Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. This may seem like a lot but water is essential to keep our bodily functions working properly. Dehydration can also cause you to wake at night, but try and avoid drinking too much just before bedtime as you may find yourself waking up constantly to go to the toilet.

Drinking alcohol before bedtime may make you feel relaxed, but generally should be avoided. Although it may help you to fall asleep, you will experience lighter, more fragmented sleep. This is partly due to the fact that it metabolizes during sleep, which causes mild withdrawal symptoms.

You should avoid drinking too much Caffeinated drinks in the day and at least 3 hours before bed time. Nicotine is also a stimulant that should be avoided before bedtime. We all need a boost in the morning to wake us up and indeed caffeine does promote alertness, however it can also cause nervousness and irritability.

Caffeine is a stimulant which increases your brain waves, heart rate and blood pressure, and can last up to 6 hours in your system. If you don’t like the taste of water but like a hot beverage in the day, try a herbal tea, or decaffeinated drink. Chamomile tea is caffeine free, and is a soothing and relaxing drink which can aid a restful night’s sleep if drunken before bedtime.

Most people dread exercise, the idea of sweating, hard work and aching muscles isn’t the most alluring past time. But, exercise doesn’t have to be intense and strenuous. If you don’t like playing sports like basketball or football, try swimming, Pilates, yoga or other low impact exercises. Even housework and a brisk walk can be beneficial to your health.

Exercise is not just good for you physically but also mentally. It is effective at improving mood, confidence and self image, and also effective at reducing anxiety, stress and depression. Exercise increases your metabolic rate and your body temperature, making you more awake. This aids the body’s natural rise and fall in temperature during the day, which can improve sleep.

It is worth noting also that when you exercise, our brain increases deep sleep to compensate for the physical stress caused on the body. Ideally we should exercise everyday for at least 20 minutes during the day, but avoid exercising at least 3 hours before sleep to give your body enough time to cool down.

As well as physical exercise, we need to exercise our brains! Lack of mental stimulation during the day can affect our body’s need to sleep. During the day you should engage yourself in mental activity.

Try learning something new and fun, or creative like painting, cookery or writing. Even playing Sudoku or other puzzles will help stimulate the brain. Mental stimulation increases alertness and improves memory and mood. Similarly to physical exercise, you should avoid too much mental exercise before sleep.

As you already know stress and anxiety can disrupt the normal sleep cycle. Even before you attempt to sleep you may have already decided that you are not going to be able to sleep. Experiencing stress and negative thoughts during the day can affect sleep. Later we will look into some useful techniques that are quick, easy and highly effective at tackling stress.

Find out here how to sleep peacefully every night

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Women suffer from sleepless nights when they are menstruating as their body temperature increases. During the day when our body temperature levels increase we become more alert and energized. During the night our body temperature drops and in turn, our alertness reduces and we become sleepier.

A hot bath an hour or so before bedtime can be very effective at inducing sleep. Although it increases your body temperature and energy levels, the quick drop in temperature can accelerate the drift into sleep. Be aware that you should not have a hot bath just before going to bed, as your body will need an hour or so to cool down.

Wear comfortable clothing to bed. Also ensure that your bedroom is cool and comfortable at night, as this will help you stay asleep. During summer this can be difficult, I suggest that you wear lighter clothing, use a thinner duvet, and keep your windows open.

When in bed you should try and sleep on your back as this is the best position for your neck and spine. Try and avoid sleeping on your front or left, as this may affect your breathing, and apply pressure to your internal organs. Obviously during sleep we change from position to position, so this is not always possible. Also when in bed try and avoid looking at the clock, it’s best to have a clock which does not illuminate at night and is relatively quiet.

A lack of serotonin can be associated with people who suffer from anxiety, depression and sleep problems. Seratone 5-HTP is a natural mood enhancer which helps maintain the levels of serotonin. Both Seratone 5-HTP and melatonin are available, but before taking any new medication I advise seeking medical advice.

Lack of sunlight during winter periods can adversely affect your sleep, mood and energy levels. People, who suffer from depression and sleep problems during winter months, are often diagnosed with SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Sunlight helps regulate a good sleep rhythm. However during winter months when sunlight is reduced, an artificial light box can be used as a substitution. It’s important to expose yourself to light as soon as you wake and throughout the day, this will improve your mood, energy and alertness.

It is best to be in bed by 10 pm and to wake up early in the morning. This way you can maximize your exposure to sunlight in the day. It is recommended to dim lighting an hour or so before you sleep to increase your melatonin levels, to help prepare your body for sleep.

