Take Back Your Good Night's Sleep!

In words of W.C. Fields “The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.”  Easy for him to say.

You know that sleep is important, you have heard all the ways to get a better night sleep, stick to a regular bedtime schedule, both waking, and going to bed, even on the weekends.  No caffeine after 2pm, or whatever time scientists are saying now, exercises during the day.   Maybe you have tried all or some of those and yet you still have a hard time, or maybe you just need a little help falling asleep every now and then.

Here are few tips to getting to sleep that maybe you haven’t heard yet, or at least are new ways to try and get the same effect of the tried and true method.

 1)   Instead of stressing out about not falling asleep make your goal relaxation.  The more you stress out about not sleeping the more you won’t sleep.  With your goal just being relaxation you take the pressure off therefore making sleep easier.

2)   Use Sleepyti.me to determine what time you should go to bed based on the time you need to be awake.  Not to harp on the traditional tips, but once you find this out you should keep it as a regular schedule even on the weekends.

3)   Reduce your exposure to blue light by using a program like Fl.ux or wearing BluBlocker sunglasses at night while watching TV or using your computer.  Hey I didn’t say you were going to be attractive doing this.  You could just go the hour before bed with no TV or computers.

4)   Keep in mind that the best temperature for sleep is between 60 and 68 degrees.

5)   And this one is just for all the “old wives” who have told this tale; take a hot shower or bath before you go to bed.  The drop in temperature your body has will encourage you to have a deeper sleep.

One last bonus tip, the body works on triggers if you can set up a nighttime routine that starts before you are going to bed. For ex: You brush your teeth, wash your face, maybe read for half and hour on the couch and then head off to bed. Your body will learn this as a trigger for sleep making it easier for you to consistently fall asleep easily.

Do you have any other strange methods to get to sleep that work for you?  Did any of these work or not work for you?