Smarter Sleeping 101

Archive for the ‘Sleep Tips’ Category

This robust list comes from Jessica Hupp from the Nursing Online Education Database.  The first 14 are posted here, you’ll have to visit the site for the remaining 36:

1. Get on a regular schedule: Following a regular schedule can improve the quality of your sleep by keeping your sleep phases consistent.
2. Open a window: Get some fresh air to improve the quality of your sleep.
3. Reduce or eliminate caffeine: Caffeine can mess with your energy levels and disrupt sleep patterns, so reduce or eliminate use of it, especially in the hours before you go to bed.
4. Only sleep in your bed: Use your bed exclusively for restful activities, not work or TV.
5. Don’t go to bed with a full stomach: Going to bed with a full stomach can result in disruption, because digestion takes energy.
6. Meditate: Focus on relaxing to let yourself get better rest.
7. Stay away from the computer and TV: Backlit screens can stimulate your brain in a way that’s not conducive to sleep.
8. Realize that sleep is vital: Give yourself all of the time you need to get a good night’s rest.
9. Don’t snooze: If you’re snoozing every morning, you’re stealing valuable moments of quality sleep. Set your alarm clock later and get up right away.
10. Write out what’s on your mind: Create a worry list to put things out of your mind and get to sleep.
11. Don’t stress yourself out: Don’t force yourself to sleep if you’re not tired, or become worried when it takes you a while to get to bed. Sleep will come eventually.
12. Sleep in a dark room: Limit your exposure to light in order to keep your body’s internal cycles intact.
13. Drink something warm before bed: Raise your body temperature to induce sleep with warm milk or herbal tea.
14. Never go to bed hungry: Just like a too-large meal, going to bed with an empty stomach will disrupt your sleep.

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These sleep tips are brought to you by Ellen Michaud from AllIndians.com. It’s pretty long, but definitely worth the read if stress is your primary cause of insomnia. Check out the excerpt below:

“Target the Enemy!
When stress interrupts your sleep on a nightly basis, it sets you up for a chronic insomnia that can send you sliding down the rabbit’s hole toward sleeping pills, alcohol, and chocolate cake at night and a zillion cups of coffee during the day. Here’s how to step back from that precipice.

Target the enemy. “Every night a couple of hours before bed, sit down and make a list of all the issues, problems, and things you have to deal with,” says Donna Arand, Ph.D., clinical director of Kettering Hospital Sleep Disorders Center in Dayton, Ohio. “Next to each item, write a solution or plan.” If you’re mad at your mother-in-law, for example, the solution could be to call her and talk it out.

Even if it’s not something you want to do, write down your ideas for dealing with each stressor you’ve listed, urges Dr. Arand. Then mull the solutions over.

When you’re ready for bed, put the list by the bedroom door. That way, if thoughts of your problems arise as you’re trying to sleep, you can tell yourself, “I’ve got a plan and I’ll work on it tomorrow,” says Dr. Arand. The reassuring presence of your plan by the door will give it a concrete reality that will allow you to shift your mind to more peaceful things.

Put your work in perspective. A Canadian health agency that tracks health-related statistics reported recently that on-the-job stress has reached alarming levels. They point to the fact that the workplace no longer has any boundaries and that work has spread into every corner of your life. It’s gotten to the point that 52 percent of employees take work home — almost double the number who did in 1990. What’s more, 69 percent of employees check their work e-mail from home, 59 percent check voice mail after hours, 30 percent accept work-related faxes at home, and 29 percent keep their cell phones on at all times.

Not surprisingly, 46 percent feel this work-related intrusion is a stressor, and 44 percent report “negative spillover” onto their families. A poll conducted by the American Psychological Association found that 52 percent of American workers said that work interfered with their responsibilities to their families. The problem, however, is not just that work is intruding into familial life, it’s that it’s actually interfering with the most effective buffers to workplace stress available.

A joint study of 314 workers conducted by the University of South Australia and the University of Rotterdam found that workers with higher levels of active leisurely activities, such as exercise, hobbies, and social activity, were able not only to bounce back from workplace stress better than their always-on-the-job coworkers but also sleep significantly better than others.

Money, Mobile Phones, and the Miracle Nap
Take charge of your gadgets. Although each new, more multifaceted electronic device that appears in the marketplace promises to make the logistics of our lives a snap, they may actually tie us into too many never-ending webs.

First we have to pay for them. Then we have to master how to use them. Next we have to show them off by contacting our network of business associates and friends. They will, of course, respond in kind. Being able to keep in touch with the kids is a boon to working parents. Allowing the office to track you down after hours is not. We need to keep the two things separate, save discrete times in the day to receive and answer business e-mails, and learn to screen the after 6:00 P.M. cell phone calls. That goes for the whole rest of the evening as well. It also wouldn’t hurt if everyone in the family turned off their devices for a stress-free dinner. And under no circumstances should you check your e-mail right before bed.

Do with less. According to a poll by the American Psychological Association, 4 of the top 10 stressors we experience are related to money — how we get it and how we spend it. Given that, doesn’t it make sense that if we want less and are content with less — smaller houses, fewer gadgets, and simpler forms of transportation — our stress levels will go down?

Perhaps that applies to our career choices as well. Do you really want to work yourself to death to be the woman in charge of the world? Or will just being in charge of a small portion of it make you happy and let you sleep? A recent poll of nearly 2,000 Americans reveals that 22 percent declined a promotion or refused to seek one because they thought the job would be too stressful.”

