SLEEP - How To Get The Most From Yours

by Aislinn O'Connor http://www.Supreme-Success.com/beating-insomnia/.

Sleep - sufficient sound, refreshing, healthful sleep - is totally essential to your physical, emotional and mental well-being.

Good sleep can:

1. improve your health and looks;
2. boost your energy;
3. strengthen your concentration; and
4. fill you with self-confidence and creativity that can transform your finances and your entire life.

Lack of sleep, on the other hand, causes serious problems if it isn't dealt with.

1. Lack of sleep affects your immune system, and makes you more prone to infection and less able to recover from disease;
2. Lack of sleep affects your judgement and your concentration, and causes you to make mistakes at work or when you're driving;
3. Lack of sleep can make you irritable, and causes problems with your partner, friends and family; and
4. Lack of sleep can be a cause of mental illness.

Seriously. The late comedian and writer Spike Milligan traced the bi-polar disorder which devastated his life to an incident in World War II, when during the battle for Monte Casino he suffered total sleep deprivation for a staggering 15 days and nights. He never properly recovered.

How do you know if you're not getting enough sleep?
That's simple - when you're properly rested and refreshed, you wake up naturally. If you need an alarm clock to get you out of bed, you need more, and much more restful, sleep. Here are some simple tips to help you to do that.

• Don't expect to sleep until you're sleepy. There's no point in going to bed just for the sake of it, and hoping that you'll somehow fall asleep. You won't. What you will do is toss and turn, and get annoyed. There aren't many better ways of ruining a good night's sleep than by convincing yourself you aren't going to get one.

• Make sure your bedroom's not too hot. A stuffy atmosphere prevents you from breathing deeply, which in itself can be a cause of shallow sleep which leaves you tired and un-refreshed next morning. You might want to turn the heating down, or the air-conditioning up. You don't need to make yourself feel cold to get the benefit of this - just make sure the air feels fresh and fairly cool, that's all. If your first thought on entering the room is that it's warm, you need to freshen it. Your sleep will benefit.

• Don't read in bed. To sleep more restfully, you need relax your mind, not fill it full of new ideas. Lots of people read a newspaper last thing at night, then wonder why they can't drift off to sleep. That's just because their mind's too lively. Reading a book is even worse - if it's any good, you'll actually force yourself to stay awake to see what happens next! Do all the reading that you want to do before you go to bed.

• Switch off the TV. Lots of people have a TV in their bedroom, and believe that watching late at night relaxes them before they go to sleep. It's really just like reading, though - it keeps your mind involved when it needs to be relaxed. If you fall asleep while watching, you rarely wake refreshed next day. That's because even in your sleep a part of your mind has still been listening to the TV - all night long. It doesn't matter how many hours of unconsciousness you have in front of the TV - it's not the same thing as a proper deep, refreshing sleep.

• Relax, and switch your conscious mind off for the night. Don't go to bed thinking anxiously about all the stuff you've got to do tomorrow. List it all before you go to bed, and forget about it till the morning. It doesn't matter how important it might be, you won't tackle it effectively if you're too tired - you'll do it all much better when you're rested. Take some time to unwind before you go to bed, and consciously and deliberately release everything that's happened through the day. Be aware of letting your muscles release every bit of tension in them, from your head down to your toes. Fill your mind with pleasant, relaxing images, then let those images drift softly from your consciousness till you're aware only of an enjoyable sensation of comfort and relaxation. Don't fight the feeling of drowsiness as it comes over you - just let it overtake you, and drift gently into sound, refreshing sleep.
  

Try these tips tonight, and see how much better and more energetic you can feel tomorrow!