Sleep Tips The Definitive Guide to a Good Night’s Sleep
The following article, “Sleep Tips” should help anyone who has been suffering from sleep problems that have severely affected the quality of their lives in every aspect, at work and or at home. We hope that a better understanding of how we sleep and how to create the right conditions for achieving 7-8 hours of solid sleep a night along with the help of The Sleep Genie and these well researched and proven sleep tips, that it will bring you the good night’s sleep that you need and deserve.
Written By Dr. Charles McCusker & Tova Greenberg August 23, 2009
Visit the website: http://www.TheSleepGenie.com
Sleep Tips
A Guide for Getting the MOST out of your Sleep Do you have any of these symptoms or situations?
1) It takes you more than 20 minutes to fall asleep. 2) You feel anxious and stressful during the day and at bedtime. 3) You need to take a sleeping pill nightly to fall asleep or, you rely on them more than you would like to. 4) Sleeping pills are no longer working for you. 5) You are concerned about taking sleeping pills because you are taking other prescribed medications and worried about negative interactions. 3) You are under medical treatment for an illness or suffer from chronic pain or discomfort that is ruining your sleep. 4) WOMEN -You are going through menopause and suffering from hot flashes and other symptoms that have disrupted your sleep. 5) You are waking up too early and not being able to fall asleep again. 6) You go to the washroom in the middle of the night and then can’t fall back sleep. 7) You wake up feeling like you haven’t really rested. 8) You are forgetful. 9) You have trouble concentrating and staying focused. 10) You catch colds often and miss a lot of time from work. 11) You get sleepy at your desk in the afternoon and need a nap. 12) You get drowsy while driving- especially on the commute home from work. 13) PARENTS: You have children who are not getting 8-9 hours of sleep, then falling asleep at school or at home doing homework and then sleeping until noon on weekends. 14) You are a SHIFT WORKER; policeman, nurse, truck driver, fire fighter or pilot. 15) You are a business executive and travel constantly to other time zones. 16) You are a WORKING PARENT with young children and a hectic schedule. 17) DIETERS:You have trouble eating healthy and are gaining or losing weight.
You are not alone!
If you recognize yourself on this list then you are not alone. Studies have shown that 1 out of every 3 Canadians will have trouble sleeping sometime in their life. That is more than 10 million people and, for 3 million, the problem is chronic. If you have tried meditation and medication, now there is The Sleep Genie. Poor sleep threatens your health significantly increasing the risk for heart disease, depression and weight gain. Along with eating a well balanced diet and moderate exercise, sleep is the most important thing you can do to maintain your good health. It is during sleep that our immune system is strengthened to help ward off infections and illness, as well as to heal and repair tissues. This is the time when memories are banked and the things we have learned are stored in our brains. Lack of sleep makes your body produce too much gherlin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry and has you reaching for sugary or starchy treats in the afternoon. Is that you? It also reduces the production of leptin, responsible for making you feel satisfied after eating. This hormonal imbalance can be corrected if you get the proper amount of sleep. If you are reading this booklet then you have heard about The Sleep Genie, the revolutionary device to help you re-establish your sleep patterns. It is not a drug so it is not addictive, it has an unblemished safety record and will also help to relax your muscles and ease away your stress and tension. You can use it as often and for as long as you need it, as it is a totally natural non-chemical process to gently readjust your internal sleep clock so that you can fall asleep easily, stay asleep longer and wake up feeling refreshed. In fact, the more you use it, the better you will feel! Understanding the technology and why it works Let’s understand the science behind The Sleep Genie technology. Sleep cycles are controlled by several interrelated behavioral and internal systems known as our sleep clock, located deep within our brain and regulating different systems that change during the day and night like body temperature, heart rate and blood pleasure. The sleep clock stimulates the sleep/wake centre to regulate when we sleep and when we wake up. This natural activity happens when the sleep/wake centre releases the hormones needed by your body to bring about the onset of sleep – to make you tired and sleepy. At night these chemicals are released and in the morning they are reduced so that you can wake up and be alert during the day. The ebb and flow of these chemicals are stimulated by your sleep clock, which runs on a 24 hour cycle. The natural triggers for the sleep clock are light and dark. So if you could go to sleep soon after it got dark and wake up at dawn