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 Found this list over at the Sleep Aid Center.  You’ll have to visit them to read the rest.  Most of the foods below are listed for their tryptophan content, which is a key ingredient in the SleepSmart complex.  Do these foods work for you?

1. Warm milk. It is not a myth. Milk has some tryptophan - an amino acid that has a sedative-like effect - and calcium, which helps the brain use tryptophan. In addition, there is the psychological throwback to infancy, when a warm bottle meant, “relax, everything’s fine.”

2. Turkey. Turkey contains tryptophan. To get the most from the tryptophan in turkey, eat a slice of white turkey meat on a slice of whole-wheat bread in the middle of the evening.

3. Honey. Drizzle a little in your warm milk or herb tea. Lots of sugar is stimulating, but a little glucose tells your brain to turn off orexin, a recently discovered neurotransmitter that’s linked to alertness.

4. Oatmeal. Oats are a rich source of sleep - inviting melatonin, and a small bowl of warm cereal with a splash of maple syrup is cozy - and if you have the munchies, it is filling too.

5. Potatoes. Eating a little baked potato or a small serving of mashed or roasted potatoes will clear your body of acids that can block the effects of tryptophan.

6. Almonds. A handful of these heart-healthy nuts can be snooze inducing, as they contain both tryptophan and a nice dose of muscle-relaxing magnesium.

7. Whole-wheat bread. A piece of toast with your tea and honey will release insulin, which helps tryptophan get to your brain, where it’s converted to serotonin and quietly murmurs “time to sleep.”

This list of tips are focused on coping with stress, specifically from your job.  By better managing stress many of us experience better, more productive sleep.  For those of you at your wits end, try these 4 tips from the Daily Mind, and read tips 5-7 here:

1. Tie up loose ends at work
One of the simplest things you can do to ensure you get to sleep is make sure you have tied up as many loose ends as possible at work. Sometimes this might involve staying back at work for an extra hour but it will be worth it if that hour allows us to get to sleep on time.

The loose ends could be an unfinished report, paperwork or even just sorting out your upcoming deadlines. Try to get as much done as you can.

2. Look at the stressed thoughts
One of the most powerful techniques you can use to stop stressing about work is to look at the nature of the thoughts themselves. This is an ancient Buddhist meditation.

As you are laying in your bed you will notice that thoughts come up in an endless torrent. You worry about this, stress about that and it never ends. Gently shift your focus away from the subject of the thought and look at the actual thought itself. Every time a thought comes up take a look at it. Where is it? Where does it come from? Where does it go?

After a few minutes you will see that thoughts really aren’t that powerful. This technique will also help you slow down the torrent.

3. Use logical arguments
My father is a very logical man. When I was 16 I was playing in a soccer team that had won every game of the season. To win the championship cup we had to win the grand final and the night before the game I was a mess. I was thinking about my position and whether I was ready and i just couldn’t get to sleep! It drove me mad.

At about 1am I trounced out into the kitchen stressed that I was going to be tired the next day for the game. My father was in there finishing off some work and he asked me what I was doing up. I complained that I couldn’t sleep because I was stressing about the game and this is what he told me:

“There’s no point in worrying about the game now. You can’t do any more preparation than you’ve already done. Whether you win or lose will depend on how hard you play on the day. Worrying will impact on that so you need to relax.”

He was right. Worrying was not going to help me prepare anymore.

The same goes for work.

Laying in bed thinking about your job is not going to get anything done. It will not help you solve any problem. Thinking about things over and over only raises more questions, it never helps you find the solution.

Another logical argument that has brought me a lot of deep sleep:

“If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will be of no use.” - Shantideva

Sometimes we need to tell ourselves that worrying will not solve anything - now is the time for sleep.

4. Look at the space between the stress
Another meditation technique that can help you get to sleep is to look at the space between each stressful thought.

Thoughts are a lot like waves on the ocean. One will arise and then dissolve and before the next one can come up there has to be some space or calm. Try to gently look for it. To do this you need to become like an impartial observer or a spy. Quietly shift your attention to the thought and look for the space between the death of one thought and the birth of the next. This can bring a deep calm.

Continue

This week’s slip tip is from ABC News.  A new study indicates sleeplessness may be due in part to the fluctuating temperatures in your hands and feet.

“Studies show as helathy people fall asleep, blood from the core of the body moves to the limbs. This results in an increase of about one degree Fahrenheit in the hands and feet. In patients with sleep disorders, however, this temperature transfer does not occur. Sleep specialists are now testing temperature biofeedback in insomniacs to replicate the normal temperature response.

‘The best predictor of whether someone is going to fall asleep or not is an increase in their hand and foot temperature relative to their core,” said sleep specialist Mathew Ebben, PhD with The Center for Sleep Medicine in New York.

In normal sleepers, as we doze off the temperature of our hands and feet increases by about one degree. In a recent study, insomniac participants actually learned to change their hand temps through temperature biofeedback — a technique that trains the brain to control temperature responses.”

The solution?  Training your brain to initiate this process.

“In a recent study, insomniac participants actually learned to change their hand temps through temperature biofeedback — a technique that trains the brain to control temperature responses. ”

Dr. Ebben reports that 90% of his patients saw improvement with this biofeedback training.

Have a great weekend!