(“To Sleep”; courtesy of magpie-moon)
Imagine this: you go to bed around 10:00 p.m. at night; it takes you a few minutes to fall asleep; you sleep soundly through the night; in the morning your alarm clock goes off at 5:30 a.m.; you immediately wake up, shut off the alarm, stretch, and get out of bed; you feel well-rested and invigorated, ready to start your day; your energy level remains high all day until it’s time to go to sleep again.
Unfortunately, for most of us, the reality is more like this: you watch TV or work on your computer until 1:00 a.m.; it takes you awhile to fall asleep; you wake up several times during the night; the alarm clock goes off at 7:00 a.m.; you groan and ignore it for a few seconds; you hit the snooze button, roll over, and fall asleep again; you continue to hit the snooze button and fall asleep again several times; finally, you manage to pull yourself out of bed–feeling groggy and drowsy–and drag yourself to the shower; you spend most of the day wishing you could lie down and take a nap.
Below you will find 40 tools, tidbits, and resources to help you turn the first scenario into reality.
1. “How to Become An Early Riser” by Steve Pavlina
In this post, Steve Pavlina shares with his readers that in his early 20’s he rarely went to bed before midnight, and would almost always sleep in late and not function properly until the afternoon. Because he noticed a high correlation between success and rising early, he set out to become an early riser. He tried to create the habit of being an early rise for a number of years, without success. Steve then found that the optimal solution is to go to bed when he feels too sleepy to stay up, and to get up with an alarm at a fixed time—5:00 a.m.–every day of the week. So he always wakes up at the same time, but he goes to sleep at different times, almost always between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.
2. “How to Become An Early Riser, Part II” by Steve Pavlina
Steve Pavlina explains that to apply correctly the principle of going to bed when you’re sleepy, you need a mixture of awareness and common sense. He refers to the onset of sleepiness as the moment in which your brain starts releasing hormones to knock you out. Steve admonishes that in order for this to happen you have to create the right conditions, which means giving yourself some downtime before bedtime.
3. “How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off” by Steve Pavlina
Steve admonishes that you need to accept that you’re not going to make the right call at 5:00 a.m. The solution is to turn the whole thing over to your subconscious mind by practicing “waking up as soon as the alarm goes off” until it becomes rote. In addition, he adds that you should practice this during the day when you’re wide awake.
4. Polyphasic Sleep
Wikipedia defines “Polyphasic Sleep” as: “a sleep pattern specification intended to compress sleep time to 2-5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading out sleep into short (around 20-45 minute) naps throughout the day. This allows for more waking hours with relatively high alertness . . .” You can read more about it on the blog post “Uberman’s Sleep Schedule”.
(“Close Your Eyes and Sleep”; courtesy of Ketosea)
5. “Rest Easy – Using All Your Senses to Get Sensational Sleep”
The author of this article—David Hamilton–explains that even as we sleep, our minds continue to respond to stimulants from all of our senses. Small amounts of light—such as that from a glowing alarm clock—can interfere with sleep quality, so he advices that you might want to consider a sleep mask. In addition, even noise that doesn’t wake you can disturb sleep, so the author suggests playing white noise, classical music, or other soothing tunes while you sleep. As for the sense of touch, choose loose, soft fabrics, and make sure you have a comfortable mattress. An aroma dispenser that changes fragrances or emits the same scent at intervals is also a good sleep aid. Popular scents for rest include chamomile, bergamot or lavender. He adds that according to the Mayo Clinic, a glass of warm milk really might help you fall asleep.
6. In order to get a good night’s rest, you can either make sure that your room is pitch dark, or you can wear a sleep mask. A good sleep mask that can be found on Amazon is the Sweet Dreams Contoured Sleep Mask.
7. Read all about the Land of Nod in Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book (Classic Seuss)
8. Set a reward: “After seven days of waking up at my target time I will _________ as a reward.”
9. Create a bedtime ritual.
A bedtime ritual is any series of actions you perform every night to help signal to your body that it’s time to sleep. An hour or so before your bedtime, take a bath or shower, wash your face, brush your teeth, drink some soothing herbal tea, put on your pj’s, and do something to relax you. The relaxing activity can be reading, relaxation techniques, such as yoga or muscle relaxation, knitting, completing a jigsaw puzzle, and so on. If you follow your nighttime ritual on a consistent basis, soon these will become mental signals that it’s time to sleep.
