Bathroom or
hallway Light
Light increases your
alertness, so brush
your teeth and scrub
off makeup in semi-
darkness. And if
you get up at night
to pee, don’t flick
the light on.Progressive
Muscle
Relaxation
Tensing and releasing each
muscle group calms the
mind and puts muscles
into the mellow mode they
experience as you enter
the N1 stage. And focus
on your breath — inhale,
exhale, repeat. “Doing this
redirects the part of your
brain that wants to stay
active,” says Nancy Collop,
M.D., director of the Emory
Sleep Center in Atlanta.Alcohol
and Nicotine
Booze is a short-acting
sedative, so while you
may crash, you wake when
it dissipates after a few
hours. (Liquor also worsens
apnea.) And while a nightly
smoking ritual might feel
relaxing, nicotine actually
revs up your brain.Hypnosis
“You are getting
sleepy” isn’t just a stage
act. In a review of 24
studies, over half found
that when insomniacs
put themselves into a
trance it helped them
catch more zzz’s. A
phone app like Sleep
Well Hypnosis will bring
the hypnotist right to
your nightstand.Too Much TV
Watching more than
four hours of evening
telly can make it tough
to sleep, a study of
teens in Psychiatry
Research recently found.
And watching upsetting
news late at night can
be anxiety inducing.Prunes (?!)
Their magnesium, B 6 and
calcium help produce
melatonin, a hormone
that makes us sleepy. Eat
two or three about an
hour before lights-out;
more may have you
running to the bathroom
instead of to bed, says
Lauren Harris-Pincus, a
registered dietitian and
author of The Protein-surprising sleep STOPPERS
surprising sleep SAVERS
YOUR BRAIN ON
EXHAUSTIONWhen you’re tired, judgment,
memory and creativity become
impaired, and your reflexes can
slow down as if you’re drunk.
This helps explain why 100,000
road traffic accidents in the
USA are attributed to tiredness.
Much of the decrease in our
ability to think happens because
we slip into the odd state of
“local slow-wave sleep,” which
is when we appear to be awake
but part of the brain is snoozing,
Dr. Wu says. Mental illnesses can
also worsen with — and maybe
even be caused by — getting too
few zzz’s, experts say. Scientists
used to think it was depression
or psychosis that kept sufferers
awake, but now they believe
the neural networks of normal
sleep and mental health are
intertwined. Stabilizing sleep
in people with or vulnerable to
mental illness can break this
cycle, says Russell Foster, Ph.D.,
chair of circadian neuroscience
at Britain’s University of Oxford.INSOMNIA
Most of us have bad nights, but chronic
insomnia is a disease. Insomnia is when
you regularly can’t fall asleep, stay asleep
or slumber until a reasonable hour, due to
anxiety, depression, pain or when your sleep
cycles are out of whack because of travel,
night work or even hormonal fluctuations.
There’s also “learned” insomnia, in which
prior nights of tossing and turning have
you convinced you won’t be visited by theSandman and the resulting anxiety makes it
a self-fulfilling prophecy. Putting away your
devices an hour or two before bed is a good
idea, as is winding down by taking a soothing
bath. Below, a few more tips on how to fall
and stay asleep. If none of them work for you,
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), in which
you learn to think differently about your
sleep trouble, has been endorsed by The
American Academy of Sleep Medicine.WHEN YOU
REMEMBER
YOUR DREAMS
Dreams happen during REM,
after which you’re supposed
to cycle back to the N2 and N1
stages, Dr. Shamim-Uzzaman
says. If your alarm goes off
mid-REM, you’re more likely
to recall what you
dreamed.72 GH OCTOBER 2019
Health s ecial re ort