Sleep Well, Sleep Better

Rest Easy
You're plagued by sleeping problems. Whether it's one night or every night, you've had to turn to prescription medications to get a wink of sleep. Unfortunately, the morning after always finds you cranky, irritable and dreading the thought of having to go to bed again. Rather than live with your sleeping woes, try these non-prescription remedies from Ralph Downey, III, Ph.D., D.A.B.S.M., F.A.A.S.M., chief of sleep medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center and Children's Hospital in Loma Linda, California.

Establish a soothing pre-bed ritual
Take a bath, read a book or do gentle yoga. Just avoid the TV and computer, which can stimulate you and keep you up. Putting a psychological buffer between you and the day's events can help you slide into slumber. Plus, by doing this ritual every night, you're priming your body for sleep, Downey says.

Adjust the thermostat
Sound sleep is nearly impossible if your room is too hot or too cold. The ideal temperature for optimal sleep is between 68 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet because everybody has individual preferences, you may have to play with this, especially if you're sharing that room with someone.

Follow the 20-20 rule
If you stay in bed when you can't sleep, you're doing more harm than good. "You'll develop an association with the bedroom as being a place where you can't sleep, and so when you try to sleep, you won't be able to," Downey says. Instead, if you can't fall asleep within 20 minutes of going to bed, get up, go to a dimly lit room and chill for 20 minutes. During that time, do nothing that will stimulate your brain so no surfing the Internet or reading a horror novel. Also, avoid falling asleep in that room. After 20 minutes, return to your bed. If you still can't sleep, repeat the above steps until your body succumbs.

Take an afternoon snooze
"A nap can reduce the stress of not having slept and help you feel less anxious about going to sleep that night," Downey says, suggesting that you nap during that post-lunch dip when your body naturally slows, thanks to circadian rhythms. Just don't nap longer than 20 minutes or you'll disrupt your sleep later.

Go cold turkey on caffeine
These may be harsh words to swallow, but because caffeine has been linked to adverse sleep effects, it's got to go. If you can't live without it, at least quit consuming caffeine (which includes chocolate, by the way) by 2 p.m., Downey says.

Keep a set sleep schedule
No doubt you've heard this, but it's worth repeating that you should always wake up and go to bed at the same time every day, even on weekends. "Consistency helps synchronize our sleep-wake cycle," Downey says.

Exercise -- but don't do it right before bed
Although regular exercise can help you sleep better, avoid vigorous workouts three hours before bed or else you may be too revved up to sleep.

If all else fails, restrict sleep by about an hour a night
This may sound crazy -- after all, you're trying to sleep more, not less -- but it's an effective strategy that does pay off, as long as you work at it, Downey says. Trying to fall asleep may create stress, and because the stress response alerts the brain to stay awake, sleep is less likely to occur. If this stress response continues nightly for a week or two, many people begin associating going to sleep in the bedroom with stress. Yet by restricting your sleep, you're actually promoting sleep because you're only in bed for sleep and not for prolonged periods when the stress response kicks in. "As you spend less time asleep, your drive to sleep increases so in sleep restriction therapy, we cut sleep time in bed so that the drive for sleep becomes stronger and you're more likely to sleep when you go to bed," Downey says. In other words, when sacrificing quantity you make up for it in quality of sleep. Once you start sleeping over 90 percent of the night, which could take weeks for some people, gradually add the hour back in 15-minute increments.


Source: AOL Health