It is also important to make your room as dark as possible when you sleep, by turning out all lights and ensuring that you have no outside light entering into your room. A set of thick lined curtains will do. However, if you already have curtains then you can line the inside to make them less permeable to light. A cheaper option would be to wear an eye mask, but make sure it’s comfortable to wear and that it’s kept clean.

Your bed is supposed to be for sex and sleep, it is not for work, watching TV or eating in. If you learn to associate your bed with wakefulness, you will inevitably find it more difficult to fall asleep in. So that is the first tip, which to most is obvious, but we have all been guilty of having a mid-morning snack in bed!

Your bed itself needs to be comfortable, with a supportive and comfortable mattress. Mattresses can be expensive to buy, but an alternative option is to buy a mattress topper, which can be inexpensive. You also need a good pillow that’s right for you, and is both comfortable and supportive of your neck and head. A bad pillow can cause neck and back ache and can sometimes be the cause of a sleepless night.

Sometimes the result of a poor nights sleep is due to backache or neck ache. This might be due to stress, bad posture, lack of fitness or a bad sitting position. In fact it is common for office workers to complain of back and neck ache due to this.

It is always important to be seated correctly on a chair, especially if you are going to be seated for long periods. A lumbar support for the back is helpful, but the general rule is to think tall! Keeping your chin tucked in, this applies when standing too.

A good duvet is also important as you don’t want to be too hot or cold at night. You can buy duvet sets which come in two parts a thinner and a medium duvet. This is ideal as you can use the thinner duvet during the summer and combine the two, during cold winter nights. But, if you have a perfectly fine set and it’s not having a negative affect on your sleep, then you don’t need to. What you want to achieve is a comfortable and peaceful place for you to sleep.

The bedroom itself needs attention, if it’s too noisy, not dark enough or too warm it can adversely affect your sleep. Noise can be a problematic area to try and overcome. If the noise is coming from outside i.e. traffic or from noisy neighbors it may be a good idea to get double-glazing.

If you have a snoring partner, they can seek medical advice or wear a nose strip which increases airflow and generally reduces snoring. A cheaper and effective solution is to wear earplugs, you can buy earplugs online made from putty, they’re great because you can shape them and they are reusable.  Listening to soothing music may also help, as it draws your attention away from background noise. If the cause of the noise is for example a noisy clock, it’s probably best to move it into another room.

It is also important to keep your room tidy and organized a cluttered room, is a cluttered mind. You want to keep your room clean and comfortable, so that it is inviting and calm, not chaotic. Junk can be distracting and can affect your mood negatively. A tidy clean room can help relax and lift your mood.

Too much stress and tension can be bad for our psychological and physical health and can wreak havoc with sleep. In this day and age, people are so accustomed to experiencing stress in the day they often accept it as part of life.

Most people might associate stress with feelings of anger, however feelings such as resentment and frustration are triggers for stress. Simply working in a dull job or just not being appreciated at work can cause negative emotions.

In many cases a person may not have any strong thoughts about their position or remark that they feel particularly upset. This is because over time a person can grow used to particular situations and environments. Just like a worker can grow use to working in a noisy factory.

They may get home feeling no different than usual, but once they get into bed or relax on the sofa. They realize how tense and exhausted they feel. Conscious thoughts start bubbling to the surface and they begin to feel restless and irritable.

They may feel tired and sleepy, but feel tense when they get into bed. They might also find it hard to relax their muscles and get comfortable – experiencing aches and pains frequently. Racing thoughts is another common problem that affects poor sleepers.

Tension can build up in the mind and body and over the day. So it’s important to be able to release some, if not all of this tension before we sleep. You might think an hour in front of the TV is enough to relax you, but believe it or not, watching TV can be highly stimulating for the brain.

Even such activities such as reading or surfing the net can be highly stimulating. What your mind needs is deep relaxation to help release mental tension. Activities such as listening to relaxing music, having a massage or hot bath can greatly reduce muscle tension.

It’s important to realize the importance of relaxation. Our minds and bodies are not designed to be barraged with constant stress and tension. Make an effort to reduce stress through relaxation in both the day and evening. Simply spending 10 minutes twice a day in a quiet place meditating can do wonders to reduce stress and improve health and well-being.

Many people mistake insomnia for a disease or disorder. But inability to sleep is really a symptom that something is wrong. Mental conditions like stress or depression can cause insomnia. So can physical pain or side effects of medication. But if these common causes have been ruled out, you need to take a closer look at the possibility that you suffer from sleep disorders.

Sleep disorders are not like a cold or a skinned knee. That is to say, they are not simple conditions, nor are they easily understood. Medical knowledge about conditions that disturb your sleep is continuing to evolve. Research continually leads to new findings. New medications are regularly introduced. So if you’re dealing with a condition like obstructive sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome, you will need to stay informed about the latest advances. And you should realize that you may actually know more about your condition than most physicians.

