Anyone Having A Hard Time Sleeping?

If you're a Type A personality (i.e. borderline neurotic) like yours truly, you might have trouble sleeping at night. I think I watch too much television. Ironically enough, the lack of anything meaningful on television actually puts me to sleep. The problem is, it puts me to sleep hours before I should go to sleep... then, at midnight when everyone else is asleep, I'm staring at the ceiling and going over one hundred or more things in my mind that I have to do during the day.
I came across this article that I would like to share with you that certainly speaks to me. I hope it speaks to your needs too.

ESQUIRE.COM FEATURE DIRECTORY

World-renowned doctor Mehmet Oz offers six steps on how to get a good night’s sleep every night. Because your co-workers don’t think the naps at your desk are funny anymore.

If you get less than six hours of sleep a night, as we just learned, you're in trouble. You need sleep more than you need food. When you're always tired, you actually age faster than you should. Here is your new nightly routine.

1. Sleep tight: Dim the lights an hour before bedtime. This mimics sunset. Smack in the middle of your brain is something called the pineal gland. It releases melatonin, the hormone that readies the mind and body for sleep in response to lowered light levels.

2. If you've got things on your mind: Tomorrow's meetings, errands, that kind of thing -- write them down fifteen minutes before bed. This sweeps them out of your mind.

3. If you're still awake after fifteen minutes: Get up and do something quiet, like reading a book. No Internet, no TV, no exercise. You have to let your body and mind slow down to be able to slip into sleep. If you just lie there thinking about how you're not sleeping, you'll never sleep.

4. Wake up at the same time every day: An hour extra on weekends is fine, but if you wake up at seven every morning during the week, then sleep until ten on weekends, you're effectively giving yourself jet lag. Monday morning, you'll feel like you just got off the red-eye from three time zones away.

5. A little chemical help once in a while is fine: Not alcohol, it actually interferes with the normal sleep cycle. But, Benadryl or one of the combination OTC painkillers or sleep drugs can give you that little nudge into natural sleep. Just describe your symptoms in detail: From a pharmaceutical perspective, "can't fall asleep" isn't the same as "wake up in the middle of the night."

6. Sex

Mehmet C. Oz is a heart surgeon and the co-author of
"You: Staying Young" (Free Press, $26).