Sleep Tips for Better Sleep

Set Your Bedroom Up for Sleep

2009-10-07T14:36:00.000-04:00

I talked in one of my previous posts about using the bedroom only for sleep. One of the things that goes along with that is setting your bedroom up to be a relaxing, calming, sleep inducing environment. If you feel relaxed, if you feel calm, it's going to make it easier for you to fall asleep.

Your bedroom should be dark for you to sleep. We've talked about this before about darkening the windows, keeping something over them to keep out the sunlight in the morning. To go along with that is temperature. Your bedroom should be cool, but not too cold. One of the things that cause you to fall asleep is a cooler body temperature, and this is often why it's really hard to fall asleep when it's hot outside or hot in your bedroom.

Something that certainly affects how well you sleep is your mattress. Is it soft enough for you, or does it sag in the middle and cause you to sink in? Contrary to what you might think, your mattress being too soft is a problem. It needs to be firm enough to support you, and of course not having lumps or sags in it helps. Also, it needs to be the right size for you and your partner. You both need ample room to move around if you need to. Being cramped in together sounds nice, but after a little while you're probably going to want to stretch out and move around some.

Consider changing up your bedroom environment some if your current one is not working for you. Move furniture around, get softer lights, bring in some candles, try some scented oils. Experiment to find what works for you, but creating a relaxing peaceful bedroom will help you out if you need help to fall asleep.

Get a Better Night's Sleep by Clearing Your Mind

2009-10-05T13:04:00.000-04:00

It's late at night, you've had a long day, and you just want to lay down and get some sleep so you can wake up refreshed and ready for the day tomorrow. The problem is, when you actually do lay down and close your eyes, you're thinking about everything you did that day, and all the things you have to do tomorrow. You're focusing on something bad that happened at work, or something a stranger said to you, and it's keeping you awake.

There is a great solution to this, and it's to keep a notepad and pen next to your bed in the nightstand drawer. Writing things down release them from your brain, and then it can be free to relax and drift off to sleep. Are you proud of something you did today? Write it down! "I'm so happy that I ______". There, it's on paper, you've released it and now you don't need to think about it anymore! Are you thinking about all the things you need to do tomorrow and it's keeping you awake? Rather than fight it and just try to forget about it and lay there wondering "why can't I sleep?" take a few moments to write them down. List out the things you need to get done tomorrow, and any pertinent information that will help you do those tasks (and help you release the thoughts about that thing from your head) and when you're done you'll feel better.

Part of why we toss and turn at night trying to get to sleep is that we have all these thoughts in our head and we don't want to forget them. So, we try to make some "mental note" of what it is, but this really engages our brain.. sort of "spins it up" if you will. That's obviously not something we want to do, so taking a few moments to write your thoughts out will allow you to relax and sleep better. You might think that turning the light on to write your thoughts out will wake you up so you just lay there and do nothing. If that's the case, get a small, soft hand held blue light. Blue light isn't that bright and shouldn't disturb you if a regular one does.

Try doing this, clear your mind, and get a better night's sleep for it!

Designate the Bedroom for Sleep Only

2009-10-03T11:12:00.001-04:00

If you would like to get better sleep you might want to think about how you use your bedroom. The best thing you can do is to designate your bedroom for sleep and sex only. While you may not be able to follow this completely because your closet and dresser that holds all your clothes are in your bedroom, you should try to stick to that as much as possible. This is a great way to set up your subconscious to realize that when you are in the bedroom, you should be sleeping.

Many people use their bedrooms as "catch all" rooms. They watch tv while lying in bed, go through all the mail while lying on the bed, balance their checkbooks, study for exams, surf the internet, all kinds of different things. If you have absolutely no other place to go besides your bedroom, leave the bed sacred. If you must do any of the above things, or anything besides sleep or sex, do it on the floor. When you sit on your bed and balance your checkbook, or study for an exam, or write out bills, your mind gets confused. Have you ever gotten in bed and tried to go to sleep and then your mind starts racing and thinking about a bunch of different things? Chances are, it's because you've previously trained it to do so by doing all of those activities while sitting on or laying in your bed.

