Print this pageAuthor: Nelson Evans
Sleep is one of the most essential body functions. Since we sleep for about a third of our lives, you would think we'd know much more about all of it's functions. This is not the case however and a lot about sleep remains a mystery. One thing we do know for certain is that we really must have sleep and it is of great importance to our mental and physical health. Recent studies clearly show that we are not getting enough sleep in our modern day lives. With a few simple adjustments in our lives and habits, the looming reality of inadequate sleep or insomnia doesn't have to exist at all..We have a need for a specific amount of sleep every night. Though the amount may vary for individuals, it is generally around eight hours plus or minus an hour or two. Not getting enough sleep to meet our needs each night creates a sleep debt. Also known as sleep deprivation, sleep debt is a cumulative problem that grows larger and larger each time we don't meet our daily sleep needs. Also we can't just wipe the slate clean with regards to sleep debt as it can only be paid off with extra sleep greater than our daily requirement (make up sleep).
When sleep deprivation happens very gradually, the slowly increasing sleep debt can be very hard to detect and often builds up unnoticed. By not getting just a small amount of sleep that you need each night, for instance just 20 minutes, over a month; this grows to a significant 10 hours deficit! Because it is such a prevalent and undetected problem, sleep deprivation is the cause of every year. To make things worse, symptoms of sleep deprivation often are wrongly identified as anxiety, stress, depression or aging.
Despite the prevalence of sleep deprivation, we can improve our sleep hygiene with some lifestyle changes and by establishing some new healthy habits and patterns. Obviously our goal is to get a full night's rest every night and yet despite good intentions , this goal is difficult for most of us. Yet it needn't be that way. Just a few of these tips below can make a big difference in your sleeping:
Having a consistent bedtime every night is a good start to forming positive healthy sleep patterns. What helps even more is to enforce a strict and consistent wake up time. You can be more flexible with your bed time if you maintain a very strict wake up time each morning because your body will begin to naturally adapt your bedtime on it's own.
Make your the room in which you sleep a calm soothing place reserved only for sleep and love making. Your bedroom should be associated with restful sleep and by doing this, it will soon become a cue for that behavior.
Regular vigorous exercise really promotes good sleep. Try to work out in the morning or afternoon. There is no reason why you shouldn't aim to take advantage of the physical, mental health and stress reduction benefits of exercise.
Try to leave 2 to 3 hours between your last meal for the day and your bedtime. This gives your system time to gently settle down and prepare for a good night of sleep.
When sleepy, don't try to resist it and stay alert, go to sleep as soon as it's possible. This is a good habit to get into.
Avoid sleeping pills and "other over the counter" aids. These may provide a temporary solution but cause long term problems. In addition, the sleep you get from using these products is not the deep restful kind that is essential to your body's recuperative and regenerative functions.
Meditation or deep breathing can work wonders a half hour before you go to sleep. Try it and you may be pleasantly surprised. Just slow deep breathing alone can often bring about lower blood pressure, a slower heart rate and a calm mind.
Even if you do not learn meditation or deep breathing, it is a good idea to wind down your activity before bedtime.
Specially created sleep track music and CD's can really help you to calm your mind and gently ease into sleep. Some of these audio files use scientific principals to bring about or mimic delta waves, these are brain waves that occur during the deepest sleep stages. These products can help create an environment conducive to good sleep and at the very least, mask out distracting noises and relax you to sleep.
Clear your head of the task, errands and responsibilities of your day and use a note pad to list them. When you write down things your are worried about, you can now relax without any concern of forgetting.
In following just a few of the above suggestions, we can gradually improve our sleeping patterns and also, the quality of the sleep we get. Including just some of these changes in our daily lives can yield a great improvement. Be aware that just as sleep debt gradually accumulates, these solutions will bring gradual improvements. Be sure to stick with these tips to reach your goal of restful relaxing sleep and you get to enjoy waking up refreshed looking forward to each and every new day.
Nelson Evans is a big fan of sleep. Though he hasn't always had enough. Nelson has been using many tips plus some very unique Natural Sleep Remedies found here. Nelson writes for Natural Cures for Insomnia Blog
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