Sleep - Tips For Getting the Best Rest of Your Life

Sleep is one of the most basic and universal activities in which we all engage. Yet, getting to sleep, staying asleep, and waking refreshed can be highly elusive to most of us some of the time, and to many of us all of the time. We spend one-third of our lives under the covers, but sleeping well is one of the most a highly underestimated factors in feeling well and performing at our best. This article explores techniques you can implement tonight, to achieve restful, rejuvenating sleep.

Sleep deprivation can be life threatening to you and those around you. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that more than 100,000 car accidents a year -- and 1,500 deaths -- are the direct result of people driving while sleepy. The nuclear reactor explosion at Chernobyl, poisoning thousands of square miles with radioactive particles and causing death and serious medical illnesses, was found to be the result of human error by overworked shift workers who had been on duty for more than 18 hours. The explosion of the space shuttle Challenger has also been suggested to be caused in part by engineers and supervisors who had been awake for 50 hours continuously prior to launch and overlooked warnings about possible mechanical failure. Errors in judgment caused by sleepiness was also cited as a contributing factor in the Exxon Valdez tanker accident.

The quality and quantity of sleep has a direct relation to the quality and quantity of life. Dr. Kripke from University of California has found that most people need at least 6 to 7 hours of sleep in order to perform at their physical and mental best. The same study also found that taking prescription sleeping medication every day increases the risk of death by 25%.

Additionally, a sleep debt can rob us of our quality of life. Over time, insufficient sleep accumulates. Slowly but surely, a sleep debt deteriorates our physical and cognitive acuity slowly until we are overwhelmed by powerful and sudden sleepiness. The nationwide sleep debt, resulting in fatigue, has been reported to cost the American economy about $120 million annually in both health expenditures, lost worker productivity, and property destruction. The personal costs of sleep debt can include:

Mood changes: irritability, depression, and anxiety are the three most common mood disturbances caused by lack of sleep.
Impaired nervous system function: manifesting as decreased cognitive and motor performance, such as inattention, memory difficulties, and delayed reaction time:
Weight gain: when we don't sleep, we gain weight. This is not only due to hormones that relate to both sleep and weight, but to the tendency for us to reach for a sugary, carbohydrate-laden snack to keep us awake when we are drowsy.
Impaired immune function: a lack of sleep undermines the immune system's capacity to ward off invasion by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.

Difficulties with achieving a refreshing sleep, along with sleep dysfunction, play a key role in a wide variety of human disorders. Stroke and asthma attacks tend to occur more frequently during the night and early morning, which some experts suggest to be due to changes in hormones, heart rate, and other characteristics associated with sleep. Dream-state sleep also has been found to be critical in preventing seizures and other neurological disorders. Sleeping problems occur in almost all people afflicted with mental conditions such as depression and schizophrenia. Sleeping problems are common in age-related diseases including Alzheimer's, stroke, and cancer.

In your search for refreshing sleep, you will be well served by establishing good habits for sleep and creating an inviting environment appropriate for sleep. Collectively, these improvements form good "sleep hygiene," a personalized regimen that is your gateway to refreshing sleep. In short, to achieve restorative sleep, it is critical to create a sleep haven.

Sleep-Friendly Habits

Establish how much sleep you really, and realistically, need: Approximate the amount of time your body considers requisite to enable your best daytime functioning by going to sleep and arising without the help of an alarm clock. Once you know how many hours of sleep you need, modify your daily routine so that you take care of personal and professional responsibilities well before the three to four hours prior to bedtime, when you should be starting a pre-sleep routine of quiet relaxation
Set a regular schedule, particularly for the time at which you get up everyday: an irregular or inconsistent sleep-wake schedule sets the biological stage for poor sleep.
Avoid the stimulants caffeine and nicotine for six hours before bedtime, longer if you know these substances give you trouble sleeping. Also avoid hidden sources of caffeine, such as chocolate and some over-the-counter pain and cold remedies.
Avoid alcohol after dinnertime: while it may help you fall asleep, it will probably cause you to awaken in the middle of the night.
Get regular exercise:
Exercise promotes faster time to sleep and improves progress through the stages of sleep. Moderate aerobic exercise three days a week has been found to promote sound sleep.
Strength training exercise (including weightlifting) prompts the release of Human Growth Hormone (HGH), rising levels of which at night coincide with sleep.
Exercise strengthens bones and joints, thereby helping to alleviate pain that can be bothersome in falling or staying asleep

NOTE: It is best to avoid exercising within the 2-4 hours before bedtime because of the hormone-releasing (and thus possibly stimulating) effect.