Unfortunately, sleep disorders don’t play well with others. They tend to have a negative effect throughout your body. And they affect more than just your sleep. By keeping you awake all night, your daytime quality of life is harmed just as much as your sleep, if not more. As you continue to miss out on sleep at night, your immune system is weakened. Your reactions become slower. Your thoughts are muddled and foggy.

But none of this means that sleep disorders can’t be controlled. It is possible to do more than just survive. You can learn to deal with your sleep disorder and learn how to beat insomnia. Just remember this: sleep disorders are often around for a long time. To effectively manage your life and health, you may not want to just accept the flavor-of-the-month prescription. A much better solution is to learn how to manage your sleep naturally.

Hypnosis works by tapping into your subconscious and implementing gradual changes to thoughts and behaviors, through visualizations or affirmations. Hypnosis works because the mind cannot tell from reality and vivid imagination.

Positive changes can be made in a very short space of time. In fact, hypnotherapy has been used to treat insomnia with great success. Through relaxation and positive affirmations the subject can drift into sleep much more easily and experience deeper and restorative sleep.

Hypnotherapy believe it or not, can be performed without a hypnotherapist. In an ideal situation you would have a hypnotherapist by your bedside guiding you into sleep, however this would be rather impractical and expensive. Many people use hypnosis CDs to help them drift into sleep. Hypnosis CDs work very much in the same way as a hypnotherapist does.

There is another alternative however which may surprise you and that’s self-hypnosis. Just as the hypnotherapist works as the facilitator, you can become your own hypnotherapist. There is nothing complex about self-hypnotherapy, it only takes time and practice to slot into the practice.

Through regular practice you can guide your mind into deep and relaxed states, enabling you to drift off into sleep. Using positive affirmations and visualizations you can communicate with the subconscious mind and ingrain positive thoughts, behaviors and habits.

You can learn how to self-hypnotize and tackle more than just your sleep problems. For more information on how to self-hypnotize, visit How to Beat Insomnia.

In fact many chronic insomnia sufferers have suffered for years and even their whole lives. What many people do not understand is that it’s a very serious condition that affects the sufferer physically and mentally.

Being an ex-chronic insomnia sufferer myself I understand how frustrating this condition can be. I thought I was going to go insane at some point; not being able to fall asleep for hours, tossing and turning every night, waking up frequently and having a barrage of thoughts circling my head, it was a living nightmare.

I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad, if I didn’t ‘need’ to sleep. But I needed it so badly. I could barely function in the day, feeling like a total wreck. I was irritable, moody and exhausted. My confidence was completely wiped out.

I couldn’t stand looking at myself anymore, I looked awful and god knows what people thought about the way I acted and looked. Chronic insomnia was the bane of my life. I had tried everything I could think of – sleep medication, aromatherapy and even acupuncture.

It was only when I started treating chronic insomnia as the symptom rather than the cause that I started noticing that my sleep began to improve. I began focusing on treating the underlying cause, tapping into the subconscious if you will with mind-programming techniques.

I started using alternative therapies to tap into the body’s meridian energy system to unblock negative energies that affected my sleep. I realized that sleep could just be another learned process like walking and cycling.

I realized that I had reinforced negative habits and thoughts into my subconscious over the years and that I had sabotaged my own ability to sleep. I had brainwashed myself in believing there was no hope and I had built an internal fear factor of sleep.

For chronic insomniacs out there, there is hope. If you believe that someone can learn to be confident, if you believe someone can learn to overcome phobias, if you believe that people can change, then you already know that insomnia can be beaten.

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You may have heard about the health benefits of meditation and how it can help with sleeplessness and insomnia. Some other health benefits include:

• Increase oxygen levels in your body.
• Increase in blood flow.
• Reduction in heart rate.
• Lowered blood pressure.
• Reduction in muscle tension.
• Increase in self-confidence.
• Increase in serotonin production.
• Improves mood and behavior.
• Reduces stress and tension.
• Strengthens the immune system.

Insomnia can often be caused by poor mood, stress, worry, anxiety, tension and low serotonin levels. What’s more a lack of deep sleep can reduce the body’s immune system leaving it prone to diseases and viruses.

Deep meditation can help relieve these underlying issues so that sleep comes easier. What’s more through practice of meditation your brainwaves will slow and may even produce waves in the Alpha and Theta range. Theta waves are associated with REM sleep. With practice you can learn to enter the Theta stages at will – your gateway to sleep.

