duration, which can help you to wake up feeling much more refreshed.
NAD+ may be offered as a standalone service or as part of a comprehensive treatment plan.
Contact Conscious Health Center to Start Treatment in Los Angeles
Conscious Health Center is a trusted provider of customized outpatient services for adults who have been experiencing a range of mental and behavioral health concerns.
Features of care at our outpatient treatment center in Los Angeles, CA, include NAD+ therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) therapy, electromagnetic brain pulse (EMBP) therapy, vibroacoustic therapy, and ketamine therapy.
To learn more about how we can help you or a loved one, please visit our Contact page or call us today.
Published: 5/19/2025
