Why sleep is important

In a 16-year study at Harvard, scientists found that people who slept for 5 hours or less a night were 32% more likely to pack on major pounds than those who slept a full 7 hours.

Although “major” was defined as 3 pounds, the average increase was 2 pounds a year, a gain that’s easy to miss from month to month.  “Due to accumulated fatigue, those who get the least shut-eye may also move around the least during the day,” says study author Sanjay Patel, MD.

Not getting enough sleep is a big pain in the zzzzz’s.  Researchers have also found that consistently not getting a good night’s rest can have a serious impact on your immune system, making you more prone to colds, infections, and serious conditions such as diabetes.

A to Z aids for better zzzzz’s

Before resorting to pills or therapy, make sure your insomnia isn’t caused by bad habits.  To get back on track in the sack, follow these principles of what experts call sleep hygiene.

Here are simple changes that can turn any bedroom into a den of sweet dreams. Try them in yours–tonight.

Avoid snoring if you can
If snoring,-your own or your partner’s–keeps you up a new pillow might be the answer.  Consider the FDA-approved Sona pillow ($69.99; SonaPillow.com), developed by a Harvard-trained neurologist. It’s specially shaped to tilt your head and open your airways. Moreover, the pillow decreased or eliminated snoring in nearly every patient studied and reduced sleep interruptions.

Ban the booze.
Drinking alcohol near bedtime might make you sleepy, but it can cause wakefulness in the middle of the night.

Darken your room
Is your room dark?  If not, that could be keeping you awake.
Believe it or not, ambient light from streetlamps, alarm clocks, and DVD players could be keeping you awake. “Even a small amount of brightness can be strong enough to enter your retina when your eyes are closed.  Light sends a signal to your brain that upsets your internal clock and makes you feel awake.”

If there is light in the hallway, shut the bedroom door. Also, turn your alarm clock toward the wall (or opt for the non-digital variety), and eliminate night-lights. Wearing an old-fashioned eye mask ($4 to $7; drugstores) helps signal your brain that, yes, it really is nighttime, as well.  Make sure your bedroom curtains keep out any street light.

Even the light from an LED clock can keep you up or harm your rest.  Pull darkening shades tight or cover your eyes with a mask.  If you awaken at night and need a light, make it a dim one.

Don’t live in the bedroom.
Use your bed only for sleep and sex, not for reading or watching TV.

Don’t sleep with a pet in bed
You may love your dog or cat (or a cute pig if that turns you on), but a furry body and wet nose pulls you from your dreams..  In a survey done by the Mayo Clinic, they found that more than half of dog and cat owners admitted that their animal disrupted their sleep every night.

One solution
If you have a dog, put a crate next to your bed and have your pet sleep there.  A spokesperson for the American Kennel Club said that dogs like to sleep in a safe, protected space.

If you have a cat, lock her out of the bedroom but keep her entertained with special nighttime-only toys that get put away in the morning.  (Deter door scratching by putting double-sided tape on the bottom edge; cats hate the stickiness.)

Eliminate noise
For some people, any sound (the television, rowdy neighbors, traffic, a loud clock) keeps them up at night. Other folks–namely, city dwellers–are creeped out in super quiet places.

What research has found is that it’s not the sound or lack thereof that’s keeping you awake, it’s the inconsistency of sound or silence that’s disruptive.  For example, in Chicago people who live next to an elevated train track can sleep through all the trains going by.  But if you’re a temporary visitor from a quiet country village, those trains will wake you up.

A solution to disruptive noises you can’t shut out such as a dog barking periodically is to turn on a nearby ceiling or exhaust fan.  This will act as white noise, both blocking out disruptive sounds and providing just enough noise for those who can’t stand total silence.

Roth says. A white-noise machine will do the trick, too–the devices help patients sleep in the busy, active intensive care units of hospitals, according to a report in Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America.

Exercise, losing weight and quitting smoking…
may be beneficial, depending on the cause of the problem,

Give it 20 minutes.
If you are till tossing and turning after that interval, get up, go into another room, and do something quiet and boring, such as reading an instruction manual.

Heat your feet:
Cold feet can mean no sleep.  Blood vessels in your hands and feet usually expand just before you fall asleep and warm up your fingers and toes.  But if your circulation isn’t very good, your feet stay cold, and you stay away.  Try a warm bath before bed time, or put on a cozy pair of warm socks to hasten your trip to dreamland.

Keep a schedule.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a night owl or an early bird, as long as you sleep and rise at the same time every day (even on weekends).