– and have no stress in between – then you probably would never have a sleepless night. When we are able to listen to all the cues that our body gives us, and our internal sleep clock works as it should, then all is well and we can fall asleep easily and naturally and wake up 8 hours later feeling well rested. But whose life is really like that? For most of us that is not our reality today. When that internal clock is off then the messages to your sleep/wake centre do not go out at the right time and you do not have that natural ebb and flow of the chemicals that your body needs, at the right time and in the right quantity. Hence your sleep is interrupted and restless, at the very least, and likely ruined. You see humans are both chemical and electrical beings, which explains why sleep patterns can be detected and measured by diagnostic equipment. It is the electrical component that regulates and interacts with the chemical component and both need to work properly and together for our bodies to remain well balanced and in harmony. Until now medicine has only focused on manipulating the chemical component to help us deal with sleep problems. The availability of these medicines have been largely orchestrated and guided by the pharmaceutical industry, which annually spends millions of dollars to convince us that drugs are “the solution.” If you have been taking sleeping pills for years, you need to ask yourself if they are really working for you – or have they become a crutch? Are they masking the real underlying problem? Just listen to the disclaimers drug companies have to make in their advertisements. Warnings about not taking pills for longer than 2 weeks, making sure you can get 8 hours of sleep, not to drive the next day and to be careful not to become dependent. Does that sound like a solution – or a potential new set of problems? Sleep problems cannot be reversed until you get to the root of the problem which is that your internal sleep clock is malfunctioning – it is not keeping proper time. We have naturally occurring chemicals in our bodies that accumulate while we are awake to bring about fatigue at night. Sleep reduces these chemicals and satisfies the body’s need for sleep. But when your sleep clock is not keeping time it needs to be re-set so that it can perform its task in order for your body to tap into its naturally occurring chemicals and give you what you need to sleep, be well rested, and wake up refreshed and with energy. Substituting natural chemicals with foreign drugs is not a lasting solution. If drugs have not corrected your sleep problems – the technology found in the Sleep Genie can. Its effects are both cumulative and long lasting, so the more you use it the better you’ll feel – it’s really that simple.
Why it’s important to sleep through the night It is important not only to fall asleep easily, but to maintain sleep long enough so that you can reach that all important part of sleep known as REM. During the night we cycle through 5 stages of sleep with each cycle lasting about 90 minutes. We need to sleep long enough to go through these cycles 4-6 times a night because, with each cycle the REM portion gets longer and it is during that portion of sleep that we have our deepest and most restful sleep and when our body is able to repair and heal itself. REM sleep is also associated with dreaming because it is marked by intense brain activity. That’s how you can tell if you achieve REM sleep and it’s one of the first things you might notice when you start using The Sleep Genie. During REM sleep breathing is more rapid, irregular and shallow, eyes move in different directions and muscles become temporarily paralyzed. It is believed that during this final stage the regions of the brain used for thinking, learning and organizing information are stimulated. If you cannot sleep without constantly waking then you are not getting good sleep and you feel it in the morning and all during your day. Think of The Sleep Genie as the anti-drug – the non chemical solution to reduce stress and tension and to correct sleep problems. With The Sleep Genie you are always in control. Use it as often and as long as you need it until you are sleeping well again then less often to maintain your good sleep patterns. Find out how easy is it to finally get relief So start using it today for 30-45 minutes and use it every day for the next 30 – 45 days until you feel better. You should notice very quickly that you are falling asleep within a few minutes of your head resting on your pillow and, if you have not been able to sleep for more than a few hours, or keep waking up during the night, you will notice that your sleep periods will increase and the number of times you wake up during the night will diminish. After the first 30-45 days keep it on your coffee table and use it 2-3 times a week to sustain your good sleep or use it anytime you feel life is more stressful and you need help to relax, so that your tension and worry won’t ruin your sleep that night. Those with very severe sleep problems can safely use the device twice a day – once in the after noon and then in the evening for an hour or more. Don’t give up on yourself – stay with the program until you get results. The pharmaceutical industry knows how to provide a short term fix through the use of chemical drugs. But it is only by targeting the electrical component of our sleep/wake centre, our own energy source - our internal sleep clock can be reset. This is why the effect of the Sleep Genie technology is long lasting. It is naturally and safely re-adjusting your sleep clock so that your body can do again what it was meant to do – let you sleep like you were a baby.
