Because learning about your brain and sleep can be fun . . .
Sleep takes up a major chunk of the day. That can conflict with your other goals. How can you sleep less yet maintain health? I spend hours every week writing a sleep blog. I’m also longtime a sleep science enthusiast with a 25-year background in healthcare. I’ve both read and experimented a lot with sleep.…
Sometimes, a bandana blindfold is a quick answer to improving sleep because even a little light can be annoying and interfere with falling asleep. Go to bed like a hostage! Morning sun creeps around gaps in the curtains, getting you up too early. Once again, the sunbeams have started cheating you out of a few…
It doesn’t have to be difficult to sleep with GERD GERD, acid reflux, and waking up suddenly in the middle of the night coughing and hacking: the terms and experience go together—especially after you eat a little too much a little too close to bedtime. They don’t have to. Until you develop what they call…
The Bedtime Stories We Tell Ourselves and Others: Part 4 of 4 Lots of people are hungry, hungry to get better. Some are more than hungry; they’re starving. In the United States, the personal development/ self-improvement industry was worth almost $10 billion in 2019. That number represents serious spending. It’s a competitive world out there.…
The Bedtime Stories We Tell Ourselves and Others: Part 3 of 4 Hearing about conflict has a way of making an impression on you. It heightens your senses, makes you sit up and pay attention, gets you thinking about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s just the kind of thing you want to avoid before…
God grant me the serenity… Why it’s a great idea to memorize at least the first verse of the Serenity Prayer. Internalize it upon your heart and mind. It happens to every man and woman too. Sometimes you feel powerless. You feel like you’re a member of the security detail on Star Trek, the crewmembers…
All I wanted was to sleep, but fear kept me awake. I fought back against insomnia with a time-tested sleep method employed by the United States Army. As a mother of two, I’ve known sleepless nights a bit too well. I was one of the 164 million Americans who contend with sleeping issues at least…
It’s common to believe we should support the businesses espousing our values and avoid supporting companies that don’t. They call it “voting with your dollars” or “speaking with your wallet.” It makes sense on the surface. Sometimes other people see things differently than you do for one reason or another. This is one way of…
Stuck in a porn-watching cycle? You go to a porn website on your phone or laptop. You watch a few videos. You masturbate. You fall asleep. The next night you do it all over again. Does it seem hard to stop? Some people (usually men) feel like they need to masturbate to fall asleep. It…
In lots of occupations—and many situations—we get to see man’s inhumanity to man. When it comes to bedtime, this can affect the ability to sleep. Police officers would fall into this category. Nurses and EMS do too. They often get to see the worst of humanity. Dealing with violence, crime, neglect, narcissism, anger, and the…
Here’s a secret to sleeping well, saving money, and avoiding back pain. Do you change your sheets every week or so? That’s easy to remember to do. The sheets start feeling pasty and a little stiff, not soft like when they come out of the dryer. It’s natural to remember to change your sheets. When…
Get the jet-lagged, crummy feeling of an intercontinental airplane ride with none of the excitement and none of the bills—suffer from social jet lag! You can go far to the south or north, all the way to a different country, even another continent. Physically, you’ll feel fine. Your physical location won’t disrupt your circadian rhythm.…
Admit it. It doesn’t seem right to put your mattress on the floor. It’s dirty down there and hard to keep clean. There might be bugs. There might be all kinds of conditions on your floor. Furthermore, the floor is beyond firm; it’s hard. Way too hard. Floor sleeping doesn’t seem right. Is that true?…