How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink. I’m so tired – good lyrics for a song, but not a good way to face a new day! Sleep enables the body to recharge and repair. Sleep is needed to keep your body healthy. It regulates hormones and affects the immune system. And when you’re well rested, you look alive and vital, and therefore you need sleep to maintain your natural beauty.
What can you do to get a good night’s sleep? Here are 10 tips for getting a great night’s sleep -
1. Make sleep a priority. Go to sleep when you are tired. Turn out the lights and close your eyes. If 15 minutes go by and you’re still wide awake, get up and get out of your bedroom. When you’re tired again, come back, shut the lights and go to sleep.
2. Use your bedroom for sleep or for sex only. Don’t let your body get accustomed to working or even reading in bed.
3. Set your internal rhythm time by going to bed at approximately the same time every day, even on the weekends.
4. Eat lightly and don’t eat 2 hours before going to sleep.
5. Avoid caffeine and other stimulants like alcohol and nicotine before going to bed.
6. Exercise in the morning rather than at night.
7. Choose comfortable bedding. Find mattresses and pillows that suit you. Try some soft, try some firm and find out which works best for you.
8. Naps are great (see previous post - N is for Napping) – but limit the amount and length of daytime sleeping if it’s interfering with nighttime sleeping.
9. Keep a window open to allow fresh air to circulate, but keep heat and light out of your bedroom.
10. Go to sleep before midnight. Research shows that the sleep you get before midnight is more beneficial and deeper than what you get after midnight.
If all else fails, you can occasionally turn to natural remedies to help you get that valuable sleep we all need to stay young and look beautiful. A little bit of warm milk (not too much so you’re up in the bathroom all night) has calming tryptophan to relax you. Lavender essential oil sprinkled on your pillow or a pillow made out of lavender over your eyes will shut out the light and lull you to sleep. Herbal remedies such as Kava Kava and valerian work well, and so does melatonin, the sleep-regulating hormone we lose as we age.
