The average person spends about a third of every day asleep. Or at least, they’re supposed to. The reality is that very few of us get that much sleep. We may just be staying awake… to death. If you’re not getting enough rest, this could have a very serious impact on your well-being the rest of the day. How and how much you sleep can have a direct effect on your overall level of wellness, which means you need to be considering this sort of thing on a regular basis. The problem is that a lot of people burn the candle at both ends. When they have more work to do than they can comfortably accomplish, they burn the candle at both ends, exchanging sleep for productivity. We’ve all made this exchange. But what if doing that to yourself means seriously affecting your health and your long-term well-being?

As it turns out, sleep is extremely important. Sleep provides a critical restorative function to our bodies’ natural recuperatory processes. While we sleep, our brains process the information we’ve received during the day (which is why you frequently dream about recent events, or even things you are worrying about, but those dreams often make no sense). Your sleep cycle also has a lot to do with your biological clock and how awake you are during your awake times versus how well you sleep when it’s time for you to go to bed. When those two cycles are in balance, your body works properly, and your sleep cycle cleans out the gunk, the toxins, an the byproducts of your day. Sleep is a necessary process for filtering your brain every day, and if you don’t get sleep, that’s why you start to feel sluggish and can’t concentrate or focus. Over time, sleep deprivation can actually drive people crazy. That’s what hallucinations are: the brain trying to “dream” while the body is being deprived of a sleep cycle.

You know that sleep, proper sleep, is very necessary to your health, so what are some ways that you can improve your “sleep hygiene?” There are a few different methods. One of these is to set, and adhere to, a consistent bedtime. Make your bed time early enough that you can consistently get enough sleep, and stick to that time. Make it a habitual part of your day. This is extremely important.

While you are adhering to that bedtime, though, you also need to make sure that you don’t just jump into bed and expect to fall asleep. Your brain doesn’t work that way. You need to have a routine for gradually calming yourself down and getting ready for sleep, and that has to be something that isn’t going to get your brain going too much. Video games and looking at any lighted screen, like on your tablet or phone, does the opposite of winding you down. Remember, too, that having a regular time to get up every day helps set your pattern and your habits. You’re basically tuning your body clock to go to sleep and wake up at roughly the same time every day. We all know people who have good biological rhythms who don’t need an alarm clock to wake up every day. These are people who have established good sleep hygiene.

Remember also that when you’re setting your sleep routine, you need to allow for a good eight hours every night. Some people sleep a little less, and some people sleep a little more, but if you’re not within an hour or two of that measure, you’re either not sleeping enough or you have other problems that are causing you to sleep too much. One thing that really helps is to be as active and healthy as you can be. Eat right, get plenty of exercise, and get plenty of fresh air. These are all factors that help you to sleep soundly. Some foods promote being asleep and some foods promote being awake. These include carbs, breads, potatoes, and other items like that for sleeping, and for staying awake things like nuts, cheese, eggs, yogurt, lentils, fish, and even peanut butter.

When evaluating your state of sleep hygiene, stop and ask yourself how you are conforming to your own guidelines for better sleep. Did you get enough rest last night? How much coffee or other caffeine-laden drinks did you have? Did you eat a lot or drink a lot before going to bed? Did you wake up tired? Did you wake up hungry? Are you taking supplements, or habitually eating or drinking anything, that might be having an effect on your sleep patterns or how well you get through the night? Are you waking up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night? If you’re having any of these problems, consider cutting caffeine out of your diet, or cutting it out at a certain part of the day so it’s not keeping you up too late. Avoid consuming large meals right before bed, and talk to your doctor about the best times to take your medications, because these can effect your sleep patterns as well.

You may find that there are some “crutches” you can use to help you sleep better at night. Soothing musical tones or even a white noise/ocean sound generator might help, for example. Just keeping a fan running might be the right amount of air circulation you require. If you find yourself suffering from insomnia, don’t toss and turn at night, because you are just making things worse. Get up instead and move around. The more monotonous the task, the more it will help you feel sleep enough to go back to bed.

The best way to get the best night’s sleep, however, is to book the time of one of our lovely escorts. After a great night out on the town with one of our girls, you may find you sleep better than ever before… and with a smile on your face as you dream about the events of the day.