These days, new research comes out regularly on the importance of sleep. What I used to call sleep machismo (“I can get by on five hours a night!”) is being challenged in relationship to learning, organ health, hormone production and more.
If you’re giving yourself enough hours in your bed but still not sleeping well, here are things to do and not do for better sleep.
Five things to do:
- Keep lights low in the evening. This helps your biological clock – your circadian rhythm – be ready for sleep. Before the invention of electric light, this happened naturally. Now… not so much.
- Cool temperature in your bedroom helps your body settle into sleep.
- As much as you can (not so easy here in New York) keep your bedroom dark and quiet. If you can’t do those, try an eye mask or earplugs.
- Invest in a good mattress!
- If you have to get up to an alarm, set it but then turn it around or upside down so you can’t see it. This keeps you from focusing on how much sleep you are or aren’t getting if you wake during the night or struggle with falling asleep.
Five things to not do:
- Don’t spend time in front of screens close to bed time. The blue light in LED screens says “wake up!” to the brain. Turn your screens off or put them away for an hour or more before bedtime. There are also apps that change your screen from that blue morning light to a rosier tint with the time of day – f.luxfor PCs and Twilightfor Android devices.
- Don’t watch stimulating television or read a page turner before going to bed (or in bed).
- Avoid heavy meals close to bedtime.
- Stay away from caffeine for several hours before bed.
- Don’t stay in bed tossing and turning. Get up and watch or read something boring until you get sleepy.
If none of those help
Consider neurofeedback.
I became a trainer more than ten years ago because my own problems with sleep led me to neurofeedback. Sleep is typically the first thing to improve.
However you go about it, I hope you will prioritize for sleep. As a primary need of our brains and bodies, it’s right up there with air, water and food.
- Six Things Your Brain will Thank You For - January 7, 2015
- What To Do and Not Do For Better Sleep - November 18, 2014
- Neurofeedback for Better Sleep Management - August 6, 2014