The Sleep Genie is also helpful for people who are constantly awakened during the night by the urge to go to the bathroom. Re-establishing healthy sleep patterns will help you fall back asleep instantly upon returning to bed and, if you are taking medication to help alleviate the symptoms, then the medication will work more effectively if it is combined with a good night’s sleep. You will find that sleeping well will also lessen the discomfort during the day as well and allow you to make fewer trips to the bathroom. PROVEN “TIPS” TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN GOOD SLEEP HABITS To help you to accomplish your goal of a better night’s sleep, here are some helpful hints that we have compiled from our research into sleep problems. The first piece of advice is that you should consult with your doctor, if your sleep problems are chronic and severe, in order to rule out any underlying medical conditions that might be a contributing factor. If you are generally in good health then use the Sleep Genie and integrate some or all of these helpful tips into your life: 1. Maintain a regular bedtime and stick to it as much as possible even on the weekends. If you don’t have plans for going out on Friday or Saturday night, then hit the sack as close to your week day sleep time as possible. It’s important to keep your internal sleep clock ticking at an even rate – just like a well tuned clock – so that the natural signals are sent from your sleep centre that trigger when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to wake up. 2. Maintain a regular wake up schedule, even on the weekends when most of us try to “catch up” on our sleep. Altering your sleep schedule will only cause you problems on Sunday night and then through the week. A regular bedtime and wake up schedule both help strengthen the functioning of our internal sleep clock. 3. Start a consistent bedtime routine that you will be able to maintain such as reading a book, taking a hot bath, watching TV for an hour or just sitting in your favorite comfortable chair and listening to music. Learn to recognize the triggers in your life that bring on stress and work towards avoiding them or learning how to manage them but, stop everything leading up to your bed time. 4. Look at the things in your life that might be contributing to a heightened level of anxiety and stress (worrying about work, your weight, your children’s performance at school) and try to find methods of dealing with these stresses. Usually the best method is to figure out solutions to your problems so that you can start to focus on a course of action that will make things manageable and help you see the proverbial
“light at the end of the tunnel.” And don’t be afraid or reluctant to seek help from family and friends to better manage your time and discuss openly the issues that are bothering you. Often just knowing that someone else has heard us and cares will help lessen our stress. 5. When you get sleepy go right to bed – even if you haven’t watched the news at 11 or it’s earlier than you usually go to bed. If you miss your body’s natural cues to sleep then you will have a hard time falling asleep. 6. If you can’t fall asleep within 20 minutes of lying down, get up and out of bed and do a quiet activity such as listening to music, reading a book or watching TV. Don’t lie in bed awake. You have to stop associating being restless with your bed. 7. Have a set time every day after which you will not accept phone calls even if it’s your best friend, after which you won’t e-mail or receive company or help the kids with homework. You need an hour or two before bed to clear your mind of the day’s worries and relax so that you can allow your body to become sleepy. If it helps write down the things you need to get done the next day, at work and for your family, so you won’t think about them when you are trying to fall asleep. It’s also a good idea to make a list of tasks accomplished and unfinished before leaving work – and leaving the list on your desk so that you can see it first thing in the morning and your time is then well organized. This too will free your mind to enjoy your evening and feel relaxed before going to bed. 8. Understand your own bodies sleep rhythm and schedule your bedtime so that you can get 7-8 hours of sleep. Your own body will alert you as to when you are most likely to feel sleepy in the afternoon so you can avoid tasks that are not stimulating enough to keep in engrossed. You should also avoid driving in the afternoon during periods when you find yourself likely to feel sleepy. 9. Take a hot bath a couple of hours before bed and make sure you have time to cool off. It’s not helpful to go to bed when you are still sweating from the hot water. You sleep better under cool sheets, in a cool room and a cool you. 10. Don’t drink coffee after lunch and a void other caffeinated drinks later in the day as well. Caffeine is a stimulant and a diuretic and takes up to 6 hours to leave the bloodstream. Caffeine makes us feel alert because it blocks sleep inducing chemicals in the brain and increases adrenalin production. It takes about 15-30 minutes to go through the stomach and into the bloodstream so that you feel its stimulating effects. Three cups of coffee a day is considered moderate consumption. Anything more will start to affect your sleep and your nerves. Keep another very important point in
