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How To Get Better Sleep

Some work argue that sleep is more important than just about anything else we do in a day.  We once heard a speaker argue that if you have to choose between eating, sleeping, or working out, that sleep would have the most positive impact on your life.  Going for long period without sleep, or too little, can make you function like you are intoxicated.  Scary stuff. 

HERE is some help with how to get to bed and get to sleep.  If you are like us, you have those nights where you just can’t get your mind to shut off.  But, even once asleep, our rest may not be the best. So, we want to offer some help with getting more/better sleep.  

Tips For Getting Better Sleep

Scientific studies have shown that the average human adult needs 7-8 hours of sleep a night.  But, we know that isn’t practical for everyone.  Take our members who come to the 5:15am class.  If they want 8 hours of sleep, they would have to go to bed by 8:30pm the night before assuming they are waking up at 4:30am.  So, instead of worrying about adding hours of sleep to your night, we want to help you get just a little more and get the best sleep you can.  Here are some tips:

  1. Turn off the TV:  We talked about this one on Monday to help you get to sleep.  But, it can also help you get to sleep a little earlier.  Do you really need to watch that TV show?  Or, would 30-60 minutes of sleep help you more tomorrow?
  2. Set a bedtime:  If it hard to get more sleep if you never know when you are going to bed.  However, if you set a bedtime of 10pm every night, then you have more control of how much consistent sleep you get.  
  3. Form a nightly routine:  And be diligent about keeping it.  Routines help to provide limits on our time.  If you know you have a bedtime, then you can reverse engineer everything else to make sure nothing gets in the way of that bedtime.  
  4. Don’t drink alcohol before bed:  Alcohol has been shown to disrupt sleep by causing sleep apnea, snoring, and disrupted sleep patterns.  
  5. Don’t eat a huge meal before bed:  Eating before bed can disrupt deep sleep and prevent the proper production of HGH and melatonin.
  6. Don’t list in bed awake.  It seems counterintuitive, but if you can’t get to sleep within 20 minutes of lying down, get out of bed and go do something calming like read a book or listen to soft music.  

More sleep, even 30 minutes more, is a great thing.  When more isn’t possible, shoot for better sleep.  We’ve talked before about quality over quantity. Well, when it comes to sleep, both are important.