Top 10 Tips for Falling Asleep

Get Better Sleep to Improve Health and Reduce Stress

Lisa Shea

Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Shea / Minerva Webworks LLC All Rights Reserved

Cover design by Lisa Shea Book design by Lisa Shea Visit my website at LisaShea.com

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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First Printing: July 2014 This book is a free offering. If you paid someone money for this, please let me know so I can ensure it remains free for all. I am not a physician. Always talk with a doctor or health care provider if sleep issues are interfering with your day to day life.

Top 10 Tips to Fall Asleep

Introduction A good laugh and a good sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. -- Thomas Dekker

This is a true story. I used to live in Providence, Rhode Island and work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston. Sometimes I’d take the train in, but sometimes I’d drive the long hour-plus each way. This was a start-up high-energy company, so late hours were a norm. Friends would go out for dinner before heading home. One night I was driving home late and I was simply exhausted. I had a toddler at home and juggling everything was quite challenging. I put on the radio, opened the window, and did all those other tricks that people do when trying to override their body’s desperate desire to sleep. It didn’t work. When I blinked my eyes open, I saw that I had rammed into the back of a parked flatbed trailer on the side of the highway. The impact had peeled back the roof of my Mustang. Thank goodness I was wearing my seatbelt and had an air bag – those saved my life. And it was also lucky that the flatbed trailer was right there to “catch” me. At that point in the highway there was a steep drop-off. I would have sailed over the tops of the trees and probably died. I got out of the incident with just a broken nose, some dented ribs, and a new appreciation for sleep.

Your body needs sleep. It’s not optional. It’s not something you can put off until later. If your body doesn’t get the sleep it needs, it is going to break down and stop functioning. You might think that you can “make do” with less sleep – but the destruction to your body is insidious and in many cases impacts every aspect of what you do. Sleep is critical to good health. Study after study demonstrates that experiencing a proper amount of sleep each night can assist your memory in working properly, your brain in learning new skills, and your body in rebuilding and repairing itself. If you don’t get enough sleep you literally harm yourself day after day. Good sleep often does not come easily. Polls find that anywhere between 30% and 60% of all people have sleep problems at one time or another. While most problems are temporary and can be overcome with work and effort, others are more severe and need a doctor’s care. These Top Ten Tips will help you have your best chance of a good night’s sleep. The result will be reduced stress, better concentration, higher levels of energy, and better overall health. Work on implementing these today – and get a better night’s sleep tonight!

Tip 1: Darken the Room Your body can sense light even with your eyes closed. Light goes right through your eyelids. Heck, light-sensitive proteins exist throughout your body. If you want to sleep, it needs to be dark. Do whatever it takes to block out all light from the room. This includes those glowing LED lights! Tape them over. Hang spare sheets over the curtains. If for some reason it is impossible to do this tonight, drape something over your eyes. A towel. A pillowcase. Have the rest of you covered, too, though. Remember, it’s not just your eyes that are reacting to the light. In the coming days, you can work on getting better curtains, or double shades, or whatever else it takes to make the room completely dark. For now, work on the basics that you can handle.

Tip 2: Cool the Room Humans are naturally programmed to equate a cooling down with sleep. Use this in your favor. Turn on the air conditioning. Use a fan. Find whatever ways you can to reduce the temperature of the room. It might be that you turn on the air conditioning and then sleep under a blanket. That’s great! The blanket helps keep your body in the dark while the air conditioning triggers your sleep instincts.

Tip 3: Gentle Aroma Go through all your perfume, hand cream, room spray, and other aromamaking options. Figure out which one is the most soothing to you. We all like different kinds of smells. Some of us relax with rose. Others, with lavender. Some delight in a soft violet smell. When you find one you like, put a gentle amount in the room. You don’t want to overload your senses – but just enough to help soothe you.

Tip 4: Muffle Noises Note that I didn’t say to make the room silent. Often that’s not possible. Instead, what you want to aim for is to muffle them. Download a soundtrack from iTunes, Amazon, or another online sales system that has gentle noises. Popular choices are ocean waves, forest noises, and city sounds. We all have different types of noises we find soothing. Play samples of a variety of them until you find one you like. You can load your noises onto your SmartPhone, laptop, MP3 player, or whatever else works for you. Just remember tip #1 – don’t allow any light to shine as a result. Cover up any glowing lights with tapes or, heck, socks .

Tip 5: Warm Shower Just five minutes. It doesn’t have to be a long shower. The aim here is to warm up your body, so that when you get out and into bed your body cools down. As we mentioned in tip #2, cooling down helps trigger your body to relax and sleep. When you’re taking the shower focus on the water. Let all other thoughts fade away. This is part of the wind-down to help your mind transition from wakefulness to sleep.