mind; stimulants with caffeine can help you feel more alert, but the effects last only for a short time. If you are sleep deprived and use coffee to offset the effects, as they wear off you may still have "micro-sleeps" –– brief naps that last only a few seconds – but if it happens behind the wheel of a car – it can kill you. Nothing is a substitute for a good night’s sleep. 11. Don’t eat for at least 2-3 hours before going to bed. Have chamomile tea instead. 12. Don’t drink alcohol close to bedtime. Alcohol is not a sedative as many people believe; it is actually a stimulant and will disrupt your sleep later in the night. While alcohol may make you sleepy as its high starts to wear off, the quality of sleep is often fragmented during the second half of the sleep period when the alcohol's relaxing effect wears off. Alcohol prevents you from reaching that part of the sleep cycle, known as REM sleep, where dreaming occurs and where the deepest and most restful part of sleep occurs. Alcohol keeps you in the lighter stages of sleep.
13.
Quit smoking. If you have heard every other health excuse to stop smoking then consider this, whose effects are not in the far off future, but in the every day. Nicotine is a stimulant. If you do smoke, stop before going to bed. However, because nicotine is so addictive you actually go through withdrawal during the night and its one of the reasons that being hooked on cigarettes will aggravate your sleeping problems. Nicotine affects your ability to fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up in the morning. It has also been known to contribute to nightmares and snoring. If you are a smoker then please, please, please, don’t smoke in bed and don’t smoke while lying down on the couch in the living room watching television, in case you fall asleep. Smokers also report more daytime sleepiness than non-smokers, especially in teen-agers and young adults.
14. Expose yourself to at least 30 minutes of sunlight every day and as quickly after waking as possible. Avoid bright lights at night. Light and dark send signals to the neurons in your brain that triggers your natural biological sleep clock cuing it as to when it’s time to sleep and time to awaken. 15. Exercise regularly and as early in the day as possible but definitely not in the 4-6 hours before bed unless it is a pleasant evening stroll and not a jog. Exercising as early in the day as possible is best because it kicks starts your metabolism so that it will burn calories all day and its effect start to wind down by bed time. If you are trying to manage your weight then sleeping 7-8 hours a day will keep in balance the hormones that regulate hunger and the feelings of satiety so that you can better stick to a weight loss diet or in general just manage your food intake.
Having enough sleep prevents those nasty afternoon hunger pangs that make you reach for a candy bar or second or third cup of coffee. 16. You want to be feeling relaxed, not winding up, before bedtime. During exercise our body temperature rises and it takes up to 6 hours for it to begin to drop. Our body temperature naturally falls slightly when we are getting sleepy and when we are asleep so it is not a good idea to engage in activities that work against that natural process. If you cannot exercise vigorously on your regular schedule, try walking briskly for 20-30minutes every day outdoors either alone, with a friend or your spouse. It can be a pleasant time to catch up on the day and unwind. 17. You bedroom should be dark, (black out curtains like in hotels or use an eye mask), quiet, (use ear plugs if your room is not sound proof and if you partner’s breathing or snoring affects your sleep), painted in gentle hues and kept cool. 18. Invest in a comfortable mattress and supportive pillow. Too many of us keep our mattresses far too long. The last few years have shown great improvements in the development of different materials for both pillows and mattresses designs, that conform to your body and mattresses that can be adjusted. Investing in a product that you spend 1/3 of your time on only makes good practical sense. 19. Do not listen to the radio in bed, have a TV in your bedroom or catch up on work or pay bills in bed. All these activities stimulate and not rest the mind. The bed should be associated only with sleeping and sex. 20. Turn its face away from you if the clock next to your bed faces you when you sleep and you can’t avoid looking at it when you are awakened at night – or trying to fall asleep – it can only add to your stress levels. Turn it away from you so that you won’t be able to see the time. Not knowing how much longer you have until you have to get up helps you to re-establish sleep if you get up, to go to the bathroom. 