If you keep the bed only for sleep and sex, your mind will begin to realize those are the only things it should be doing there. When you lay down to go to sleep, you will be able to relax and drift off to sleep.

How to Sleep Better - Watch Your Intake

2009-10-01T00:10:00.001-04:00

Many people often ask the question how to sleep better, and the answer is different for all of us, because we are all different! There are some common "sleep tips" we can all use to get better sleep though. If no one has pointed it out to you before, take a look at what you are putting into your body on a daily basis. The human body is one absolutely incredible system, and everything interacts with each other. What you may not think is a contributing factor to you have sleep problems, could be the reason you're not getting a good night's sleep.

One of the most obvious things to take a look at is coffee and other sources of caffeine. The caffeine from coffee, teas and sodas stays in your system for anywhere from six to twelve hours! This of course all depends on the individual, and that's why I said the answer is different for all of us. There are people who can drink a cup of coffee an hour before laying down and then sleep through the night with no problems. Others are completely affected by one cup of coffee that they had mid-morning.

Think a heavy meal is the answer? For some it is, but others it totally interferes with the ability to fall asleep. A light snack is usually a better choice. Dairy products such as some cheese or a glass of milk, or a turkey sandwich are good choices. Both of these contain an amino acid that helps you to fall sleep. Just think to last Thanksgiving, did you eat a lot of turkey and then get all sleepy?

Lastly, watch your alcohol intake. You may be tempted to think that drinking alcohol will cause you to "pass out" and go to sleep, and while that may be true, you won't get good sleep. Drinking alcohol really messes with your body and your sleep significantly. It will disrupt your sleep pattern, and often times actually make you wake up as you need to go to the bathroom and releave yourself - which can then leave you awake for hours. If that's the case, did you really get better sleep at all?

Sleep Tips - Follow a Sleep Routine

2009-09-20T19:02:00.002-04:00

One of the sleep tips I've followed with success has been to establish a sleep routine. What is a sleep routine you ask? As human beings, we tend to be creatures of habit. We like doing the same things over and over again, especially when those habits produce the results we desire. If your desire is to fall asleep and get a good nights rest, you can establish a "sleep routine" that you follow before going to bed.

This can be a few things that you do night after night before you go to bed. Not only will the subconscious pick up on "hey, it's time to go to bed now", but by following the same nightly routine you will actively be thinking to yourself "It's time to go to sleep now".

What is a good sleep routine to follow?

What we are trying to do is to get our minds and bodies to slow down, relax, and get sleepy. One of the best things you can do is to start to dim the lights around you. Turn off bright overhead light, and rely on the softer, shaded light that comes from lamps. Doing this allows less light to enter your eyes, and this is one of the natural cues your body has to fall asleep. Bright lights will keep you awake, so turning them off and dimming the lights around you is the right choice.

Listening to soft music can also put you in a sleepy mood. Some people like to take a warm bath, and other people (that can tolerate it) like to eat dairy products before going to sleep. (remember your grandmother's advice to drink a glass of warm milk if you're having trouble going to sleep?)

Find what works for you, put it into practice, and do it every night! It will become your own personal "sleep aid" that signals your body to drift off to dream land!

Get Better Sleep by Setting the Mood

2009-09-13T17:15:00.002-04:00

The next of my sleep tips for better sleep is to set the mood for sleep. What do I mean by setting the mood? In my last post, Get Better Sleep By Not Watching TV I talked about the light entering your eyes and keeping you awake. In the same regards, you want to keep your bedroom as dark as possible.

Early morning sun will creep in through your windows, and the light could possibly wake you. There's even an alarm clock that instead of a horrible beeping noise, has a built in "day bulb" that slowly starts to light up and increases in intensity of brightness to wake you! The obvious thing we can do to combat this, is to block out our windows while we sleep.

