How to Sleep Like a Baby

How To Sleep Better: Getting ready for bed is all about rituals and signaling your body that it’s time for sleep. Even losing an hour or two of sleep can interfere with decision making. These 10 simple tips will keep you on your game and ready to have your best sleep and your best days!

With a house full of kids, a child with autism, working at home, and a hub who basically lives on the road for work, I often find myself burning the candle at both ends. Turning off my mind from the events of the day and turning off my work to do list once bed time rolls around can at times seem like an impossible task. These simple tips have helped me turn off my racing mind and get my best night sleep.

1. Create a Routine. Doing the same thing night after night really helps get your body ready for sleep. Whether your evening ritual includes a hot bath and a glass of warm milk, or a chapter from a book, it is important to give yourself about a half hour every night to wind down and tell you brain that it’s time for sleep.

2. Turn off the screens. The lights from screens can be stimulating which can make it harder to shut down and fall asleep. Also too much blue light from screens right before bed has been linked to obesity, insomnia, and depression.

3. Watch what you eat. When it comes to food, gravity is your friend — it helps pull the food toward your stomach for digestion. However, if you chow down on a big meal and then lie down to sleep, you might find yourself dealing with pain from ailments like acid reflex.

If you need a small snack before bedtime, make it a high protein small {but filling} snack that will keep your blood sugar stable such as pistachios or hard boiled eggs.

4. Exercise earlier in the day. While night time work outs are relaxing, avoid hitting the gym an hour before bed. Exercising gets your endorphin pumping and spikes your heart rate which can lead to your tossing and turning throughout the night.

5. Try Essential Oils. Essential oils such as lavender are widely accepted as a natural sedative. We recently gave essential oils a try with a homemade bedtime lotion and have fallen in love!

6. Add some weight. Piling on the blankets or using weighted blankets helps your body relax and enter a deeper level of sleep.

6. Play white noise. When a noise wakes you up in the night, it’s not the noise itself that wakes you up exactly, but the sudden change or inconsistencies in noise that stir you. White noise creates a masking effect, blocking out those sudden changes that frustrate light sleepers and people who struggle to find sleep.

7. Meditate daily. Research suggests that daily meditation alter’s the brains neural pathways in a manner that makes us more resilient to stress which in turn will help making your bedtime routine run smoother.

8. Rescue Sleep Aide. I’ve used RESCUE products for what seems like forever, since a close friend of mine introduced them to me for anxiety. They were a life saver for me during my trip to London {the Tube was a pure anxiety trip for me}. Now we also use and love RESCUE Sleep Liquid Melts, an all natural, homeopathic sleep aid developed by a doctor. This gentle and non-habit forming supplement is a safe go-to favorite to help me sleep,and I don’t have to worry about any side effects! You can even grab a buy one get one free coupon here.

9. Turn down the thermostat. We have known for years that good sleep is essential for good health, but recent studies are showing that turning down the temps while sleeping help us enter a deeper stage of sleep easier and affect our metabolic health.

10. Block the Clock. If you are anything like me glancing at the clock leads to your mind racing and counting down until the next day begins and all of what you have to do. Trust me when I say that if you glance at the clock in the wee hours of the night, your sleep will suffer. Clock watchers should put their alarm in a drawer, under the bed, or turn it away from view.

KEEP READING!

Looking for family posts similar to this one? Then be sure to click through the below links or head over to our Facebook fan page to continue the discussion!

[su_table]