Better Sleep

I recently had the opportunity to speak at Sevierville’s First United Methodist Church’s WINGS (Women Inspired, Nurtured, Growing Strong) weekend on getting better sleep.  Here are some of the tips I found and taught.

1. Getting better sleep improves your life.  When you sleep well, your mood, concentration, memory and immunity improve.  Your motor coordination also improves.  Studies have shown that sleep deprived drivers often exhibit similar qualities as drunk drivers.

2. Avoid nicotine before bed.  Smokers often go through withdrawal at night.

3. Avoid caffeine. Caffeine, a stimulant, stays in your system for roughly 8 hours. Even if you don’t think caffeine affects you, try cutting back or cutting it out completely for a week and see if your sleep improves.

4. Avoid alcohol close to bedtime. It usually takes about 1 hour per drink to completely metabolize alcohol.  Even though alcohol is a depressant, it has been known to disturb sleep.  Make sure you have enough time after drinking for your body to fully metabolize alcohol in order to get a good night’s sleep.

5. Create a sleepy environment.  Most people sleep best in a cool, dark, quiet place. Use your bedroom only for sleep and intimacy with your spouse in order to promote cues for relaxation rather than work or stress.  A comfortable pillow and mattress will promote better sleep by allowing you to stay asleep longer.  Turn off the television so that the commercials and noise won’t stimulate your mind (thereby keeping you awake or waking you after you have drifted off to sleep), and so the light from the television won’t interrupt your internal clock.

6. Exercise a minimum of 20-30 minutes each day. This exercise can be broken down into 5 minute segments throughout the day.  Make sure to finish exercise at least 3 hours before bedtime to allow time for your body temperature to drop to optimum levels.

7. Stop eating at least 2 hours before bedtime.

8. Finish all liquids at least 2 hours before bedtime to avoid nighttime toilet trips.

9. Develop a ritual. A nighttime routine can send cues to your brain to start releasing hormones that help you relax and sleep.

10. Get your worries under control. Practice your deep breathing, meditation, prayer, scripture reading, journaling, and progressive muscle relaxation to relax both your mind and your body, getting your worry off your mind so you can rest well.

Putting these simple tips into practice should improve your sleep considerably.  For more help on getting your worries under control, seek the advice of a professional who can provide a world of new skills and ideas that will work for you.

Writing…It’s Such Great Therapy!

Writing is probably the best free therapy around, other than talking to a trusted, wise friend.  Writing has so many benefits, it’s a wonder that more people don’t do it!  Why is writing so beneficial? 

1. Writing helps you forget.  Many people who come to counseling have a forgetting problem.  Something bad has happened to them, and they believe that they MUST remember it or it will happen again, or they won’t remember how bad the situation was when they need the emotional power that is triggered by remembering event, or they will cease to be the person they are today, or many other reasons.  Writing something down helps you get to a place where you can forget and let go.  One reason for this is the next benefit.

2. Writing helps you remember.  There are many things you need to remember, but most things do not need to clutter up your mind.  After you have written something down, you can go back to it to remember.  In much the same way as a shopping list works (i.e. you don’t have to keep repeating the list over and over in your mind and thus distracting yourself in the store), writing about emotional topics helps you release the responsibility of remembering but allows you to remember at appropriate times.  If you need to tap into the emotional energy that accompanies a certain event, all you have to do is turn to that page in your journal, and you’re right back there again.  When you need documentation of an event, you can always turn back to your journal for a more accurate picture than what your brain has allowed you to remember over time.  When you read the emotional journal entries you have written in the past, you remember just how good or bad something was at that time.

3. Writing is glorifying to God.  When you remember where you have been in your life, and you see how God has taken you out of those dark places, God is glorified.  When you share those experiences with others, God is glorified.  When you write now, you can look back in the future with this perspective.

4. Writing helps you discover who you are.  Looking back over your writings, you discover more about yourself than you really ever thought you would.  You will discover how you tend to react to things, who you tend to blame for the things that happen in your life, things that are important to you, your priorities, your hopes and dreams, how you deal with good and bad times, and how you have changed over time.  Writing helps you take a more objective look at yourself.

These are just four tiny benefits of writing.  What other benefits can you come up with?