If you're on a budget you can always just throw a blanket over the curtain rod. Interior designers are rolling over in their graves right now, but hey, it works! If you'd like your bedroom to not look like a college dorm room, you can go the route of just buying heavy curtains that you pull back during the day, and close when you go to sleep. You can also buy one of those sleep masks, but they way I toss and turn during the night, there's no way that thing would still be on my head come morning!

So however you need to do it, block out those windows, and get better sleep by staying asleep when the sun starts to come up!

Get Better Sleep By Not Watching TV

2009-09-08T20:44:00.003-04:00

I have gotten some better sleep by cutting out watching tv late at night. This is one of those sleep tips that I've known about, but never really put into practice until now. I always thought that when I got in bed I'd like to watch tv for "just a little bit" to put me to bed. What usually ends up happening is that I'll get involved in the show and then end up watching it for 45 more minutes.. and then if the NEXT show happens to be interesting.. well, you can see where that leads!

More than just the time you'll spend watching the show, watching tv before you go to bed isn't good for you in more ways than one. Usually your room will be dark, and you'll get just the light from the tv.. well it so happens that this light entering your eyes will actually stimulate you and keep you awake longer, and just disrupt your sleep schedule all together!

Beyond the light, watching tv when you lay down to sleep also mentally stimulates you as well. When your brain should be shutting down, you're taking in the information from the shows and it gets your mind thinking. I have spent MANY nights just laying in bed with my mind racing! It's not that I'm particularly thinking about something from the tv show, but my mind is just active.. so it starts thinking about things I need to get done tomorrow.. things I DIDN'T do that day, things I'd like to do in the future. For me, those kind of thoughts are hard to shut down, so I lie awake in bed, wondering why can't I sleep?

I stopped watching tv the last 2 nights, and that combined with a nice walk during the day has lead to me getting better sleep the last 2 nights! (oh, and of course I had my fan going at night for the white noise!) Let's hope that this trend continues!

Better Sleep with Noise ... Wait, What?

2009-09-06T19:01:00.002-04:00

The title of this post "Better Sleep with Noise" just might invoke a "Wait, What?" response from you. For all of my sleep irregularities, there is certainly one thing that has always helped me to fall asleep, and stay asleep compared to not using it, and that is: white noise. What is white noise? Well for our purposes, white noise is just background noise that your brain doesn't really focus on. The easiest way to get this is to just use a fan!

The sound of the fan blowing produces a static, background noise. You're brain (well, at least MY brain) doesn't focus on this, compared to say listening to music or the television. The fan also masks outside noises, so say that garbage truck in the morning, or someone else in the house making breakfast, or anything else that might wake you up if there was NO noise, the white noise lessens the sound of the other noise. This, in turn, helps me to fall asleep better by the background noise that it makes when I am trying to fall asleep, and it helps to give me better sleep by being able to STAY asleep when a noise might have woken me up otherwise.

So, I really recommend getting one of those "box" fans, or something very similar. If the temperature is cold, you can just point the fan in a way that it doesn't really move air around, it's just making the noise.

That said, if you remember my last post about Better Sleep with Exercise that night I slept really, really well! So well in fact, that I slept for about 9 hours! Now, that may have had something to do with the fact that I hadn't gotten hardly any sleep at all the previous night, but still I slept really good.

The following day I didn't go for a walk, but I was out at a backyard BBQ most of the day. I ended up not being tired until roughly 4am again, and woke up tired today. Take that for whatever it's worth!

Exercise: Something I've Used to get Better Sleep in the Past

2009-09-04T18:51:00.003-04:00

Well it should be of no surprise, after my post last night, that I didn't get that much sleep. I ended up falling asleep sometime after 4am, and then getting up early meant I didn't rest much. The day was a drag, but thanks to my friend caffeine, I persevered.

