Are you getting enough sleep?
If you have a hard time telling the difference between your toothbrush and your hairbrush, then you’re probably not.
But the following steps will help you get tuned back into your regular “sweet dreams broadcast” in no time:
1. Get plenty of Sun exposure – Draw the Curtains wide open, first thing in the morning. And get as much Sunshine as possible throughout the day. By the way, you still get a decent amount of Sun exposure even on a Cloudy day.
2. Go for a power walk or at least a 30-minute slow walk, to get some exercise and an extra dose of Sunshine.
If you’re new to exercise, start with the slow 10-minute walk. And then build that up gradually to a half an hour power walk. And when your legs are feeling great, try something more fun and intense like P90X3. A vigorous 30-minute workout in the morning backed with some Coffee, wipes away the sleep deprivation off any face (however bad the night was).
3. Drink a glass of water every hour (except when closer to bedtime). Water just makes all the circuitry function properly.
4. Don’t drink Coffee or Tea after the morning. If you’re used to a ton of Caffeine, cut it down slowly, at a rate of maybe 1 cup per month and ultimately limit it to just the mornings. But,if you’re a little too dependent on that “stuff” right now, at least refrain from having any, 6 hours before bedtime.
5. Eat light after 6pm and don’t have anything to eat 2 hours before bed. You don’t want those “digestion turbines” keeping you awake at night.
6. Don’t nap during the day. If you must, take a quick 10 minutes before 2pm, to shut just one eye. Okay, you can shut both eyes. But, not for more than 10 minutes, though. Tell your Dog to eat your shoe or something if you go over the 10 minutes or just set your alarm.
7. Work HARD all day long. Make your mind and body EARN its rest. If you find it slacking off regularly, give it a firm talking to.
8. Have a hot bath, 3 hours before bedtime, infused with Dead Sea Salts and Lavender.
9. Don’t watch the News or anything that makes you check to see whose hanging outside your door every 10 minutes. Watch a good comedy or something uplifting instead.
10. Keep a little notebook to jot down your worries and the corrective thoughts that you associate with them.
For instance, let’s say that you just sneezed and then started worrying about it causing an Avalanche somewhere. So, you can jot down your worry thought in the notebook and follow that up with the corrective thought, which would be something like “Well, I sneezed a couple of times last week as well. But, nothing happened. So, I’ll be okay this time too”
11. Keep your Bedroom reserved for Sleep, Sex, and Casual Reading. If you have any Work related stuff in your bedroom or even a phone, move them elsewhere.
12. Change your Pillows and Mattress with 100% Memory Foam alternatives.
13. Change your Bed linen with Egyptian Cotton linen with a high thread count.
14. Meditate for half an hour each day – I do 30 minutes of the “Mindfulness of Breathing” meditation in the morning and about 40 minutes of “Life Flow” about an hour before bedtime
15. Have a loud water feature in your Living room or in the office – The sound of water is a real stress buster.
16. Have a high-quality white noise machine playing when you sleep – While not necessary, it just helps drown out your thoughts
17. Read something fun and light for an hour before bed
18. Come off sleeping pills for good – You may have to do this gradually. So, it’s advisable that you consult your physician on this. But, don’t let anyone convince you to stay an “addict”. Pills don’t “genuinely” help you sleep. So, all you’ll be doing is feeding the habit.
19. If you find yourself tossing and turning for more than a few minutes, make yourself a warm mug of milk with a teaspoon of honey, sit upright and read for about half an hour. Don’t watch the clock though. You can mentally measure the time by the number of pages you’re reading.
If you’re not sleeping, reading or doing “Pilates” with someone special, you shouldn’t be in bed.
We have to completely disassociate any “trying to sleep” patterns from the bed. Otherwise, your “mind” will start freaking out and calling all it’s friends when it sees the bed.
20. Go to bed and wake up the same time each day (including weekends). If you can wake up closer to 6AM, then you’ll get the most benefit from natural sunlight. But, if that’s far from your normal sleep cycle, keep your wake up time the same and determine roughly what time you’ll need to go to bed each night. So, if your current wake up time is 7am and you normally “try to sleep” for 8 hours, then try cutting that cycle down by an hour and go to sleep at midnight instead. If that still doesn’t work, cut it down to 6, by going to Bed around at 1am.
Your body can get by with 4 hours of sleep. So, don’t worry about cutting it all the way down to 6. Once you have trained your Body to sleep every minute of those 6 hours, you can always push it back up again by adding the extra time to your sleep cycle later.
21. Use blackout curtains, so that you don’t have a clue what the “actual time” is other than knowing that you’re meant to be asleep
22. Eat only Fresh Wholesome Foods for 6 days a week – For you to operate at your optimum, you need the right kind of fuel running in your veins, not Soda or Champagne. So, switch everything you’re eating right now with Fresh Fruits, Veggies, Greens, Nuts, Eggs, and Healthy Oils (such as Olive Oil, Sesame Oil, and Rapeseed oil). When your body works at its optimum, it’s naturally encouraged to wear itself to the point of “Yawn!… sleepiness”.
