4 Tips for Better Sleep

A lot of people complain about not getting enough sleep or having sleeping problems. There are many potential causes and more often than not more than one reason can be identified. Here are 4 tips that work in general pretty well to get better sleep.

1. The first one is the most important one. The bed and bedroom should only be used for sleeping - nothing else! No TV, no reading of books or working on a laptop (even if it is a sexy laptop like the Apple MacBook Air ;-) ) in bed and other sort of things. The bed and bedroom needs to be the anchor for "sleep". If you do anything else in bed this will over time built an unconscious anchor for reading or something else that you do when you are awake and when you go to bed your unconscious mind will think "oh, it's reading time" and this will not help you to fall asleep.

2. Do not drink any coffee, alcohol or any drinks that contain sugar. Contrary to common believe alcohol does not work well if you like to get a good quality sleep. 

3. Before you go to bed engage in a relaxing activity. This could be some light reading, listen to calming music or taking a bath.

4. Fall asleep by watching your breathing. If you have issues falling asleep it is likely to be related to your thoughts and your mind is not focussed. Instead of getting caught in the thoughts bring your attention to your breathing. If thoughts come up just take the position of an observer and bring your attention back to your breath.