So many of the health problems that people are living with could literally be healed overnight if people were simply getting enough sleep... (It's amazing what just one 12 hour night of deep sleep can do.) It is while you are sleeping that your body repairs and rejuvenates it's self, and builds up the energy that it will need the following day, but because going to sleep is the last thing that we do each day it tends to be the thing that we neglect and put off the most. (An example of what I mean is if it's getting close to someone's bed time and a friend calls them up and asks them if they want to go to a movie they will often think to themself, "Sure, why not, it will just mean a couple hours less sleep, that's all.") You need to "wake up" to how important sleep really is and below are 6 tips that I've learned to getting better sleep...
6 TIPS FOR GETTING BETTER SLEEP ____________________________________________________________________
1. DON'T WAKE UP WITH AN ALARM CLOCK
If you wake up to an alarm clock you will wake up before you are fully rested and ready to wake up naturally on your own and you will most likely start the day feeling tired, upset, and wishing that you could just stay in bed. This is the absolute worst way to start the day and it's the way that most people do. People that wake up this way tend to continue to feel tired throughout the rest of the day and will need to drink lots of caffeine in the form of Coffee, Sodas, and Energy Drinks just to stay awake.
Waking up before your body is fully rested will result in many problems including poor concentration, poor memory, and slower reflexes, which is why I believe that driving when you are sleepy is just as dangerous as driving when you are drunk. (Recent studies seem to prove this by showing that on "Daylight Saving Time" when everyone has to set their clocks forward 1 hour and they lose an hour of sleep traffic accidents will increase, and on days when everyone sets their clocks back 1 hour and they get to sleep in an extra hour traffic accidents are lower than normal.)
The very name "Alarm Clock" should tell you that it's insane to use one... You are the most vulnerable while you are asleep and getting woken up while you are in the middle of a deep sleep by any kind of an alarm whether it's a "Fire Alarm", "Burglar Alarm", or an "Alarm Clock" will jolt and startle you and cause you to start the day feeling tense and stressed out, and to give you an idea of how annoying and unnatural it is to wake up to an alarm clock each morning, the man who invented the alarm clock (Levi Hutchins) created the world's first alarm clock in 1787, and the only problem was that it could only wake you up at 4:00 am and he hadn't yet figured out how to set it to wake you up at any other time and shortly after inventing his alarm clock that would go off every morning at 4:00 am he was murdered by his wife one morning at 4:05 am!
2. MAKE YOUR BEDROOM A ROOM WHERE GOOD SLEEP IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE
The room that you sleep in will have a major impact on how well you can sleep at night and below are 3 tips that I have for making your room more sleep friendly...
- MAKE SURE THAT YOUR BED ROOM IS COMPLETELY DARK
Our bodies were designed to naturally start waking up once the sun rises and lights everything up and to start getting sleepy as the sun goes down and everything gets dark. At night time the hormone "melatonin" is released which causes us to feel sleepy enough to fall asleep and go into deep REM sleep which is when the most healing and rejuvenation takes place. Darkness is what triggers the release of melatonin, but our skin is so sensitive that even small amounts of light touching it such as the light from a TV screen, a a computer screen, or even a night light is enough to trick the body into thinking that the sun is starting to come up and that it's time to start waking up so get rid of any lights in your bedroom.
Light and darkness are both crucial to our everyday health and the best thing to do is to get plenty of sunlight during the day, then dim the lights in your home an hour or two before you go to bed, and then make your bedroom completely dark when you go to sleep at night, and when I say "completely dark" I mean exactly that. (It should be so dark that you can't see anything but the color black and if you can still see the outline of the furniture in the room you haven't made the room dark enough.)
- MAKE SURE THAT YOUR BED ROOM IS COMPLETELY SILENT
It's a complete mystery to me how people who live in the city are able to sleep at night when they are constantly exposed to loud traffic, loud neighbors, and even loud room mates. If you live in a loud city and can't sleep in silence your next best option would be sleeping with a box fan turned on "HIGH" which will cover up a lot of these noises so that you at least won't be woken up by them. (Keep in mind that even if you claim to be a deep sleeper and you say that you are able to sleep at night in the city without being woken up by the police sirens and other noises, you will still be hearing them subconsciously while you are sleeping and they can still cause nightmares and stress to the body that will hinder your ability to get a good night sleep.)
- MAKE SURE THAT YOUR BED ROOM AIR IS CLEAN & COOL
Studies show that the best temperature for sleep is actually around 68 °F. (20 °C) If the room gets too hot it will cause you to wake up off and on throughout the night and if the room gets too cold your body will have to use a lot of it's energy to warm it's self up during the night which will take away energy that could go into rejuvenation, so for the best sleep possible keep the temperature in your bedroom where you can comfortably sleep with very little if any clothing.