Eat for sleep:
For dinner or a light nighttime snack, choose foods containing the amino acid tryptophan, from which the body makes serotonin and melatonin, key biochemicals that trigger sleep. Dairy products, beans, poultry, and green leafy vegetables are good sources of tryptophan.
Sex may help to promote sleep by releasing neurochemicals that are sedating.
If you are on any prescription or over-the-counter medications, ask your doctor if any of them could be keeping you awake or causing you not to get a refreshing sleep.
Upon awakening, open the curtains and greet the sunlight: morning bright light promotes sleep onset later in the day. For older folks, exposure to bright light at the low point of core body temperature can delay the sleep-wake cycle so that they start feeling sleepy later

The Sleep Environment

Keep the sleeping room cool: lowering the temperature helps your body cool down, which can help to trigger sleep onset
Keep the sleeping room dark: light is the most powerful time cue for humans; even low ambient light (such as that of a nightlight) alter the sleep-wake cycle by way of the pineal, which is a light-sensitive organ that detects light even if the eyes are closed.
Keep the sleeping room quiet. If you cannot keep sound to an absolute minimum, use a fan, air cleaner, or other source of "white noise" to drown out discernable noise.
Limit the bed for engaging in two activities only -- sleep and sex. If you cannot get to sleep after quietly lying in bed for 30 minutes, get out of the bed and engage in a quiet activity like reading or listening to soothing music; avoid television as that is more of a stimulus than a relaxing activity. Once you start feeling tired, return to the bed and try to fall asleep again.
Is the bed to blame? It is not merely a home furnishing, it is an integral part of your sleep environment:
If you share a bed, both of you may sleep best in a king-size bed, particularly if your bed partner is prone to tossing and turning or has restless leg syndrome. Two adults in a double- or queen- size bed have as much horizontal space as a baby does in a crib!
Your mattress should be a smooth, intact comfortable surface. It should not feel bumpy and the coils should not be protruding out.
A properly selected and maintained mattress provides positive resistance to the sleeper's body weight. Goldilocks was right:
A mattress that is too firm will not provide even body support, tending instead to support only at the body's heaviest parts (shoulders and hips). This causes increased pressure that reduces blood circulation, causing the sleeper to toss and turn.
A mattress that is too soft will not keep the spine in proper alignment with the rest of the body. As a result, your muscles will work throughout the night to straighten the spine, leading to aches and pains in the morning. Sags or imprints in your mattress indicate that your mattress is not right for you.
The foundation part of the bed, also called the box spring, extends the life of the mattress. It absorbs the major portion of the stress and weight placed on the sleep surface, working like a shock absorber to eliminate stress in the mattress. A worn-out foundation can shorten the life of a mattress by 50% and thus compromise your sleep.
De-technologize your sleeping room. Specifically, reduce sources of electromagnetic fields (EMFs), waves of electric and magnetic energies that are produced by electronic and electrical equipment. EMFs represent one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences on health today, and scientists have found they can affect brainwaves so as to alter mental acuity and change mood and sleep patterns. EMFs are produced by:
Electric clocks and clock radios
Televisions and computers
Cellular phones and cordless phones
Lamps
Ionization--type smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
Reduce chemical irritants that may cause breathing difficulties that can interfere with getting to sleep or getting a continuous night's sleep:
Remove home furnishings made with synthetics or that are chemically treated (carpeting, furniture, draperies)
Freshly dry cleaned clothes are high in vapors of the solvents used in the cleaning process. Do not bring into the sleeping room until aired out in a separate room for several days. Close the closet door before sleeping.
Use natural, non-treated cotton or silk sheets. Avoid "permanent press" sheets as these are treated with chemicals (most notably, formaldehyde).
If you have pets, do not allow them into the sleeping room. A study by Dr. Shepard of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center (Minnesota, USA) reported that 53% of pet owners permitting the animal in the sleeping room had disrupted sleep every night. Pet allergies can also contribute to problems breathing during sleep.
Address sources of allergies: pets, plants, and knick-knacks are best left out of the sleeping room.
A few drops of jasmine or lavender essential oil on a tissue placed near the bed can promote relaxation upon inhalation. Dr. Raudenbush and colleagues from Wheeling Jesuit University (West Virginia USA) found that people who slept in rooms infused with jasmine slept more peacefully and reported higher afternoon alertness than those in a room with no added smell. Similar results were demonstrated for lavender, but Dr. Raudenbush's team found the benefits to be less pronounced as those seen with jasmine.