Fall is a Good Time to Re-establish Good Sleep Habits

As the days get shorter and nights longer the natural triggers for sleep and waking – light and dark – day and night – are in transition. It’s back to work and back to school and a good time to re-evaluate your sleep habits and make adjustments especially if you are experiencing problems.

Our lives are built around schedules. Whether we like it or not, without regular work hours, nothing in the business world would get done and no learning could take place at schools. You wouldn’t be able to schedule a doctor’s appointment or reserve a table at your favorite restaurant. The world would be in a tizzy! The universe of nature functions on a schedule also, evidenced by day and night, and the seasons of the year, and are bodies were designed to be in tuned with nature to function at their peak.

It’s not that critical at what time you eat or when you exercise, but when it comes to sleep a regular schedule is a must. Most of us don’t realize how important a regular schedule is to ensuring that our internal sleep clocks don’t break down and destroy our ability to fall asleep naturally, and sustain sleep for 6-8 hours so we can wake up feeling refreshed.

We set our exte
al clocks to wake us up at the same time 5 days a week to arrive at work on time. But we seem to push the envelope every night when it comes to going to bed at the same time, and on the weekends we totally throw our clocks out the window. Soon our whole internal timing mechanism, which is the electronic part of our make-up, has been thrown off (like a watch whose battery is running low) and we develop sleep problems.

Getting sufficient sleep is so important to how productively we will function the next day and how healthy we will be, that it cannot be over stressed. The danger to destroying our body’s internal mechanisms, which trigger sleep, is that it can take a long time to restore them and many of us get stressed in the process and further aggravate the problem. Unable to cope many people turn to exte
al drugs, which they see as a much needed quick fix. And the pharmaceutical companies are all too happy to oblige us spending millions to advertise their miracle solutions. But no drug that enters the body comes without serious side effects or risk of becoming habit forming – making the solution more elusive and far off. Besides, we have our own natural drugs to keep our body functioning as it should when it comes to sleep– we just need to be able to tap into them – and that is the job of our internal clock.

So don’t fall victim to what seems easy. You need to correct the underlying problem which is that your internal clock is malfunctioning and needs to be re-tuned. That takes careful attention to your personal habits and to creating a work-life schedule that respects your body’s need for sleep above all else. Fall is a good time to incorporate this strategy into your life because there is more time to devote to sleep. Remember that your sleep clock is cued to induce sleep and then wake you up by the natural triggers of light and dark and it’s darker longer this time of year.

Life will be pleasant when you are in sync with your body clock so take good care of yourself and re-charge your batteries regularly by sleeping well.

For more information on good sleep hygiene and avoiding problems check out: http://www.TheSleepGenie.com