Getting a Good Night Sleep

I don’t know about you but sometimes I have difficulty getting a good night sleep.  Most single moms sleep only a few hours per night so we need that time to sleep soundly, rest our tired body and mind to prepare us for another challenging day.  Thus, I thought it wise to share the following tips that help me get that much needed rest in bed.

 Not getting a good night sleep adversely affects our morning routine and sometimes makes us grouchy.  Our pre-bedtime behavior and our sleeping environment can affect the quality of our sleep.

 

To have a good night sleep, avoid too much artificial lighting. We owe Thomas Edison one of the most important inventions of all time. However, his invention of the electric light bulb is detrimental to our sleep. As the sun sets, our body produces melatonin which makes us feel drowsy.  Exposure to light prevents our body to produce melatonin. When getting ready to sleep, dim your lights and reduce the amount of light coming into your room if you want to be asleep till the sun rises. Put heavy curtains in your room to prevent the sun from shining in your room.

 

Caffeine also affects melatonin production; avoid caffeinated drinks (especially coffee) six hours before the time you want to hit the sack.  Sugary drinks and chocolate don’t contain as much caffeine as coffee but I recommend not taking these a few hours before your desired sleep time.

 

Don’t exercise before bedtime.  While exercising in the mornings is a great way to keep fit, exercising before bedtime will make it harder for us to fall asleep. When we exercise before bedtime our body has to try to fight off the excess energy we've just given it, keeping us awake long into the night.

 

Going to bed very late may cause you to fail to sleep immediately and will reduce your chances of a good night rest.  Our deepest sleep happens in the first third of the night, with the length of our deep sleep depending on how early we go to bed. We go in and out of deep sleep during every 90-minute sleep cycle, but during the first third of the night our chance of experiencing deep sleep increases. Because of this, sleeping from 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. often feels more refreshing than sleeping from 1:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. It is also at this time (10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.) that our body heals itself. Studies say that sleeping at this time heals the body of heart and liver problems.

 

It is a common notion that alcohol will make us fall asleep. Alcohol will indeed cause you to feel drowsy but it doesn’t mean that you will have a good night sleep. Taking too much alcohol will cause you to wake up during the night and be prone to nightmares.

 

Taking a nap during the day is good for your health says a number of studies. However, taking too long a nap during the day can cause you to lose sleep at night. A 20-minute nap is recommended; I read somewhere that Albert Einstein would hold a pencil in his hand while seated on his chair to take a nap. He does this so that when the pencil falls down from his hand he would awake.

 

Have a good night sleep everyone J.