How to Get a Good Night's Sleep (Without Medication)

A few years ago, I used to have a hard time falling asleep a night on a regular basis. If you're having this issue, I want to share some ideas that helped me. Hopefully they will be helpful to you as well.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• The desire for a good night's sleep.

1. First of all, the most important thing you need to determine is why you're having trouble falling asleep. Not being able to fall asleep can be caused by physical situations (what you're eating a night, your mattress, etc) or psychological situations (stress and worry over something).
2. If the situation seems to be from a physical cause, you can try several things. One is to look at what you're eating before you go to bed. Even if you're avoiding caffeine at night, there may be some other food or drink that's affecting you. If you're hungry at night, consider soothing foods or drinks with protein including milk, turkey, or peanut-based products.
3. Check and make sure your mattress, bedsprings, or pillow is not making you uncomfortable and causing you to toss and turn all night. Rotate your mattress periodically and consider purchasing a new one if needed. It's worth it when you consider how much sleep can impact your life.
4. If you're having trouble sleeping due to overall stress or a particular stressful situation, you're going to have to find ways of either dealing with the tension in a healthy way or resolving the issue. This is going to vary according to how much of the situation you can control, and it's something that doesn't always happen overnight. Stress is your body's way of telling you something isn't right in your life, which is why trying to mask the symptoms alone with medications won't help long-term.

Tips & Warnings

• Exercise helps a lot as well, especially if your daily routine has you in front of a computer all day. Just 15-30 minutes a day helps a lot.
• The environment of your bedroom is very important. My husband and I don't keep a TV in our bedroom for this reason. Ideally you want it as dark and quiet as possible. Sometimes relaxation music isn't bad, but anything else will likely just keep you awake.
• There are physical sleep disorders that you should consider seeing a doctor about if you've tried everything you can and nothing seems to be working. I just worry about people jumping to medications first to treat symptoms without addressing the core of the problem.