 
7 Secrets to Getting a Good Night Sleep
by John Zulli
Getting a great night of sleep is easier then dancing the Hokey Pokey. So why do 60 million Americans complain of frequent or chronic sleep problems?
America isn’t suffering from insomnia; it’s suffering from information overload.
In the next 24 hours you will take in as much information as a person in medieval times absorbed in their entire lifetime. This deluge of local news, email, family issues, work details, phone calls, finances and world events pouring into your brain all must be processed by your body.
From the nervous system that controls your muscles and organs, to your hormone production and disease fighting capabilities, information is impacting you physically and dictating how you feel.
So when it comes to a mind/body state like sleep, managing information becomes critical.
You can take control. Here are seven powerful techniques for dealing with information that will have you shaking hands with the sandman in no time.
1. Put Yourself on an Information Diet
If you have difficulty getting and staying asleep it is likely that you are suffering from information indigestion. You are taking in too much information, too late in the day and having to digest it all night long. Information indigestion leads to endless mind chatter and keeps you from getting the deep sleep you need.
Skip the 10 o’clock news, miss the evening cop show and whenever possible deal with money and family issues while the sun is shining. Instead let your body process the information you’ve accumulated all day by relaxing in a quiet space preferably with the lights turned down low. The closer it gets to bedtime the more quite and dark your space should become and the less information you should take in. One hour before bedtime, put down the phone, move away from the television and make a conscious effort to slow down, unwind and call it “game over” until tomorrow.
2. Control Worry Intentionally
Get your worrying out of the way long before you go to bed.
Hours before sleep select a worry spot that is anywhere but your bed or bedroom and set a time limit on how long you have to worry. Then go to your worry spot and worry all you want. Be true to your pessimistic side. Really get into worrying and exaggerate your problems until you awfulize yourself into a tizzy.
When your time limit is up, make a commitment to leave your worry there. At night if you catch yourself worrying yourself awake, stop and remember that you have “been there, done that” earlier in the day. Worrying in your worry spot instead of your bed will allow you to sleep soundly all night long.
3. Relax Into Sleep
You mind cannot be anxious if your body is relaxed. To calm your mind into sleep, you have to learn how to relax your body.
In fact, learn to relax your muscles on demand and you will never miss another night’s sleep again (or freeze up at the speaker’s podium for that matter). The process is simple and habit forming.
Once you’re ready to go to sleep, concentrate on relaxing your muscles in groups of three. Breathe in and as you exhale relax your feet, your calves and your knees. Move on to your thighs, hips, and gluteus, breathing in and relaxing when you exhale. Take your time. Focus on the feeling of relaxing and work in these sets of three until you have relaxed the muscles from the tips of your toes to the top of your head. Because there is nothing for your analytical side to do, your conscious mind shuts down and you to drift off to sleep.
4. Control Comes From Letting Go
Sleep is a natural process. Even flowers do it. This fact is easy to forget once you have had a few sleepless nights in a row. To get back your sleep groove, you have to allow this natural process to take over.
As night comes on, the sleep deprived begin to question their natural ability to find dreamland and become vigilant fortunetellers; constantly checking for signs of sleepiness and making dire predictions about their inability to function tomorrow if they don’t sleep tonight. Like the proverbial “watched pot” you will never get to sleep continually checking its status.
Stop scaring yourself awake by catching these types of worrisome notions and destroying them with imagination. Shoot them into space. Set them on fire. Kiss them goodbye. Use any image you choose but cancel the thought. Then focus your attention on the feeling of relaxation. Remember sleep is something you were born knowing how to do. Your body can find the way to la-la land. Trust it.
5. Day Time Decompression
Decide to decompress and distress sometime earlier in the day.
Everybody has a stress vessel where they stuff the overload of information from each day. Some stress vessels are the size of a tea cup while others are as large as an Olympic swimming pool. The problem is that, no matter what the size, when they are full the next drop of stress starts spilling over the side.
If you want to sleep at night it wise idea to empty out your stress vessel sometime during the day. Exercise, walking, power napping, meditation or self-hypnosis are all excellent ways to draw down your stress level.
Discharge stress during the day in a controlled fashion and you won’t have to as much information to process each night.
6. Do not Strangle Your Mate
Don’t vent your frustration at your partner just because they sleep well.
When you don’t sleep enough, it is natural to get cranky. And when you are tossing and turning next to someone sawing logs or making the comfy sounds of a slumbering two year old, it is easy to get angry. Getting mad at your spouse because they are good at catching Zzzzz’s will only stimulate your nervous system and keep you awake.
Resist the temptation to commit a homicide and try ear plugs or a white noise machine. Pleasurable repetitive sound dulls the conscious mind, drowns out your partner and allows sleep to arrive.
7. Stop Taking the Late in the Day Stimulants
Chocolate and soda are loaded with caffeine. Alcohol is like dumping gasoline on the fire in your heart. Stimulants can even be found in so-called health drinks. If you take these substances in the hours before bedtime, you will forfeit the time you spend in the deepest sleep cycles.
Make a commitment to be stimulant free starting around noon. Pass on the 3 o’clock latté, skip the red wine at dinnertime and make your evening snack fruit and yogurt.
Avoid the chemicals that jolt your nervous system and you will slip into delicious slumber as soon as your body makes contact with the bed.
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