10. Want sleep advice from the Harvard Medical School? Get the The Harvard Medical School Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep (Harvard Medical School Guides)
11. Read advice from the sleep doctor—Michael Breus—at “The Insomnia Blog”.
12. As soon as you get up in the morning go outside and turn your face to the sun for fifteen minutes.
(“Ollie Sleeping”; courtesy of Gavatron)
13. Did you know that there’s a National Sleep Foundation? Who better to get sleep advice from?
14. Have you seen the movie “Sleep” by Andy Warhol?
“I could never finally figure out if more things happened in the sixties because there was more awake time for them to happen in (since so many people were on amphetamine), or if people started taking amphetamine because there were so many things to do that they needed to have more awake time to do them in… Seeing everybody so up all the time made me think that sleep was becoming pretty obsolete, so I decided I’d better quickly do a movie of a person sleeping. Sleep was the first movie I made when I got my 16mm Bolex.” — Andy Warhol
15. Here’s a book on Amazon that will show how to Sleep to be Sexy, Smart, and Slim.
16. Take up meditation to quiet your mind chatter, thereby having an easier time falling asleep. You can learn how to meditate by reading my post “Meditation in Ten Easy Steps”.
17. Leo Babauta from “zenhabits” explains “10 benefits from Rising Early and How to Do It “
Leo explains that switching from being a night owl to an early riser was a godsend. He lays out ten benefits of being an early riser, and gives tips to his readers on how to adopt the habit of getting up early. Among his advice is to start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Then, as you get used to this after a few days, cut back another 15 minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time. Other suggestions include: going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed; putting the alarm clock far away from the bed, leaving the room as soon as you turn the alarm clock off, and having something significant to do as soon as you get up, such as devoting that time to your writing.
18. Noise is one of the biggest interferences to getting a good night’s sleep. You can use ear plugs or you can use a white noise machine, such as this one from Amazon: Marpac Sound Screen 980A Electro-Mechanical Sound Conditioner
19. Another alternative is to get a sunrise alarm clock that includes a white noise feature: BioBrite Sunrise Clock Advanced Model with White Noise, Pearl
(“Sleep”; courtesy of bitzcelt)
20. Learn how to “Fall Asleep in 30 steps” in this wikihow article.
21. And for even more tips : “Tips for Better Sleep During Bad Times”.
22. Read the “12 Top Tips to Fall Asleep Faster and Stay Asleep Longer”.
23. At Esquire Magazine, world-renowned “doctor Mehmet Oz” offers six steps on how to get a good night’s sleep every night.
24. And again from Esquire, a feature on learning how to sleep better.
25. Could a lack of sleep be making you fat?
26. This video will show you why it’s vital to stop hitting the snooze button. You’ll also see an alarm clock created by an MIT student that jumps off the night stand and rolls around on the floor so you have to get out of bed and chase it.
27. The site soyouwanna.com teaches you how to cure insomnia.
28. Have you heard of the site quamut.com? They’ll help you learn how to do everything from organize your home to learning a new hobby. Let them show you how to get a good night´s sleep.
29. You can get a watch at Amazon, the SLEEPTRACKER Pro Watch
30. Let Dave Navarro teach you “How to Improve Your Sleep and Feel More Rested”.
31. Also from Dave Navarro, “5 Tips to Recharge Your Body and Mind Overnight”.
32. The Silva Life System will teach how to reach the alpha level of the mind–the brain frequency associated with meditation and light sleep–in 60 seconds flat.
33. Use chamomile as a natural sleep aid.
34. Here are some common tips for getting better sleep:
• Beds are for sleeping. Don’t work, eat, watch TV, or perform any similar activities in bed.
• The effects of caffeinated beverages take several hours to wear off. Consider eliminating caffeine after lunch or cutting back on your overall intake.
• Change your bed sheets and pillowcases regularly.
• Regular exercise usually makes it easier to fall asleep and improves the quality of your sleep. Just make sure you don’t exercise close to your bedtime.
• Alcohol reduces the quality of sleep. Although it may make you drowsy and help you to fall asleep faster, alcohol reduces your sleep quality. To avoid this effect, stay away from alcohol in the last few hours before bed.
• Nicotine is a stimulant, so smoking disrupts sleep.
• If you wake up during the night and can’t fall asleep again don’t lie in bed tossing and turning. Instead, get up and do something to distract yourself, like reading, until you feel sleepy again.
• Don’t watch TV or work on the computer in the half hour prior to going to sleep since this will stimulate your brain and make it harder for you to fall asleep.
(“Sleeping In”; courtesy of cmrowell)
35. The Sedona Method will help you to let go of any negative emotions that may be causing you stress and interfering with your ability to experience restful sleep.
36. There’s more advice on “How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep” at the “Mahalo” site.
37. Another good source of information for getting and staying asleep is “The Journal of Sleep” .
38. You can even get a free newsletter on how to beat insomnia.
39. Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, is basically an emotional version of acupuncture, except needles aren’t used. Instead, you stimulate energy meridian points on your body by tapping on them with your fingertips. Here’s a video that will take you through an EFT routine to help you combat insomnia: “EFT and insomnia”. It’s very easy to do, just follow along with the video.
40. Hypnosis is another way to treat insomnia. Wendi Friesen is an excellent hypnotherapist and she has several programs available which you can purchase on CD’s, including one on getting over insomnia.
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