7 Tips to Help You Sleep Better Tonight
March 6, 2007 by Kristen King
Filed under Women's Health
- Try to go to bed at the same time every night. Grown-ups need bedtimes, too, and setting a regular sleep schedule will help you fall asleep faster and get higher-quality sleep.
- Create an environment conducive to sleep. If your neighborhood is noisy, invest in a small fan or white-noise machine to mask the outdoor sounds. Don’t turn to the television, though, because its flickering light will trick your brain into staying awake even though you’re exhausted.
- Send the kids to their rooms and Fido to the doghouse. Women who allow children or pets to sleep with them have the most disturbed, poorest quality sleep.
- Exercise regularly, but not too close to bedtime. Try to call it quits no later than 3 hours before you’re going to hit the sack so your body has time to unwind and get ready for relaxation.
- Cut off the coffee and the ciggies at least a few hours before bedtime. Both caffeine and nicotine have been shown to interfere with sleep.
- Pick up a packet of Breathe-Right Strips.
Snoring doesn’t make you a bad person, but it may make you a tired one. Kill the noise and improve oxygen flow by opening up your nasal passages. - Check with your doctor to see if you have restless legs syndrome (RLS). If you’re among the 19% of women who just can’t keep still in bed, your physician may be able to help you get sleep better fast.
Contents © Copyright 2007 Kristen King
I definitely second item 7! I lived with RLS for 11 years before I got medication for it, and having enough sleep now makes such a difference in my life. Just know that you can’t take any medication for RLS is you’re pregnant, planning to get pregnant, or breastfeeding. That’s why I waited so long.
And the tendency to have RLS is in your genes, so if your mom has it or a sibling has it, you may very well develop it. Mine didn’t show up until I was 35 and pregnant with my second child; it got worse as I got older.
I can vouch for those breathe right strips: They DON’T work. If they did my husband would have been cured by now!! lol
I couldn’t agree more about number three.
When MonkeyBoy was born, we made a conscious decision not to let him sleep in our bed. Initially, SuperFreak was worried about crushing him and we were both so exhausted that we needed a place for uninterrupted sleep. We put a recliner in MonkeyBoy’s room and took turns getting up with him for the first few months.
I have to believe our early treatment of bedtime and sleeping helped him become the solid sleeper he is today. At six. he doesn’t wake up during thunderstorms (and we get some good ones).
The best part of the whole deal? SuperFreak and I get consistent, good quality sleep knowing that he’s sleeping well and won’t wake up in the middle of the night.
Now, if I could just get the dog to stop snoring (she sleeps on the floor…but she’s a bulldog.)…