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Good Morning East Tennessee!
Another day is ahead. How do you feel? Did you sleep well?
A good night's sleep is essential to both physical and mental health. Here's 7 quick and easy tips to help you get a better night's sleep.
Turn It Off
Sleep in complete darkness. Many people prefer to sleep with some sort of light. Many will turn down the volume of their TV and leave it on. These are bad ideas. Your internal clock works via light source, and your glands are triggering productions of melatonin and serotonin. Light sources during sleeping hours will disrupt this natural production rate.
Turn It Down
Try to keep the temperature lower than 70 degrees.
When you sleep, your body temperature drops. If the room temperature is too high, your body will continually have to adjust with the result often being a disruption in your sleep.
Wear socks to bed. As our circulation slows down it is our feet that ges cold first, and the brain takes the signal as if our whole body is cold. We'll wake up and find a way to adjust when we could have stopped this whole trigger of events before it started.
Flip It
If you have been sleeping on the same mattress for over 1 year, try turning it over and using the other side. You will notice that it's a lot more firm which will take the strain off your spine. The result is less back pain during your waking hours and a better night's sleep.
Get Your Partner A Bed
I don't know if your partner will go for it, and you might get smacked just for suggesting it, but studies are showing that sleeping with a partner can greatly reduce your quality of sleep.
No one is on the same exact clock. Some people take longer to fall asleep and someone is going to be getting up earlier. Both of these, along with continued adjusting throughout the night, will greatly affect your natural sleep patterns.
No One Wants To Bang Into Walls Or Stub Their Toe
Don't drink any fluids 2-3 hours before you go to sleep. Getting up throughout the night to use the bathroom is an obvious disruption in sleep patterns.
Go to the bathroom right before you get into bed.
Start A Journal
If you make a journal entry before going to bed, it has a way of freeing us from the days events. "Tomorrow is another day." The result is a release of stress and an ending of the day which equates to a better night's sleep.
Avoid Alcohol
While people have the assumption that alcohol makes you sleep better because it makes you drowsy, new studies are showing that alcohol makes it impossible to get any really deep sleep. As the effects of the alcohol wear off, you'll awake and often be unable to fall back asleep.
The problem with sleep disruption and sleep disorders is that people don't take them serious when, in fact, they're very very serious issues that can manifest themselves in devastating ways.
If all else fails and you're suspecting a serious problem, don't put it off. Get yourself checked. It could save your life and your sanity.
Have a wonderful day.
Published January 6, 2011
