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Sleep Problems? 20 Tips to Show You How To Get To Sleep

Sleep is what we will be discussing with this latest edition of CardioLogix Magazine! This week we are looking at the importance of sleep. We all know how important sleep is to our well-being, but at times it can be like chasing an elusive butterfly.

In this particular article, contributing author Suesie Kendall focuses on some of the steps you can take to help you get to sleep when you are having difficulty. She covers the importance of creating a sleep-enhancing environment, establishing a sleep routine, and what to avoid during the hours right before bedtime. This is followed by a brief relaxation/recognition routine to set the right tone for restful sleep

Setting up your environment and expectations for sleep, and avoiding over-stimulation right before bedtime, can go a long way to providing the rest that you need and deserve.

Enjoy!

Recognize When You Have a Sleep Problem – 20 Steps to Show You How To Get To Sleep

By Susie Kendall

How do you recognize whether you have a sleep problem? It is pretty simple really – if you wake up easily, feeling rested and refreshed you are getting enough sleep; if you drag yourself out of bed feeling lethargic, you are not getting enough sleep and you have a sleep problem.

Sleep is such a basic need in our lives it should be a priority to ensure you get an adequate amount of good quality sleep. On average, people need eight hours of sleep a night, but individually this can vary quite a bit, from as low as six hours, up to ten. To find out how much sleep your body needs, you need at least four or five days in a row when you are relaxed and can allow yourself to wake up naturally, but it also needs to be done when you are not sleep deprived, so here we will deal with showing you how to get to sleep.

Prepare Your Sleep Environment

Make your bedroom a peaceful space. Get rid of clutter in the bedroom and tidy your dresser top. Have peaceful colors in your bedroom, that is, soft blues and greens or cream. Be sure to avoid busy patterns and loud colors like orange, red and yellow.
Make sure your bed is comfortable, with plenty of room for you and your partner. Do not share your bed with your pets, as they will often move around in the night and disturb your sleep. If your pet is used to sharing your bed, put a hot water bottle and a favorite toy in their sleeping place for them to cuddle up to and close your door. It may take a night or two, but they will get used to it!
Use cotton or silk sheets and pillowcases, nothing synthetic that will make you hot and sweaty. Have heavy curtains or close fitting blinds to cover the windows and keep out light from streetlights as well as a bright moon and the morning sun.
Eliminate as much external noise as possible. To some extent, you will sleep through noises you are used to hearing, such as traffic or airplanes, but this still interferes with the quality of your sleep. Even pleasant noises, such as birds twittering in the early morning may wake you up before you have had enough sleep. If you cannot eliminate these sounds, consider using earplugs to shut them out. A fan, used on a low setting, may be useful as this provides some “white noise” to mask other external noises.
Keep your bedroom at a slightly cool temperature, around 18ºC (66ºF) is best. Also, ensure that the room is adequately ventilated, either by opening a window slightly, or by leaving the door ajar. Even in winter, for a good night’s sleep, it is better to be slightly cool rather than too hot.
If you have a TV in your bedroom, get rid of it! TV may sometimes lull you to sleep, but the content is often disturbing so you are not relaxed. In addition, most commercials are designed to be upbeat and stimulating. You need a relaxing routine at bedtime and TV does not fit into this. If you fall asleep watching TV the screen will continue to flicker and interfere with your sleep.
Get rid of unnatural light sources in your bedroom. To get to sleep your body needs to feel like it is nighttime, so do not go to sleep with an illuminated clock or CD player next to the bed. If you cannot get rid of these items, turn them around so they face away from you, or cover them with an upturned box. You should get rid of as much electrical equipment in your bedroom as you can – if it has an electrical cord, ask yourself whether you really need it in your bedroom. Sleep is (or should be) a natural process, so give yourself as natural an environment as possible.

Plan Your Bedtime Routine

Just like babies and small children, we need a bedtime routine to tell our bodies that this is the time for sleep. Think about what you want in your routine, some people like to have a warm drink before bed; others prefer to avoid any fluid, as this is likely to lead to a need to get up in the middle of the night! Remember that everyone is different, so you need to find what works best for you. Just experiment, do not get stressed if one thing does not work, but don’t give up too easily either! It will take a little while for your body to adjust to its new routine.
Set a goal for how many hours sleep you believe you need. If you don’t really know how many hours your body needs, aim for about eight and a half hours. Once you have set your sleep hours goal, calculate what time you need to go to bed to achieve that goal, based on the time you need to get up, initially allowing an extra half an hour to fall asleep. The extra half an hour should be able to be discarded or significantly reduced once you have improved your sleep pattern.
Plan to go to bed and get up at the same time each day, even on the weekends. Routine is important. If you find that you want to stay asleep longer on the weekends when you do not have the alarm clock waking you up, this indicates that you are not getting enough sleep, so you may need to go to bed earlier.

Plan for Sleep Before Bedtime

Avoid all caffeine drinks after 4pm. That means cutting out tea and coffee, also fizzy drinks and especially “energy” drinks. Try a cup of chamomile tea before bed, as this is very relaxing.
Do not eat anything too spicy or fatty at your evening meal. Spicy foods may upset your digestion and fatty food takes a long time to digest. Also, avoid anything containing MSG (aka flavor enhancer 621) as this can keep you awake, especially if you do not have it very often. Check the labels of pre-packaged foods and if eating out, especially Chinese, check the menu to see if their food is “MSG free”.
Avoid drinking alcohol. Whilst alcohol can initially make you feel drowsy, it is also a stimulant and will often cause you to wake up after a few hours’ sleep.
If you feel tired before your designated bedtime, find something not too stimulating to do, perhaps washing up, preparing your clothes or lunch for the next day, or tidying up some papers. Try not to doze before bedtime or you are likely to upset your routine.
Before you go to bed, do a relaxing activity. This could be doing some relaxing yoga poses, listening to calming music, taking a warm bath, giving or receiving a gentle massage, reading a short story, or a chapter of a non-violent book (set a limit on how much you will read before you start), or doing a sitting meditation.

What To Do at Bedtime

When you go to bed, if you have a partner, ensure that you connect with them before sleep – a simple goodnight kiss and hug does wonders for good sleep vibes, making love releases natural endorphins to aid sleep. Never go to bed without settling an argument!
If you have some sleep music, turn it on now. Let the music wash over you for a while, then begin to listen closely to each note in the music and try to listen for the small gaps, the silences, between individual notes.
When you are ready to sleep, concentrate on relaxing rather than on getting to sleep. Lie flat on your back if that is comfortable for you, otherwise in the position that you find most comfortable. Scan through your body looking for areas that are tense, and then consciously relax those areas. A good way to relax any area of your body is to feel your breath going there – simply breathe in deeply and follow the path of that breath from your mouth to wherever you are feeling tense. Let your breath massage the area to release tension.
Once you have released any tense areas, go through your body, starting with your feet, and think about how hard each part of your body has worked during the day. Remind your feet that they have carried you around all day and deserve to rest now, tell your instep that it has worked hard supporting your weight, your ankles that they have bent and flexed hundreds of times during the day, and so on, all the way up your body to the top of your head.
If you wake during the night, go through these steps again to get back to sleep.

When you find yourself lying awake at night unable to get to sleep, it is important to have strategies to cope with your insomnia. If you fail to deal with your insomnia, it can lead to severe distress, inability to lose weight, and will exacerbate many medical conditions.

To put it another way, insomnia should never be taken lightly. If you, or someone you know, currently suffer from insomnia, I urge you to take immediate action to deal with it. The good news is that there are natural ways to deal with it, which will allow you to do that. Visit our website and get your free 41 page Sleep Report, click here.

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