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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

For Sleep Sake

I have not been sleeping well. For a time I thought it was just because of the excessively long cold I had over the holidays. Now that the cold has cleared I've been disappointed the sleep hasn't too. Even though I haven't had great rejuvenating sleep in a long time at least I was sleeping through the night. But now...well I've watched the clock every morning for almost 2 months.

Recently I saw a report about this guy who was struggling to sleep (he didn't suffer from chronic pain, just couldn't sleep well) who tried something radical for 10 days to see if it would make a difference. To my surprise, and his, in this short time frame he saw a real difference. What he was doing was eliminating all artificial light from the house after a certain time at night (7pm or something like that). He covered all glowing clocks and red standby lights, turning off all cell phones, TVs, computers, etc and he and his wife would read, play games and talk by candle light. He reported that they were getting tired and just naturally going to sleep earlier and that without the stimulation from these artificial lights his brain allowed him to sleep.

As someone who LOVES candle light the idea sounded romantic and pleasant. As someone who loves to fall asleep to the TV I wasn't excited about the idea of doing this but was just desperate enough to suggest it to my husband. Hubby, being someone who also has lots of trouble sleeping, was on board. We're easing into it. For the past two nights at 9pm we turn off everything and over time we'll get down to 8pm (earlier if I get my way).

Have you ever tried doing something like this or anything else to try and get better sleep? What has worked for you?

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