Friday, March 16, 2007
I don't know about you - but sleep is a constant battle in my life. I'm either sleeping too much, or not sleeping enough.. but it never seems to level out. Here are some tips I have gathered along the way..
- Try not to nap - I know, this one is very difficult!!!!! Sometimes, I just can't help it, I have to lay down for a while. As a whole though, if you take a nap, you disrupt your natural sleep cycle. I know there are many times where I have taken a nap during the day and stayed up all night because of it! If you do have to nap, try to set an alarm for about an hour, so that you don't sleep all day or night.
- Avoid caffeine before bedtime - yep, no coffee or tea for you! Or try a caffeine free bedtime tea!
- Talk with your doctor if you can not sleep - He or she can prescribe medications to help. Also, sometimes there can be issues with your breathing during sleep (sleep apnea). Controlling this can often have a dramatic improvement in not only your sleep, but your pain as well!
- Get a good pillow and mattress - Buy a comfortable pillow that helps you to sleep in the right position. Also make sure your mattress is not old. Mattresses have a life span of about 7-10 years.
- Relax before bed - Take a bath, listen to relaxing music. Try to establish a routine before your bedtime.
- Talk to your physical therapist - He or she can teach you the "right" way to sleep and can help you with the right pillows. Also doing a search on ergonomics for sleep can help you to understand what positions are good for your body and won't cause more pain in the morning. Ergonomics are important in sleep, here are some tips to help you sleep better at night and wake up with less pain.
- Prepare your bedroom - Try to make your bedroom quiet and dark. If you live in a city, try running a fan or other white noise.
This is a great post stacy, sleeping is SO important.
Aside from sleep being great for healing etc, did you know that you can remember more if you sleep? It is thought that the hippocampus (a critical brain area in memory) is more active during REM sleep and the only way to achieve REM sleep is to sleep for a while (I forget the exact amount if time, but you need to get through the other sleep stages first). Sorry to be so technical, but I work in a lab studying memory, so this is important to me. If you are interested in learning more about this let me know and I can tell you what I know and give you some articles that are good to read.
Anyways, here are some tips that I have found are great for sleep:
1) buy a memory foam mattress cover. You can buy them just about everywhere, even walmart sells quality ones. The "egg crate" non memory foam ones are ok, but the memory foam ones are the best.
2) Just before bed do some yoga. Stretch out your body to relieve any stress from the day. If you've ever taken a yoga class you know that at the end you lay down on your back and just listen to some calming music. It is so relaxing you actually have to remind yourself not to fall asleep.
3) My psychology professor told me this one: If you don't have time/space to do a yoga routine, then lay on your back in your bed just before you fall asleep and squeeze your muscles one at a time then relax. Start with your toes: sqeeze hold for a few seconds and relax, then legs, same thing, then butt, then hands, then arms, then face, and finally squeeze everything at the same time hold and release. This give you an active role in relaxing your muscles which can help you sleep.
4) If you can't fall asleep concentrate on your breath, think "I am breathing in, I am breathing out". Gradually slow your breathing. By slowing your breathing you can so your heart rate and therefore relax and fall asleep.
Hope these can help some of you.
Sweet dreams! lol,
~Heather