How to Sleep Better

1. Make yourself comfortable. Make sure you have a comfortable bed, and especially a decent mattress. A mattress is worth more than you think, considering you use it every night. Set the temperature to a nice, even setting. Not too cool, not too warm. Consider cleaning your room before trying to get to bed. Having a clean room can be calming when trying to fall asleep. A messy room will distract most people, and it can make you feel uncomfortable. Wash your sheets on a regular basis. Don't eat anything in your bed. Remove any TVs or Computers from your room. Your bedroom needs to be an electronics free zone, designated for getting better sleep.

2. Soundproof your room. Depending on where you live, you may want to soundproof your room, especially if your window leads to a noisy area. If it leads to your backyard, or a quiet area you might even open your window, to let the nature's sound come in and calm you. (Only in summer). If you cannot block off external sounds, look into getting a white noise machine, or have some CD's with natural night sounds on it.

3. Relax Before going to bed, you could do some relaxing exercise and practice deep breathing techniques. Nothing too stimulating. You can start with your fingers and toes or any way you want in order for you to relax. Below you will see a video showing you yogic breathing techniques. Relax your eyes and mind from too much stimulation. Don't be tempted to use entertainment gadgets or other things like your DVD player, mini laptop or television too much because the longer you expose your eyes to the screen then the longer for you to fall asleep.

4. Bedtime Ritual Most important in bedtime ritual is to decide on a specific time and try to be consistent with it every night to train yourself to fall asleep at that certain point. You could have a cup of tea with some light reading, wash your face, brush your hair, brush your teeth, moisturize, put on PJs. Whatever routine works for you, make it consistent. As you grow accustomed to your routine, all the elements of it will be signals to your brain that it's time to slow down and sleep soon.

5. Other Natural Possibilities If these don't help, you could still try counting something. Sheep don't work most of the time, but calculating your monthly budget, or trying to figure out how much money you could save giving up a certain habit sure does. Also, you could try taking some natural sleeping aid. One I found to be very useful is Melatrol.