Tip 6: Warm Milk Warm milk is almost a cliché in the sleep department, but it’s true. Bring a glass to bed and sip it slowly as you settle in. If you’re lactose intolerant, go with warm tea. Just be sure it’s decaffeinated.

Tip 7: Write a Journal Releasing your thoughts is a way of letting your mind settle. It doesn’t have to be a fancy tooled-leather tome. Any scrap of paper will do. Write down what’s bothering you. Write down your tasks for tomorrow. Scribble it all out. Then promise yourself that you’ll look at that in the morning when you’re fresh and tackle it. Any time the thoughts come back, gently remind yourself that they are written down. They are tomorrow’s task. Tonight’s task is to sleep.

Tip 8: Relax Your Body OK, you’re in bed after your warm shower. The room is dark, cool, smells lovely, and has relaxing sounds. You have a glass of warm milk or tea by the bed and you’ve written out thoughts on a piece of paper. The lights go out. The next step is to relax your body. Lay however you feel most comfortable – on your back is best, but any way works. Relax your toes. Then your feet. Then your heels and ankles. Work your way slowly and surely up your entire body. Take your time. Breathe deeply and keep going until you reach the top of your head.

Tip 9: Meditation Your body is relaxed. Now it’s time to relax your mind. If you’re like most people in the world, you probably have “monkey mind.” Monkey mind is the term for when your mind jumps around and keeps you busy even when you don’t want it to. If you’re like many people, you lay in bed unable to sleep because your mind is so busy. The purpose of meditation is to train you to cope with this. Meditation helps you learn to tame the monkey mind so you can quiet it and sleep when you wish to. You can’t take an entire course in meditation by tonight, so here’s a crash course. Focus on your breath. In, out. In, out. If your mind drifts to another topic, smile and gently go back to your breath. In, out. Yes, it’ll be hard if you haven’t done it before. You might only go one or two breaths before your mind drifts again. That’s ok! That’s monkey mind for you. Keep at it. And, going forward, build meditation into your schedule. It’ll help enormously with your sleep.

Top 10: Release Stress makes it hard to sleep. If you stress about sleeping, it’ll then make sleep hard. Let what comes, come. Relax. Release. If it takes a while, that’s ok. The mere act of lying there is allowing your body to rest and heal. It’s far better for your body and brain than doing other active tasks would be. Studies find that resting with your eyes closed helps to refresh you. Sure, not as much as sleep, but it’s still a step in the right direction. The more you practice, the better you get at it!

Full Book on Sleep These top 10 tips were summarized from my full book on getting a good night’s sleep. Be sure to check out the full book. You deserve a full night’s sleep!

Secrets to Falling Asleep – Get Better Sleep to Improve Health and Reduce Stress http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/dreams/ebooks/sleep.asp

About the Author Lisa Shea has worked day shifts, night shifts, 24-hour shifts, and a wide variety of other wake-sleep cycles. She understands just how critical a healthy sleep cycle is to overall health and energy levels. It can be easy to take sleep for granted – but the difference a good night’s sleep makes in mental acuity, metabolism, and stress handling abilities is just phenomenal. It’s very worth it to invest time each day in optimizing your sleep cycle. Every other moment of your day will benefit from those efforts. Please visit Lisa at LisaShea.com to learn more about her background and interests. Feedback is always appreciated! This is a FREE book. If you paid money for it, please contact me so I can ensure the book remains free for all.

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Lisa has three dream-related books currently published. These are:

Secrets to Falling Asleep – Get Better Sleep to Improve Health and Reduce Stress http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/dreams/ebooks/sleep.asp Dream Symbol Encyclopedia – Interpretation and Meaning of Dream Symbols http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/dreams/ebooks/dreamencyclopedia.asp Lucid Dreaming Guide – Foster Creativity in a Lucid Dream State http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/dreams/ebooks/luciddreaming.asp

Proceeds from all three books benefit battered women’s shelters.

Lisa Shea’s library of medieval romance novels: Seeking the Truth Knowing Yourself A Sense of Duty Creating Memories Looking Back Badge of Honor Lady in Red Finding Peace Believing your Eyes Trusting in Faith Sworn Loyalty In A Glance Each novel is a stand-alone story set in medieval England. These novels can be read in any order and have entirely separate casts of characters.

Lisa’s cozy modern-day murder mystery romance novels:

Aspen Allegations – A Sutton Mass. Mystery Birch Blackguards – A Sutton Mass. Mystery Cedar Conundrums – A Sutton Mass. Mystery All proceeds from sales of these novels benefit battered women’s shelters.