{"id":389,"date":"2008-05-17T10:17:17","date_gmt":"2008-05-17T17:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bspcn.com\/2008\/05\/17\/16-tips-for-getting-good-sleep\/"},"modified":"2008-05-17T10:17:17","modified_gmt":"2008-05-17T17:17:17","slug":"16-tips-for-getting-good-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/2008\/05\/17\/16-tips-for-getting-good-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"16 Tips For Getting Good Sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Gretchen Rubin<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of advice out there about getting good sleep — it’s VERY important<\/a>. We quickly adjust to being sleep-deprived, and don’t notice that we aren’t functioning at a normal level, but lack of sleep really affects us. If you’re feeling blue or listless, try going to sleep thirty minutes earlier for a week. It can really help.<\/p>\n

Here are tips that have helped me get good sleep:<\/p>\n

Good habits for good sleep:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Exercise most days, even if it’s just to take a walk.<\/p>\n

2. No caffeine after 7:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

3. An hour before bedtime, avoid doing any kind of work that takes alert thinking. Addressing envelopes–okay. Analyzing an article–nope.<\/p>\n

4. Adjust your bedroom temperature to be slightly chilly.<\/p>\n

5. Keep your bedroom dark. Studies show that even the tiny light from a digital alarm clock can disrupt a sleep cycle. We have about six devices in our room that glow bright green; it’s like sleeping in a mad scientist’s lab. The Big Man has a new pet, a Roomba (yes, he loves his robot vacuum) that gives out so much light that I have to cover it with a pillow before bed.<\/p>\n

6. Keep the bedroom as tidy as possible. It’s not restful to fight through chaos into bed.<\/p>\n

If sleep won’t come:<\/strong><\/p>\n

7. Breathe deeply and slowly until you can’t stand it anymore.<\/p>\n

8. If your mind is racing (you’re planning a trip, a move; you’re worried about a medical diagnosis), write down what’s on your mind. This technique really works for me.<\/p>\n

9. Slather yourself with body lotion. This feels good and also, if you’re having trouble sleeping because you’re hot, it cools you down.<\/p>\n

10. If your feet are cold, put on socks.<\/p>\n

11. Stretch your whole body.<\/p>\n

12. Have a warm drink. Supposedly warm milk contains melatonin and trytophan and so helps induce sleep, but in fact, a glass of milk doesn’t contain enough to have any effect. But it’s still a soothing drink. My nighttime favorite: 1\/3 mug of milk, add boiling water, one packet of Equal, and a dash of vanilla. A real nursery treat.<\/p>\n

13. Yawn.<\/p>\n

14. Stretch your toes up and down several times.<\/p>\n

15. Tell yourself, “I have to get up now.” Imagine that you just hit the snooze alarm and in a minute, you’re going to be marching through the morning routine. Often this is an exhausting enough prospect to make me fall asleep.<\/p>\n

16. If you still can’t sleep, re-frame: re-frame your sleeplessness as a welcome opportunity to snatch some extra time out of your day. I get up and tackle mundane chores, like paying bills, organizing books, or tidying up. Then I start the day with a wonderful feeling of having accomplished something even before 6:45 am.<\/p>\n

What am I missing? Are there some more great sleep-inducing strategies out there?<\/p>\n

If you’d like to read more about happiness, check out Gretchen’s daily blog, The Happiness Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Gretchen Rubin There’s a lot of advice out there about getting good sleep — it’s VERY important. We quickly adjust to being sleep-deprived, and don’t notice that we aren’t functioning at a normal level, but lack of sleep really affects us. If you’re feeling blue or listless, try going to sleep thirty minutes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}