1. Plan to go to bed at the same time each night and make sure that you’re getting to bed in enough time to fall asleep and get 8 hours of sleep.
2. Don’t eat a heavy meal right before bed and avoid caffeine 6 hours before bed.
3. Keep the same nighttime routine: For example, brush your teeth, put on your sleepwear, and wash your face. Take your time and savor the few minutes you have to yourself. While you’re doing this, breathe deeply and slowly in and out during your entire routine. The goal is to get plenty of oxygen through your body.
4. Drink a cup of something warm, like tea, in your living room. Don’t watch television or read anything too heavy; just a light novel that’s interesting but doesn’t stimulate your imagination.
5. Go to bed. Don’t cover yourself with too many covers. Our body temperature needs to drop slightly before we can fall asleep (which is why you drank something warm just before bed to raise your temperature).
6. Turn your clock away from you so you can’t watch the time… clock watching is a major cause of insomnia as people get stressed out watching the minutes tick by.
7. Close your eyes and count down from 100 very, very slowly.
8. Have a great night’s sleep!
You will find that if you eat a balanced meal, drink 8 glasses of water a day, and exercise, you will wake up from 8 hours of sleep and feel fantastic… like you’ve had the best sleep of your life.
Then, as you go through your day, you’ll discover that you can handle stressful situations much more easily and your attitude will be better.
Persistence! - Violate this step and you'll never achieve permanent results. We recently concluded conducted a 10-year study that proves that persistence is the single most important aspect of any diet or exercise program. The study followed a group of people (group #1) who exercised and dieted very strictly, but sporadically and compared those results to a group of people (group #2) who exercised mildly and followed a very basic diet, but this group never varied from their routine. Even though group #2 exercised and dieted far less (but did so persistently) they got 68% better results than those who exercised and dieted VERY STRICTLY but only occasionally.