As I laid in bed last night wondering "why can't I fall asleep?" I started thinking of some of the things I've done in the past to help myself get some much needed rest. The first thing that came to mind was: Exercise. Hey, it's that other thing I don't really do much of, but need! Yes it's true, I don't exercise much nowadays, which is funny because I used to be so heavily into it just a few short years ago.

I do remember that when I got regular, moderate exercise, it certainly improved my sleeping patterns. So, the first of my sleep tips is: Exercise. You definitely don't want to go overboard right when starting out, but just getting active, get moving, and you'll not only feel good and feel like you have more energy during the day, when it comes time for bed, you'll get a good nights sleep and sleep better than you have been!

That in mind, I went for a long walk today. Hey, I say not to go overboard right when you start out! A good long walk was appropriate for me, being that I haven't done much physical activity at all lately, and it felt great! Hopefully, I won't have any trouble sleeping tonight. :)

Did I Just Sabotage Myself?

2009-09-04T03:04:00.002-04:00

So it seems that my whatever governs my sleep must have found out that I'm complaining about it. Relatively soon after my first post, I started getting very tired... It must have been all that talk about sleep! I ended up taking a nap for about an hour.

Here it is, hours later, a bit after 3am... and I'm still awake. It makes sense, I slept earlier so I wouldn't be tired now, so maybe that's the first sleep tip, don't take naps! lol. I know, what can you do when you just feel so run down, you can't focus or concentrate on anything.. a nap just seems perfect. Let's hope I can still get a good nights rest sometime soon...

Why Don't I Sleep Better? or, My Misadventures with Sleep

2009-09-03T12:06:00.004-04:00

Ahhh, sleep. That thing we're supposed to do about one third of our lives. I say "supposed" to do, because it's seems like it's always been a struggle for me to get a good nights rest. There are times when I just absolutely can not fall to sleep at night, and then there are times where during the majority of the day that's all I want to DO is sleep! I'm often left wondering what is wrong with me, and why I can't get better sleep.

When I was young I had a friend that would sleep for what seemed like 12 hours every night. He never watched Saturday morning cartoons, because he was still sleeping. I, on the other hand, would only get a few hours of sleep, and be up early and then just veg out in front of the tv. It's not that I really wanted to watch all the those cartoons (hey, I was young, I wanted to watch SOME of them) but it was really just the by product of being awake too early, and there was nothing else going on.

As I got older, my sleep patterns changed a bit, but there was always a reoccurring theme: I just didn't get a good night's sleep on a regular schedule. Sure there where times where I DID get good sleep, but it wasn't regular. I didn't think much of it till later in life when speaking with friends and girlfriends that they never really much had problems with sleeping.

Now, don't get me wrong, It's not like I have horrible sleep, or a medical problem. (yes I saw a couple of doctors and they did tests and said there's nothing wrong with me) It's just that I can not seem to consistently get a good 8 hours of sleep, on a regular schedule. Sometimes I'll be awake for 20 to 24+ hours, just because I can not fall asleep. I'll lay in bed, with a fan on for some white noise, totally dark, and just LAY there, never sleeping. I'll eventually get bored with just laying there and get up to do something. Hours later, I'll get tired, and then only sleep for about 6 hours! It just doesn't make sense!

I've searched high and low for sleep tips on how to get better sleep. Some have worked pretty good for me, some haven't. I decided to write this blog just to talk about them, share them, discuss them with others, and to just talk about my weird sleep patterns in general. I know I can't be the only one out there like this!

Privacy Policy

2009-09-01T23:58:00.002-04:00

The privacy of our visitors to sleeptipsforbettersleep.blogspot.com is important to us.

At sleeptipsforbettersleep.blogspot.com, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use and visit sleeptipsforbettersleep.blogspot.com, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files
As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons
We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on sleeptipsforbettersleep.blogspot.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

DoubleClick DART cookies
We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (”interest based targeting”). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey). DART uses “non personally identifiable information”. It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.