Sleep Tip #1

I'm a sucker for sleep tips. Because I am such a sleep obsessive, I'm always on the look out for concise lists telling me how I can get better sleep. Here's one I just found from the Mayo Clinic. It is a list of 7 things that you can do to improve the quality of your sleep, thereby improving the quality of your life.

The first sleep tip is particularly difficult for me though when I am able to do it -- stick to a sleep schedule even on weekends and holidays -- everything works out better. I'm more productive, in a better mood all day long, and generally just much happier. I have learned to do what this tip suggests, if I don't fall asleep fairly quickly (within 10 to 15 minutes of going to bed) I get up and do something else. Most of all I don't worry about it like I used to do. Like the article says, if you "agonize" over falling asleep (and what sleep obsessive worthy of the name hasn't don’t that), it will take much longer and more effort to do something that frankly should happen pretty naturally.

Writing in my journal is particularly effective, especially when I know there are things that I haven't "processed" during the day that are keeping me awake. Reading a fast paced, interesting novel is also really good because it makes me sleepy pretty fast.

What is your favorite thing to do when you can't sleep?

Cure for a Stiff Neck

Lately I have been suffering from a very stiff neck. I don't know why, maybe I'm spending too much time hunched over my computer, or it's stress from thinking I have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, or maybe I need a better pillow or to do more yoga or . . . well who knows what it's caused by.

One of the best remedies I've tried is the neck wrap by Bucky that you heat in the microwave. It's filled with buckwheat hulls and the warmth of the wrap immediately penetrates and soothes my tired, stiff neck. It's nothing short of heavenly.

Sleep Poems

Thought it would be fun to look for poems by famous poets on the topic of sleep. Here's one I especially liked.

A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
That makes no show for morn
By stretch of limb or stir of lid,
An independent one.

Was ever idleness like this?
Upon a bank of stone
To bask the centuries away
Nor once look up for noon?

Emily Dickinson