The air that you breathe at night will have a big impact on your ability to get a good night's sleep. It would be best to sleep with your window open at night (or at least slightly open) so that you can breathe fresh air at night, but if you can't leave your window open at night due to weather, noise, or crime I would encourage you to invest in a good air purifier. (If you read the reviews of any good quality air purifier you will likely see almost everyone talking about how much better they sleep at night since they bought one.)
For some people it would be virtually impossible (even at night) to go 8 hours straight or longer without someone calling them, and for people like this just turning off their phone before they go to bed would improve their sleep and their health dramatically.
I would encourage you to always turn your phone off before you go to sleep and to let everyone you know understand that you don't want them to call you or to show up at your house knocking on your door at night unless it's an emergency. It may sound selfish, but sleeping is YOUR time and you have to be unconscious when you are sleeping in order to get anything out of it, so it is very important that you take steps to insure that you won't be disturbed while you are asleep.
Of course many people will say that they need to leave their phone on in case a family member is in a car wreck or something like that, but if someone gets seriously hurt they should call 911 first and foremost, and even if you only leave your phone on for emergency purposes it is likely that throughout the year you will be woken up countless times due to wrong numbers, telemarkerters, or friends and family who called to just to say "Hi" and didn't know that you were sleeping, and over time these phone calls will take a toll on your sleep as well as on your health.
4. DON'T SLEEP WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS SLEEPING PROBLEMS
If you sleep in the same bed as someone who wakes up several times throughout the night it will be contagious and cause you to keep waking up as well, which will result in insufficient sleep. If you sleep in the same bed with someone who does any of the following 10 things, you need to work on getting them help for their problem or consider sleeping in separate beds...
- Sleeping with someone who snores. - Sleeping with someone who smells like cigarettes or anything else that bothers you. - Sleeping with someone who constantly wakes up to use the bathroom. - Sleeping with someone who sleep walks. - Sleeping with someone who has intense nightmares. - Sleeping with someone who gets phone calls in the middle of the night. - Sleeping with someone who insists on having the TV on while sleeping. - Sleeping with someone who wants the room to be way too cool or way too hot for you. - Sleeping with someone who has to wake up with an alarm before you have to wake up.
By the way, if you and the person that you sleep with are currently planning on having a child, it is estimated that a new baby will result in over 500 hours of lost sleep for each parent during the first year alone!
Avoid caffeine and other stimulants throughout the day because they will have a negative effect on your ability to sleep... This should be common sense, but I've met people that drink 12 cans of Pepsi a day and wonder why they have trouble falling asleep... Caffeine is something that people take to help them stay awake and the problem is that it works so well that if you consume it during the day it can cause you to have a lot of difficulty falling asleep later that night. (Which means that you will wake up feeling tired again the next day and you will need to drink more caffeine to stay awake, and the cycle will go on and on until you eliminate all caffeine from your diet, but because of how addicting caffeine is most people get stuck in this cycle for life.)
If you don't get enough sleep drinking a cup of coffee will result in you feeling a lot more awake, but so would seeing a big lion running towards you. You see, we all have stored energy reserves that are intended for emergencies, (like being chased by a lion) and what coffee and other stimulants do is tap into these reserves and allow them to be used for non-emergency purposes and doing this repeatedly will result in rapid and accelerated ageing due to how taxing it is on the body,
Eating right before you go to sleep can of course hinder your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep so it is important to not only not eat right before bed but also to eat a dinner that isn't hard to digest. (If you are following the diet outlined in Chapter One you will be eating the quickest and easiest foods to digest.)
If you exercise during the day you will be more likely to fall asleep and stay asleep at night because your body will be physically exhausted and will need more rest than if you didn't exercise, but it would be best not to exercise too close to your bed time because immediately after a workout your body will be too stimulated to relax and easily fall asleep, so ideally workout in the morning or early in the afternoon.
Millions of people watch the late night news right before going to bed each night... If you do this please understand that there are people who were in World War 1 who still to this day are having intense and painful flashbacks about it, so don't think that watching news reports about wars, death, or crime in your neighborhood right before you go to bed at night can't have a negative effect on your ability to get deep and restful sleep that night.
Make it a point to avoid any kind of negative stimulation shortly before you go to sleep (and ideally altogether) and spend the 10 minutes or so that it takes you to fall asleep thinking about any good things that you experienced that day and mentally envisioning a positive tomorrow.
How you start your day is extremely important as well and it will set the tone for the rest of the day. If you went to sleep happy the night before and you got a good night sleep there is no reason not to wake up feeling happy as well, but for maximum results I encourage you to smile before you get out of bed each morning and to drink a big cup of water before you eat anything because starting your day with a smile and being well hydrated will definitely help make the day much more enjoyable.