Sleep Tips – Good Habits

Transcript

We should make sleep a priority. One of the important things to do around sleep is to pick a good bedtime and awake time and keep it totally consistent. While it might be boring, It’s very important. All the body’s circadian rhythm with its various hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, thyroid hormone, and the others are all around having the same bedtime, the same wake time. Another thing that’s important is having a sleep ritual, a time to unwind and calm down so you can fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time. It’s important to have the bedroom cool, dark, quiet, and have a comfortable bed. This is an important investment. It’s where you’re going to spend one third of your life. If you do awaken in the middle of the night, it’s important not to stay in bed and flip and flop and worry and think about it, but actually remove yourself from the bed and do something boring, quiet, useless, for a little while, until you feel sleepy and then return to bed. When we want to have a strong conditioned response, that bed is where we sleep, not get frustrated. It’s also important to keep our caffeine levels low and be emotionally, mentally, and physically tired to sleep well at night, mostly tired means that we’re engaged in life. We care about people, places, things, ideas, mentally tired means we’re using our brains stretching and growing and physically tired means for getting some exercise to get the restlessness out of our bodies.