According to Yone Minagawa, the answer is good eating habits and plenty of sleep. Minagawa passed away on Monday at the amazing age of 114 years old. And yes, she simple died of old age! One could only hope to live anywhere near that age, but luckily there are many things you can do everyday to make sure you live a long, healthy and awesome life. While eating habits and nutrition are half the battle, I’m going to take a que from Mrs. Minagawa and talk about sleep.
Experts agree that we need between 7-8 hours of restful sleep on average, per night. So if your suffering from insomnia or have poor sleeping habits, here are 5 ways to finally get to sleep and wake up feeling ready for anything.
- Cut out the booze and caffeine before bed.
Any form of caffeine before bed is bound to keep you up. Sadly, this includes chocolate!! Ahhh…what am I going to do without my dark chocolate fix? Just have a small amount earlier in the evening. Alcohol is also a huge culprit when it comes to getting quality zzz’s. While it might relax you for a short period of time. Alcohol actually disrupts your sleep so you won’t feel completely rested in the morning.
- Set up rituals of relaxation before bed.
This can be anything from taking a bubble bath full of lavender oil, having a cup of Chamomile tea (known for its calming effect), or just reading. You could meditate before bed…which could mean just laying down and taking several slow deep breaths while emptying your mind of all of the days craziness. By establishing a ritual you can condition yourself so that everytime you slip into the tub or light a certain incense your body prepares itself for sleep.
- Set up a sound machine.
Retailers like Sharper Image sell sound machines that omit white noise or other peaceful sounds like waves crashing. Surprisingly, a quite, constant noise has been shown to help you stay asleep.
- Turn off all electronics.
Yes this means the TV, cellphones, and computers. Anything that will wake you up or keep you up. I know how easy it is to stay up another two hours because your addicted to watching reruns of Sex in the City. What’s more important though?
- Get to sleep at a decent time.
For some, getting to bed by 10pm just isn’t humanly possible due to work or school constraints, but according to Traditional Chinese Medicine the evening hours before midnight are the most beneficial. This has to do with the abundant of Yin energy before 12am. As an experiment, and only if your schedule allows it, try to get to bed by 10pm and wake between 5-6am for an entire week. You will get 7-8 hours of the most beneficial sleep and wake up just in time for the peak time of day for stomach digestion (7-9am).
Sleep is so important! So try one (or all!) of these tips and make sure to let me know how EPIC you feel the day after a good night of sleep.
