Alright so, we’ve identified the issue but I don’t want to leave you hanging.  Let me share some of what I do to prepare for that good ole nite-nite.  As with most things, it’s an onion and not an apple:  Meaning, there are layers to this whole thing but the most effective way to create change is to make it simple but also give enough substance so that (1) can relate and adopt.  In the case of getting your best night of sleep; I want to keep it as simple as 3,2,1.

(3) Hours Prior to Sleep

In this window of time, we want to ensure we’ve had our last bite to eat at least (3) hours prior to bed.  As mentioned in Part 1, we have to reverse engineer, thus, if the planned sleep time is 9pm, we want to aim to have that last swallow at 6pm or as close to that time as possible.  The reason?  Well, you’ve heard of the word metabolism, right?  Metabolism is a fancy word for processing and processing is a fancy word for work.  So when your body is metabolizing, it’s breaking down the food you’ve consumed.  You don’t want this process taking place while you’re sleep for (2) main reason:  It increases your heart rate as well as your body temperature.  Just think of the last time you heard someone talk about meat sweats in the middle of the night.  I bet if you asked said person how close to bed time they had their last meal it would likely had been less than 3-hours.

(2) Hours Prior to Sleep

This is when you want to hit the pause button on your water/liquid intake.  The issue here is the more you consume closer to bedtime, the more likely you are to have to get up in the middle of the night to empty your bladder, which is called nocturia.  Add that to the fact that as we age, our prostate naturally enlarges, thus awaking at least once is almost inevitable.  We want to keep that number to as close to zero as possible from the standpoint of not only being in bed for a set amount of hours, but to ensure we have the best quality sleep possible. There’s no arguing it’s harder to fall back asleep after being forced to awake multiple times.

(1) Hour Prior to Sleep

I will go on record to say this last hour is the hardest of the (3) for most of us.  You ready for it?  Alright, here it is:  Shut off all electronic devices within the last hour of getting in the bed, including that 3 x 6 inch rectangular thing you carry in your back pocket.  Our blessing and curse is we’re highly connected to the world outside the 4-walls of our home.  With that, we’re constantly bombarded with calls, texts, emails, notifications, dings, updates, you name it.  Most of us can admit our phone goes off at least once every hour and what we’re trying to accomplish here is settling of the mind.  Remember the last time you were in bed but didn’t get any sleep because of the constant state of thinking or perhaps had a bad dream following something you watched on TV?  Compare that to how good your rest was the last time you went on a true vacation.  Yes the location is different but the biggest factor is you didn’t have to think about the normal day-to-day tasks and your focus was on where you were and ultimately holding on to that bliss as long as possible.  You can create this same feeling when you find time to disconnect from all the things that are grabbing for your attention and simply be in the moment of “it’s time to go to bed”.  Plus, there are more enjoyable things you can physically do in bed rather than being on your phone or staring at a TV screen with the bonus of helping you fall asleep faster as well. It really boils down to setting boundaries, but we’ll talk about that in future blogs!!!