About a third of our lives are spent sleeping. Sleep is a mysterious and often misunderstood biological function. However, we know for certain that optimum sleep is necessary for good health and well being. In our modern day, instant gratification, extremely driven society, getting a good night's sleep has become increasingly rare. Chronic fatigue and lack of sleep are more the norm. These epidemic levels of sleep deprivation have been revealed in many recent studies and it's not getting any better. Despite all this, lack of sleep need not be as prevalent as it is. With a few simple lifestyle changes and new habits, we can free ourselves from poor sleep and everything that goes with it, waking up refreshed and rested for every new day.
The problem starts when we don't get our needed daily sleep requirement. Each person is unique so this optimum sleep amount varies widely, but on average it's often around 8 hours give or take an hour or two. In getting less than our needed amount of sleep hours, we create sleep debt. This debt or sleep deprivation is cumulative and will not just suddenly go away the next day. The only way to pay off this debt is with make up sleep above our daily requirements.
It can be very problematic and hard to realize when a sleep deficit builds up gradually over a long time. for instance if you miss out on only 15 minutes of sleep each night less than your required amount, over 1 month that adds up to a 7.5 hour sleep debt! Because it is such a prevalent yet undetected problem, sleep deprivation is the cause of each 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 patterns and behaviors. Of course the goal is to get a good sleep every night and yet despite good intentions , this goal is a distant dream to most of us. But it doesn't have to be that way. Try some of these tips to improve your sleep:
One of the first steps for good sleep hygiene is to go to bed at the same time every night. More importantly, try to wake up at the same time every morning. Having a strict wake up time allows you to be looser with your bedtime as your rhythm will naturally adapt and you'll fall asleep at the right time relative to when you wake up.
Make your the room in which you sleep a calm relaxing 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 trigger for that behavior.
Get a good workout preferably in the daytime. Physical activity promotes health and good sound sleep so why not take advantage of the double benefit of exercise?
Try to leave 2 to 3 hours between your dinner and your bedtime. This gives your system time to gently ease down and prepare for a good night of sleep.
When sleepy, don't try to resist it and remain awake, go to sleep as soon as it's possible. This is a good habit to get into.
Don't mess around when your feel drowsy, get some sleep and make this a habit.
Take up meditation or try slow deep breathing. When winding down for sleep, meditation has great benefits, it allows you to clear your thoughts, decrease your heart rate and even lower your blood pressure.
No matter what you do, it's always a good idea to lessen your activities and refrain from doing anything that's stimulating before going to bed.
Specially created sleep track audio and CD's can really help you to relax and gently fall asleep. Many of these music tracks 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 slowly improve our sleeping habits and also, the quality of the sleep we get. Including just a few of these changes in our daily lives can yield a great improvement. Be aware that just as sleep debt slowly accumulates, these solutions will bring gradual improvements. Make sure that you stick with these tips to reach your goal of restful relaxing sleep and to wake up refreshed each morning.
Article Source: http://www.orbitaloc.com/
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 Insomnia Cures found here. Nelson writes for Natural Sleep Remedies Blog
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