“Oh boy, sleep! That’s where I’m a viking!” — Ralph Wiggum, The Simpsons
“Better sleepers are 6 percent more satisfied with their lives than average sleepers, and 25 percent more satisfied than poor sleepers.” — 100 Simple Secrets Of Happy People (More on that here.)
You spend roughly a third of your life sleeping and that time has a much bigger impact on your waking hours than most people realize. Problems sleeping can bleed over into almost every area of your life. Lack of sleep can mean a lack of willpower. It can make you cranky and lazy. It can mean the difference between being good and bad at your job, having a successful and a failing relationship, or being healthy and sick.
I know a lot about sleep, in part because I’ve studied it, but also because I’ve gone to different extremes. When I was working on becoming a blogger full time, I spent years getting only 4-6 hours of sleep a night because I was doing the equivalent of two full time jobs and something had to give.
On the other hand, after I went full time as a blogger, I learned a lot about optimal sleeping habits. Whether it’s handling an eight-hour drive on three hours’ sleep, staying up 24 hours in a row, switching from a first shift schedule to third shift and back again in the same week, or getting up at 3 AM — I can handle it. That’s not to say that it’s always a piece of cake, but you would be surprised at how much better your sleeping habits can become with a little practice and how much of a difference it can make in your life.
So, how do you do it?
1) Have the right equipment: At one point in college, I was bedding down on a cheap, 20-year-old, sunken mattress. To sleep on it I had to curl up into a fetal position so that my body didn’t end up sinking down into the bed trench — which would have left me with a backache when I woke up.
This may go without saying, but that’s LESS THAN IDEAL.
If you’re going to spend roughly 1/3 of your life asleep, then it actually makes sense to put some time and money into selecting your bed. Go to a number of stores and lie on different mattresses. Find out if you like soft or hard beds. Don’t get the cheapest thing available, but don’t assume that you should buy the most expensive bed in the store either. After hitting multiple places, the last mattress I bought — which I’ve been extremely happy with — ended up being about half the cost of the most expensive beds I considered.
Additionally, your pillows are important, too. As a general rule, you don’t want to fall asleep with your neck jutting out at an odd angle and I’d recommend using a thin pillow between the knees to keep the spine aligned. Beyond that, there’s a lot of personal preference involved so this is another area where you need to experiment. Keep in mind that sometimes very expensive pillows don’t necessarily sleep all that well. Additionally, if you find a pillow you like at a hotel or a friend’s house, write down the brand name and buy it.
Also less than ideal!
I think Shakespeare defined sleep the best:
“Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
Actually, there is a conflict between #2 and #4: if you regularly lie in bed without sleeping, you learn to associate the bed with lying awake at night.
Not sure how to resolve this conflict, but if I decide that I cannot get back to sleep, then I usually turn on the light and do some light reading in bed. I figure that it’s better to associate the bed with reading while the light is on, than with lying down awake when the light is off.
“2) Your bed is for sleeping.”
Boy, you lead a dull life.
Well, maybe he has his fun on other furniture in his home…(wink).
This absolutely works to induce slumber when nothing else will:
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2011/12/cant-sleep.html
Sleeping is a state of mind that reflects one’s personality. If you have trouble asleep you have trouble awake and are probably too wound up or nervous generally speaking.
I’ve slept well the night before I wake up before dawn in some foreign country and climb a live volcano that day all day. I sleep well atop the volcano. Sleeping is a matter of deciding who is in control: you or your pedantic and trivial demons. When you’re on the right path in life, sleep is easy and it’s peaceful lack is usually an alarm bell.
This is of course my own experience.
I want to wake up from time to time so I can remember my dreams.
אני
ישנה
ולבי
ער
I
sleep
and my heart
is awake
- Song of Songs 5:2
I find I need a controlled substance to get any sleep. My doctor gives me a script for temazapam, and it works fine. Usually.
3) Control your environment: You are not married are you?