Keep it cool
You sleep better when your bedroom is cool.  That’s because your forehead likes to feel cool at night, even though your body is under a warm cover.

Set the thermostat in your bedroom between 60° F and 65° F. It’ll help nudge your internal temperature down–a key ingredient to deep and restful sleep, according to sleep expert Amy Wolfson, PhD.

Mind over mattress
Training your brain may be a better insomnia remedy than popping pills, report scientists at the University of Bergen, in Norway.  In their 6-week study, insomniacs employed cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), a technique in which patients use their thoughts to control their feelings and behavior.  As a result they slept 48% longer than those taking the sleep drug zopicione.

“Psychological factors play an important role in fixing sleep problems, even after the original cause is gone” said study author Berge Silversten, Psy. D.  To find a psychologist in your state that’s certified to teach CBT, go to http://www.nacbt.org/searchfortherapists.asp and enter your state information.

You can coach yourself through the process with online CBT-1 sites such as those created by Gregg D. Jacobs, MD of Harvard Medical School (www.cbtforinsomnia.com) and by the National Sleep Foundation (www.centers.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia).

Muscle relaxation helps to shut down your mind
Try this stress reduction technique before going to bed, or after you get there.

Focus on relaxing the muscles that run from your chin to your jaw joints on both sides.  Tension in these muscles acts as the control center for tension everywhere in your body, and relaxing them can induce profound relaxation of body and mind to help you drift off within minutes.

While you can relax the above muscles with your thoughts, what the author has found is that rubbing them with your hands works even better.  Consider holding your jaw on both sides where your jaw bone meets your skull.  You may find that painful.  Do the same with a spot just below your ears.

The reason those spots are painful is that is where many of us hold tension in.  By feeling the pain, you can expect to actually reduce the pain and the tension.  Then you’ve got a better chance at falling to sleep quickly.

Nosh a bit.
Although a heavy meal before bed can keep you awake, so can hunger.  Munch a few crackers before turning in if you’re feeling hungry.  Hey, we said a few, not a lot.

Reduce dust mites and other allergens
you may be coughing, sneezing, and sniffling all night, but you don’t even have a cold or the flu.  That could be because you are sharing your bed with anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million dust mites, and the residue they leave behind can trigger mild to very severe allergies.

To reduce mites and other allergens, vacuum and dust regularly; use linens that block mites, such as American Lung Associationapproved AllerRest bedding (starting at $19.99; JC Penny.com); and replace mattresses that are more than 10 years old.

Also, crack the windows and doors. That increases a room’s airflow, which is one of the most effective ways to cut down on dust mites, according to a recent study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Scrap the naps.
If you have insomnia, then sleeping during the day can steal from your slumber at night.

Sleep on your side,
not your back, if you can’t get to sleep.  Or if necessary, simply try a different position.

Soften up your bedding.
A cushy comforter or an especially fluffy pillow can go a long way toward making sure that you sleep soundly.

Unclutter your bedroom
If you have a desk in your bedroom with papers piled on it, or just plain stuff lying around, that’s clutter.  A cluttered sleep environment makes for a cluttered mind–the kind that churns well into the night.

Grab a basket, toss in any unfinished work–bills, spreadsheets, that half-done scrapbook, anything you were working on –and promptly remove them.  They keep your mind from relaxing at night.

Keep your computer in another room, or at least place it in a cabinet that can be closed. You’ll be shutting the door on stress and late-night screen gazing, which has been proven to hinder sleep.  The monitor’s bright display may inhibit your production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for telling the body it’s time for bed.

When you eliminate the stuff in your bedroom that isn’t related to sleep, your brain starts to associate the room only with sleep and intimacy.  That’s a big help.

De-clutter your mind
Thinking about what you need to do tomorrow, or what you should or shouldn’t have done today, keeps you awake.  That creates stress, and stress is a cause of short-term sleep problems such as not getting to sleep and frequent middle-of-the-night waking.

Use techniques to keep thoughts from running through your head.  You’ve seen the image of counting sheep (and maybe visualizing them jumping over a fence).  Sheep have nothing to do with your life, and that’s a way to turn off all thoughts that relate to your daily life.  Of course, any other image that’s neutral will accomplish the same thing.

Who can help – Finding a certified sleep coach

There are now hundreds of centers specializing in sleep problems (see www.sleepcenters.org).  Many of these, however, tend to focus on sleep apnea and related disorders, with treatments for insomnia limited mainly to drugs.

Though cognitive-behavior therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) has been around for decades, there are currently only 90 doctors fully qualified in its practice (see www.aasmnet.org.)

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