Top 10 Ways to Ruin Your Night (or how to sleep well)

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Is a good night’s sleep the first thing you renounce when life gets too full and busy? If so, this is your wake-up call: You’re not just sabotaging your next day’s performance (news to none of us), but you’re actually harming your health.

Sleep deprivation is a serious medical risk, but few individuals are aware of that. A spate of studies is turning up clear links between inadequate sleep and obesity, as well as several related conditions: heart disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes.

The good news is that with sufficient shut-eye, these conditions may be reversible. Here’s a lineup of the most insidious sleep thieves — and the latest recommendations on how to bar them from your bedroom forever.

1. Bedroom Gadgets

No, not those kinds of gadgets. I’m talking about ordinary computers, BlackBerries, and TVs — all of which are probably best left outside the boudoir. Mingling electronics with your sleep site sends your body mixed messages about whether it should be turned on or off. In order to keep your bedroom a restful place, keep it free of digital devices.

2. Working Until Bedtime

Think you’ll be able to fall asleep if you move right from checking your e-mail to bed? Think again. In fact stop thinking. If you’ve got work-related matters buzzing around in your head, give them a chance to calm down before you consider sleeping. Putting a time barrier between work and sleep should ensure that you’re having sweet dreams instead of stressful nightmares.

3. Early Bedtimes

While heading to bed at 8pm might seem like an excellent way to get your sleep schedule on track, such an early bedtime will likely deter your good intentions. That’s because hitting the sack before (or too soon after) the sun has started setting usually does not align with your circadian rhythm, the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle. In order to keep pace with your circadian rhythm, experts recommend waiting until you’re drowsy to fall asleep and then waking up at the same time each morning, giving your body a set schedule to sleep by.

4. Having a Nightcap or Two

If you’re having trouble falling asleep, drinking is not the right remedy. While alcohol may feel like it’s putting you to sleep, its sedating effect won’t last the whole night. Instead, sleeping after drinking is one of the surefire ways to guarantee a miserable morning. You’ll usually get about four hours of light sleep, but wake up afterward feeling lousy and unable to fall back asleep. If you’re looking for more solid sleep that will leave you well rested, then the bar scene should not be part of your bedtime ritual.

5. An Overactive Mind

The reason you sometimes obsess over a tricky work project or an argument with your colleague when you’re trying to fall asleep: You can’t refocus your thinking at the edge of slumber the same way you can when you’re alert. People have little control over their thoughts, because they may be going in and out of a light stage of sleep, even though they think they’re awake.

When fretful, get up and go to another part of the house (but leave the lights off). Your anxious thoughts will usually stop right away. Then you can go back to bed and fall asleep. This well-studied strategy, called stimulus control, also prevents you from associating your bed with anxiety. Another tip: Set aside time early in the evening to problem solve. Write down your pressing concerns, along with a possible solution for each, a few hours before retiring.

6. Watching the Clock

Watching each minute — or second — pass by is not going to help you drift off. Instead, it will likely make you more worried about the time you’re spending without sleeping. Instead of counting the passing minutes, experts recommend getting up to do a calming activity, such as a crossword puzzle or reading a book and then heading back to bed when the drowsiness hits again. (And turn that clock face away from the bed.)

7. Sleeping too Much

If you sleep for longer than your personal optimal period, your sleep will be shallow and restless. In fact, if you oversleep for many hours, you will fall into another deep sleep in the morning. This will upset your circadian clock and you will wake up feeling absolutely whacked. If this is your problem, you can reverse the situation by keeping your time in bed to the absolute minimum and staying up a bit later at night to prolong the restful deep sleep at the beginning of the night.

8. Dark Mornings

Your morning routine can actually have a pretty big impact on your sleep success. You need to let your body know when it’s time to rise and shine and the best way to do that is by exposing yourself to some bright lights. Sleep experts recommend getting about twenty minutes of early-morning light exposure. It will let your body know that it’s time to get going and reduce drowsiness.

9. Weekend Sleep-Ins

The circadian clock reacts promptly to delays in getting up: the longer you sleep in at the weekend, the more you will pay for it on Monday. Rather wake up at about the same time and allow yourself the luxury of a short snooze during the day — or go to bed earlier if you are really short on sleep.

10. Napping During the Day

I know it may sound contradictory, but practically speaking if you sleep too long during the day, then this will disrupt night time sleep, so it’s important to find the right balance. But if you can’t find that balance you better stop napping.

If you’re tossing and turning instead of falling asleep at night, it’s probably not because the bed bugs are biting. Rather, a number of simple mistakes we make when trying to grab some shuteye are often to blame. Avoid these habits and sweet dreams should be near in your future.

--from Ririanproject.com