Sleep Tips

Jan 13 09

Sleep Deprived?

Do you struggle to get proper rest? Does it frustrate you trying to get to sleep? Are you famished by weeks end? Americans are suffering from sleep deprivation like no other time in history. Moreover:

  • Sleep problems are reaching epidemic proportions, estimated to be the #1 health related problem in America – CNN, May 1997
  • Sleep deprivation costs $150 billion each year in higher stress and reduced worker productivity—National Commission on Sleep Disorders, 2003
  • Mayo Clinic: Almost all adults don’t get enough sleep and most struggle to get up in the morning. “If we got enough sleep at night we wouldn’t need an alarm clock to wake us.”
  • Lack of sleep leads to health problems; fatigue, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, shortened lifespan, suppressed immune systems and depression.
  • Recent studies implicate sleep deprivation in diabetes
  • We sleep on average 6.9 hours/day, almost an hour less than a few decades ago
  • Parents of young children lose an extra hour of sleep each night. NSF 2004

Put me in these stats, which drives me nuts! I would pay for more quality sleep? Nevertheless, here are some simple recommendations:

  1. Establish a regular sleep schedule – try being consistent with your rest time both bedtime and wake time. The body likes a steady sleep pattern.
  2. Establish a consistent pre-sleep routine – such as meditation or finishing a chapter in a self-help book? Exercise several hours before bedtime.
  3. Avoid nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol near bedtime – these stimulates, along with taking B vitamins, will keep you up longer and make the pre-sleep feeling difficult to attain.
  4. Create a comfortable sleep environment – dark curtains, soft and relaxing music, comfortable temperature (cooler the better), maybe candles?
  5. Stick to your routine even if you’re on the road – lots of folks travel and this can become difficult to be steadfast in your pre-sleep rituals.
  6. Practice healthy habits – like weekly physical activity, sound nutrition, and full body stretching with clear and positive thought patterns.
  7. Strive for a bedroom friendly environment – the bedroom should never be a place of worry. Don’t go to bed worrying incessantly, practice writing down your worries and developing action plans to put into play.
  8. Move your clock – constantly checking the time of night can be a severe problem to acquiring sound sleep.
  9. Get up if you can’t sleep – if you can’t go to sleep in 30 or 45 minutes get up and read or clean until you are really ready for sleep.
  10. Cope with stress better – deal with stress head on by attacking it rather than letting it eat you up! Hint, get to the gym!!!!
  11. Eliminate artificial sweeteners – these dangerous chemical additives deplete serotonin reservoirs, which are vital to the sleep cycle.
  12. Take melatonin supplement – taking 3 -6mg of melatonin before bed time aids the body to a relaxing pre-sleep state. This is my personal favorite when I struggle to get adequate rest. It is a natural antioxidant and no long term additions have been published.

“Think in the morning, act in the noon, eat in the evening, sleep in the night”

- William Blake (English Visionary)

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