21. In the morning get up when the alarm goes off or when you wake up. If you wake up sooner than your alarm get up anyway and eventually you will be able to sleep longer. Don’t lie in bed awake for more than 5 minutes. 22. Do not rely on sleeping pills to solve your sleep problem. They are at best a temporary measure to help you to get a good night’s sleep, but used for any extended period of time can lead to tolerance and you’ll find that you need to take more to knock you out. If you are not able to actually devote a full 8 hours to sleeping, because drugs have a half life (the time it takes them to leave your system) you will be drowsy the following day
and, besides feeling lousy and unproductive, it is also dangerous, especially if you drive back and forth from work. 23. Drugs are not a cure and therefore should not be relied upon for that purpose. With sleep drugs only treat the symptoms. Read the “warnings” that come with sleeping pills and take them seriously. Drugs can cause dependency, you can experience withdrawal symptoms and re-bound insomnia and they can negatively interact with other medications you are already taking. 24. If you travel across time zones for business – arrive at your destination at least 24 hours before having to be productive so that your body can adapt to the new time zone. If you travel forward in time – for example from North American to Europe, then try to stay up until the evening at your new destination but go do bed a little earlier than you would have at home, let’s say 8-9 p.m. You will wake up earlier than at home the first night or two but at least you will have slept making your adjustment to the new place much smoother and your head will be clearer. 25. Don’t take naps in the afternoon. It is tempting, especially on the weekend, in the winter, to try to catch up on your sleep. If you absolutely can’t avoid it than go ahead, once in a while, but don’t sleep for more than 30 minutes. It’s OK to allow yourself to fall asleep in a comfortable chair in the living room or a wintry Sunday, or in the sunshine on a summer day – but whatever you do – don’t head for the bedroom. 26. Shift workers should avoid long commutes and working overtime. If you can’t avoid it, take short naps throughout your shift, try to do something active during breaks like going outside to take a short walk and inhale the fresh air. Drink caffeinated drinks during the beginning and mid part of your shift and don’t leave the most boring work to the end when you are likely to be the most tired (4-5 a.m. is the worst for feeling sleepy). Talk to co-workers about what you are experiencing and learn from each other how best to cope. 27. Some people find it helpful to keep a sleep journal for a couple of weeks at least in case the problem worries you enough to seek medical attention. Include such details as the time you start to feel sleepy in the evening, what you do in the 2 hours before bed, when you actually went to bed, how long it takes you to fall asleep, how often you wake during the night and how you feel (did you have to go to the bathroom – did you have indigestion – were your legs feeling cramped) – record when you wake up and cannot fall asleep again. Also – keep a diary of what you eat and how often you exercise during this time period. Write down the times during the day when you feel sleepy and what the activity was that you were
engaged in. Record naps and their duration and times when you might have dozed off watching TV or reading a book. 28. If you get indigestion or heartburn avoid spicy foods at dinner and try to sleep with your chest slightly elevated to avoid being woken up by the discomfort. 29. Dress in lightweight clothes to bed to help stay cool and avoid pj’s with buttons. 30. Avoid heavy insulating blankets and make sure that sheets are not tucked in all around the bed so that it restricts your ability to roll over easily. 31. Try to restrict fluids close to bedtime to avoid being woken up with the urge to go to the bathroom. One cup of herbal tea, or a glass of warm milk, an hour before bed, provided that you stopped drinking after dinner, should be soothing and can be a welcoming part of your bedtime routine. 32. Many prescription and nonprescription medications can cause sleep problems. The severity of sleep problems caused by a medication will vary from person to person and you should not add sleeping pills to this mix without consulting with your doctor. The natural effect of The Sleep Genie might be the best alternative if this is your situation.
We hope these tips, along with using the Sleep Genie, helps you to improve your sleep patterns and the quality of your life. Make implementing these tips an enjoyable experience in creating an enhanced you!