Sleep Suggestions, Part II

Continuing our discussion from last time on good ideas for getting our much needed shut-eye, here are more sleep suggestions for you to consider:

8. Listen to a bedtime story.

Load a familiar audiobook on your iPad—one that you know well, so it doesn’t engage you but distracts your
attention until you drift off to sleep, suggests Dr. Shives. Relaxing music works well, too.

9. Stay cool.

Experts usually recommend setting your bedroom thermostat between 65° and 75°F—a good guideline, but pay attention to how you actually feel under the covers; if you are still experiencing a variety of menopause sleep problems, it may need to be a bit cooler. For optimal rest, once you’ve settled in to bed, you shouldn’t feel cold or hot—but just right.

10. Use a white noise machine to drown out city noises.

Unless you are lucky enough to live in a rural area, free of urban noise.

11. Eliminate sneaky light sources.

“Light is a powerful signal to your brain to be awake,” explains Dr. Shives. “Even the glow from your laptop, iPad, smart phone, or any other electronics on your nightstand may pass through your closed eyelids and retinas into your hypothalamus—the part of your brain that controls sleep. This delays your brain’s release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin. Thus, the darker your room is, the more soundly you’ll sleep.”

12. Check your pillow position.

Your head and spine need to be in a straight line to keep your body fully relaxed for restorative sleep. I have seen miraculous changes in people’s quality of sleep from just making this one change.

13. Contrary to popular belief:  Stay put if you wake up.

“The textbook advice is that if you can’t fall back asleep in fifteen minutes, get out of bed,” says
Dr. Shives. “But I ask my patients, ‘How do you feel in bed?’ If they’re not fretting or anxious, I tell them to stay there, in the dark, and do some deep breathing or visualization.” 

But if lying in bed pushes your stress buttons, get up and do something quiet and relaxing (in dim light), such as gentle yoga or massaging your feet until you feel sleepy again.”

14. Spray a sleep-inducing scent.

Certain smells, such as lavender, chamomile, and ylang-ylang, activate the part of the brain which leads to
relaxation and helps you sleep more soundly. Mix a few drops of essential oil and water in a spray bottle and give your pillowcase a spritz.

15. Take up yoga.

Doing yoga during the day, or adding a decompressing yoga routine before bed, slows down the body physically, and turns down the volume on noise in our heads, so we can sleep.

16. Add music to your nightly routine.

Soothing music (lovely classical or Gregorian chant) or nature sounds–I like beautiful birdsong,–are two easy ways to bring on peaceful slumber. Try listening to the music and doing some slow, deep belly breathing to help downshift everything from head to toe.

And last, but not least…

Keeping life interesting and mentally stimulating also promotes good sleep and slows telomere aging, as Chiara Cirelli, MD, PhD from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison noted in her research.

Dr. Cirelli said “[Our] need for sleep is strongly modulated by the amount of brain plasticity during our day. The more we learn and adapt the more we need to sleep. A chronic decrease in sleep need could be due to reduced opportunity to learn and be exposed to novel experience, rather than, or in addition to, problems in the neural circuits responsible for sleep regulation.”

I know there are even more ways to call on the sandman, and I welcome any and all useful sleep suggestions!

Until next time… Be Vibrant!