Developing Good Sleep Hygiene to Improve Sleep

If you are struggling with sleep difficulties, before you consider taking prescription medication to aid in your sleep, you should ensure you have good sleep hygiene. Good sleep hygiene helps many people get to sleep and stay asleep through the night effectively.

First, set a regular sleeping schedule for yourself. Ensure that you fall asleep and get up at the same time everyday, no matter what. If you cannot fall asleep within a half an hour of laying down, get up and read a book or magazine for a half an hour and try to sleep again. Regardless of what time you actually end up falling asleep, you need to go to bed and get up at the same time every day.

You also need to avoid caffeine at least 4-6 hours before you go to bed. This may be challenging, but it is an important part of good sleep hygiene. If you drink coffee, soda, or tea, make sure it doesn't have caffeine 4-6 hours prior to bedtime.

Before you go to sleep, try to do something relaxing. Take a bubble bath, read a good book, listen to some soft music, or practice some relaxation techniques. Personally, I love to listen to Enya before I sleep. I find her music soothing and relaxing.

Another thing to remember is to avoid naps during the day if at all possible. You may be tired if you didn't get adequate sleep the night before, but napping during the day makes it more difficult to sleep at night. If you must nap, nap for 30-45 minutes at the most.

Your sleep environment also needs to be conducive to sleeping. You need to find a comfortable temperature for your room - not too hot or too cold, comfortable blankets and sheets, and comfortable sleeping clothes. Additionally, refrain from using your room as an office or workspace, as this often leads to sleeping difficulties.

Before you go to sleep, you may want to have a light snack and warm milk. Warm milk tends to help people sleep.

Try to let go of your worries, frustrations, and concerns before you sleep. Worry can keep you awake at night, preventing you from attaining adequate sleep.

Taking these steps will help you develop good sleep hygiene. Developing good sleep hygiene may help you more than you think. It's certainly worth developing good sleep hygiene before you consider taking medication to induce sleep.

How to battle insomnia naturally

Practically everyone suffers an occasional sleepless night. When this happens, there are some things you can do to help you fall asleep more effectively.

In my article I talk about how you can naturally fall asleep, with home remedies or with certain herbs.

To learn how you can naturally battle insomnia, please visit my article.

Here to good sleep!

Stages of Sleep

Before I discuss specific sleeping disorders and problems in this blog, I feel it is important to understand the stages of sleep.



There are five stages of sleep: stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, stage 4, and REM (rapid eye movement), which is probably what most individuals are most familiar with. During the time you sleep, your body cycles through each of the stages several times.



Stage 1: In stage 1 sleep, an individual begins to lose conscious awareness. Some people may experience certain types of hallucinations in this stage of sleep, which are known as hypnagogic hallucinations.



Stage 2: In stage 2 sleep, conscious awareness is lost.



Stage 3: Stage 3 sleep constitutes the beginning of deep sleep. It is in this stage that sleepwalking, bed wetting, and night terrors occur.



Stage 4: Stage 4 sleep is a continuation of stage 3 sleep. Stage 4 sleep is also deep sleep.



It appears that muscle and bone are built, the immune system is strengthened, and tissue is regenerated during deep sleep.



REM: In individuals who do not suffer from sleeping disorders, breathing and heart rate increase in speed and eyes move around rapidly (hence the term Rapid Eye Movement for this stage of sleep). Most of a person's memorable dreams occur in REM sleep.



Infants and children may spend up to 50% of their sleeping time in REM while adults may only spend 20% of their sleep time in REM.



As you sleep the time you spend in REM sleep increases. For instance, the first time you go into REM sleep, it only typically lasts for 10 minutes. But you may spend up to one hour in REM sleep in the last sleep cycle of the night.

Sleep IQ

National Sleep Awareness Week was March 3-9 this year, and while we are at the close of the week, I've decided I am going to do my next series on healthy sleep, sleep cycles, and sleep disorders.

To start, discover how much you already know about sleep with this Sleep IQ test!