2) Your bed is for sleeping: Sadly.
If you’re on the computer in the hours before bed, I highly recommend the F.lux application (http://stereopsis.com/flux/) which warms your display at night so that bright blue light doesn’t mess up your biological clock. Made a big difference for me, and is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iOS.
Thank you for that linky! I’ve long thought that my late-night web forays were making it harder to catch up with the Sandman. I noticed the difference right away.
Thanks so much for this. I downloaded it right away.
Your are right – I love the program and have it on all my computers – never a problem with it.
And you may want to try a red bed-side light – it seems kinda weird, but the red light is less stimulating than a regular daylight white light and I find reading at night on my kindle (without the back light shining into my eyes) leads to more restful sleep. Red light rules at night.
Herge Softnow (even your moniker on here is arrogant): It must be so GREAT to be you! How can you stand to be around the rest of us troubled souls?
Cure for Insomnia? Lie on the very edge of the mattress. Before you know it, you’ll drop off!
We bought a Cal King in 1988… awesome… can’t sleep on anything smaller than a king since… left it behind when we moved recently… we hit town and went to the mattress store… bought two twin mattresses (pillow tops on both sides) and two twin box springs… mounted them side-by-side on our cast iron, adjustable frame… topped them with a king feather mattress and a 2-in. viscoelastic topper (Tempurpedic-like) and it is heavenly… the most comfortable bed we’ve ever slept on… we also buy foam earplugs when we see them on sale… the squishy kind you roll then insert in your ears… and we bought sleep masks– those silk eyemasks that only dowagers and Gabor sisters wear… they make for deep, profound sleep at any time of the day or night… sleep is important to us, as you might have devined… Melatonin kicks ass, if you need help drifting off… Breathe-Right Nasal Strips aid in breathing, if you’re having trouble in that area… three saw palmetto caps a day will, after about three weeks, reverse the effects of benign prostate hyperplasia, thereby stopping middle-of-the-night pea breaks… Deep, lengthy sleep can be had… it’s no secret.
You can get the foam earplugs at Dollar Tree. Can’t get much cheaper than that. And use a bandanna, t-shirt or towel if you find yourself needing to cover your eyes.
you might also try popping a capsule of valerian root about an hour before bedtime. you’ll get drowsy and have a deeper sleep than usual without any of the after-effects of melatonin. the stuff smells god-awful but it works.
I like Valerian root a lot better than melatonin. Melatonin gives me creepy dreams and I’m tired when I wake up. When I take Valerian root, I have great dreams (weird, but fun) and I wake up refreshed.
Uh, based on 30 years of experience, how about making love with and curling up next to a woman you love? Has worked on good and bad mattresses, sleeping bags, beach towels, sand etc.
#4 – If you do wake up during the night, it is also important to NOT check the time. You’re better off not knowing.
Not only do I use a sleep mask and ear plugs, I take a 10 mg melatonin along with 3 Valerian horse pills AND put a sleep mask over my alarm clock, which lights up the room otherwise.
May I point out that there are diseases and conditions that can cause lack of sleep and poor quality sleep. One which can be life-threatening is sleep apnea. So if none of the above help, see a doctor.
Our key to good sleep is white noise … usually a fan. But we also have a sound spa which provides various noises – like rain, waves at the ocean, etc.
Also, when traveling – we take the white noise with us, as well as packing our own pillows.
I suppose that I am exceptional in sleeping better on the road than at home, as long as I am in a reasonably comfortable room of course. When I leave home, I leave all cares behind.
A bottle of Scotch does the trick for me. Oh wait that is “pass out”.
Never mind.
Go to this website sponsored by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine:
http://yoursleep.aasmnet.org/
Lots of information about sleep and sleep disorders.
You’ll notice that their advice is that bed should only be used for sleeping AND SEX. Something this author left out.
Now you can all breathe a sigh of relief and get to it.
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