Confused? Here’s a little More On Brainwaves…

The brain constantly produces waves that flow through its neural pathways which are called brainwaves. There are four brainwave patterns; Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. Each one is defined by a different set of frequencies measured in Hz (Hertz).

The following is a basic look at the four common types of brainwave patterns, their frequencies and mental states each pattern is associated with:

Beta Waves (13 – 30 Hz)
Commonly found during an active or waking state. It is also associated with busy or anxious thinking, active concentration, arousal and other mental sates such as fear, anger and worry.

Alpha Waves (7 – 13 Hz)
If you’ve ever been relaxed and at peace, perhaps sitting in a park, soaking up the sun then your brain was probably producing alpha waves. Alpha waves are associated with a tranquil state of consciousness, on the edge of deep relaxation and meditation.

Theta Waves (3 – 7 Hz)
Associated with deep meditation, dreaming and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. During this state your mind wanders where it will and you are in the prime state of creativity, visualization and imagery.

Delta Waves (1 – 3 Hz)
When your brain is producing delta waves you are in deep dreamless sleep or a deep trance like state. This stage is essential for repair and rejuvenation of the mind and body.

So What Is Brainwave Entrainment And How Can It Help?

Brainwave Entrainment is the practice of synchronizing or tuning one’s brainwaves to a desired frequency.

How It Works:

If you play a tone of say 96 Hz in your left ear and 102 Hz in your right ear, your brainwaves will resonate at the differential frequency – 6 Hz. Playing this set of tones will produce a frequency in the range of Theta Waves.

Because of this naturally occurring phenomenon the brain has a tendency to change its dominant EEG (electroencephalograph) frequency towards the frequency of the dominant aural stimuli, in effect ‘synchronizing’ the two hemispheres of the brain.

The use of Binaural Beats can achieve exactly this. When listening to binaural beats, each ear is sent pure sine waves of different frequencies. As I mentioned the brain will resonate at the differential frequency. We can create a range of desired frequencies using binaural beats.

How can this help? Well I guess it’s obvious now, but if we can create a set of tones which create a frequency of between 1 to 3 Hz, your brain can be entrained to resonate at the same frequency. If you look at the brainwave chart above, you’ll notice that Delta Waves are produced at that frequency. Brainwave entrainment can be very helpful in getting into deep meditative states.

Brainwave entrainment can be used for other purposes other than to aid and guide you through meditation. Using binaural beats can actually help with sleep and guide you into deep sleep states.

Many insomnia sufferers have experienced dramatic improvements in the ability to fall asleep through brainwave entrainment alone. It has even been used to effectively treat psychosomatic illnesses like depression. As well as improving mental and physical health it can also increase concentration, memory functioning and even creativity.

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Sleep more – feel good, makes sense right? We know that at least eight hours we should spend in sleeping. We are, Bernard Shaw said, “slave to nature for that”. But the recent neo-scientific theory demonstrates the lesser we sleep, the more energetic we feel. It may sound heretic, almost breaking the standard norm of understanding. But the bone of contention goes, a five-six hours of sleeping can make you healthier and more awake. In fact, you may be taken aback hearing the fact that the world’s busiest people, CEOs, entrepreneurs, scientists, whose minds are constantly running relentlessly, sleep only four hours and wake up fresh to face the challenges the day brings.

With the world changing fast and strongly dependent on electronics, you have really a lesser time to adapt to it, both physically and professionally. Thus, there may have been some change in biological need as well.

Is the change destructive? Are those people victim of insomnia? Or do they hide some secret mystery? The truth is the more you sleep, the lazier you become. Sleep more than necessary and it’s likely you will feel tired and sluggish. Oversleeping makes you feel exhausted, and consequentially lazy.  After a particular point of time, you are bound to feel bored or irritated.

So is it possible to sleep less and feel vibrant? The answer is ‘Yes’, it’s astonishing that people are performing well while sleeping less. Actually, the old calculation goes, you should sleep eight hours a day, but how true is this? This mathematics strips you off one third of your life. The quarter of the rest is gone in performing nature’s duties.

In fact, this order has been set according to the load of the work. Previously people had much time to perform their work. But this ultra-sophisticated world demands from you more time to ameliorate it better. Thus the order of sleep has lessened accordingly. Science is in no way opposed to that. It’s only a matter of adaptation.

Now, prepare the statistics. Eight hours of sleeping gives sixteen hours of work. Add two hours to your work by deducting it from sleeping, and then calculate it for the next ten years. The amount can fulfill any number of dreams you set. In fact, you waste one-third of your life by sleeping. Imagine how much progress you could make if you were able to dedicate two hours extra to your work. The working proverb is not, early to bed and early to rise anymore.