Don't sleep your life away.

Sleep is mandatory for us to function. Unfortunately, it is something that is overlooked. At times it has been even mocked in society with statements such as “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” The funny thing is that we are simulating death when we are sleeping. What we are after is rest and not sleep. We have heard it stated so many times, “I just want to go to sleep and forget everything.” The truth is the next day we wake up without forgetting anything at all.

Try to go to bed when you start feeling tired, rather than based on a specific time you have in your mind or on the TV show you watch. Some things that might help you is using an App that alerts you when it’s time to hit the pillow and when it’s time to wake up. Another trick is to align waking up with the sunrise. Even if this is earlier than you usually rise, it will naturally have your body desiring to go to bed earlier. If you do happen to have a late night, still try to wake up at sunrise. You might be slightly tired from a shorter amount of sleep, but you can always sneak in a nap in the middle of the day. This will set you up properly for the cycle of the following day.

If you happen to wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, remove yourself from the bed and go sit on a sofa in a dark room. Perhaps read a book alongside ambient light until you start to get tired again. At that time return to bed and start falling asleep all over again. The reason for this is when we are laying in bed twisting and turning while awake we are telling the body to be awake while in bed. When we are in bed we want it to be for sleeping (or some lovemaking if you should be so inclined - I'm just sayin')