Sleep Rehab Week 2: Exercise Routine

Your body wants to sleep when it is physically tired. Regular exercise is one of the best ways to boost your energy level during the day and set you up to fall asleep easily at night. There are a few key things to remember when planning your exercise schedule.

At Least 4 Hours Before Bed

Exercise increases your metabolic rate, causing your body to release various hormones, including adrenaline, that stimulate your mind and increase awareness. Additionally, your body releases endorphins when you exercise, which can give you a pleasurable feeling.

These side effects can last at least four hours. Plan to workout late in the afternoon, or earlier if you plan to get to sleep early. Avoid workouts in the evening and particularly after dinner time.

Save Hard Workouts for the Morning

Strenuous workouts can cause muscle aches. On days where you plan to workout more than usual, schedule your exercise for early in the day to give your body time to recover. However, this is only if the feeling of tired muscles bothers you. Some people enjoy this feeling and don’t find that it interferes with sleep.

Adjust your workout difficulty and schedule to meet your body’s needs for sleep, not just the level of exercise you can tolerate.

Sleep Routine Rehab Week 1: Your Morning Routine

Your body has built-in biological processes that take cues from outside stimuli: We’re talking light here, folks. No matter whether you consider yourself a “night-owl” or not, when the sun comes up, your body wants to be awake. Your ability to fight this and stay asleep is a testament to the fact that you need more sleep.

The key is not to fight this built-in body clock, but to use it to your advantage. You also want to establish a morning routine that has you fully awake and alert before you leave the house. Napping or catching up on sleep on the train or bus into work can leave you tired all day.

One of the most effective ways to use the sun to your benefit is to go into the sunniest part of your home after you wake up. We’re not being sadistic – don’t stare into the sun! But stretch, try to open your eyes and spend a few minutes in this lit room with your eyes open and relax. If you coffee pot is on a timer, enjoy your cup of coffee here first.

For many, a shower in the morning can be helpful in coming to full wakefulness. Take a shower, but try not to make it your main shower of the day if that leaves you rushed. The key is to create a routine that helps you wake up, but does not add stress to your day.

Adjusting Sleep Schedule for a New School Year

Get Started Early to Get Kids to Bed Early

Like most parents, the most challenging part of starting a new school year is the transition from a summer schedule to a school schedule. During the summer, the kids stay up late watching TV, and are pretty free to do what they want. However, after last year when it took almost a month to get them on track, we have put together a checklist of easy changes you can make to ensure a smooth start to the school year.

The key is to give yourself enough time to make the schedule change, and give your kids enough time to adjust to new bedtimes and wake-up times.

Start early: Give yourself at least two weeks to make these adjustments. It takes time for adults to adjust to a new schedule, and it takes kids even longer.

Get up early: For the last two weeks before school starts, set a wake-up time (and stick to it). You can make it earlier by 15 minutes every few days to make the change gradual.

Get to bed on time: Like the wake-up time, begin getting your kids to bed earlier. Make the transition easier (and save yourself from some arguments) by letting them have a treat, but set expectation. For example, let them read a book in bed for 10 minutes for two nights, but each day remind them that the extra story time will be over on the third day.

Get diet in check: Summer schedules not only affect sleep times, they can affect meal times. Meals set the stage for successful sleep. Prepare quality meals and begin to adjust the time of these meals to the time they will be served during the school year. This includes not only dinner, but serving lunches at the time lunch is served at school.

Schedule activities: Keep your child active during the day as you adjust sleep and meal times. It will make it easier to get them to adjust to the new schedule. But be careful to reduce the activity level so the kids are not hyper by dinner time.

Bonus tip: Depending on what part of the country you live in, the sun may still be up late when school starts. Try giving your child an inexpensive sleep blindfold or other “sleep transitional object”. This recognizes that light may be a problem for your child, and gives the child a way to be in control of their sleep.

To summarize, give yourself enough time to adjust and address each area that has an impact on sleep for children.

Sleep issues and being youngest in their class can lead to ADHD-like symptoms for kindergarteners

I’m the parent of two school-age boys, and behavior and sleep are consistently two of the biggest challenges I face with them. Last summer, I was preparing to have my oldest son, who turns 5 in July, begin Kindergarten. He’s small for his age, and was the youngest in his kindergarten class. We had also recently moved to a new area, and he didn’t know anybody. Needless to say, we experienced some behavioral problems, including regression in a number of areas including potty training. I withdrew him after two weeks and put him in preschool for an extra year.

While this helped, it took a long time to overcome the behavioral problems. Almost all of the research my wife and I did said these symptoms were from ADHD. But I wasn’t convinced. I certainly didn’t want to go to a doctor and just ask for medication, which I felt my son did not need.

Finally, I came upon an article from Science Daily on the link between kids’ sleep and behavioral problems. My son’s symptoms matched those from the study almost perfectly. It was an easy decision to try to get him to sleep more, rather than start him on medication. Instead of going to bed at 8pm, my wife and I had him go to sleep at 7pm. The difference was drastic. Although getting more sleep did not solve all of the problems, it solved enough of them so we could work through the other problems.

Now, a new article just published today by Science Daily suggests that nearly a million US children are misdiagnosed with ADHD because they are the youngest in their class. This hits so close to home. If I had taken my son to the doctor, it is likely he would have gotten an ADHD diagnosis, when the cause was actually the compounded problems of not enough sleep and the simple fact that he was the youngest in his class.

ADHD and ADD are serious conditions. However, as time goes on we learn that many symptoms that a teacher may identify as caused by these disorders are in fact related to sleep issues, normal differences in child development, and I’m sure by other factors yet to be discovered. I do not question that my decision to my son an extra year of preschool was the right one for him. But I do worry for other parents who do not know the other potential causes of behavioral problems and put their child on strong behavior-modifying drugs without trying to see if more sleep or the child’s age are a factor.

The 12 Step Sleep Rehab Program

12 Step Sleep Routine Rehab Program

This is the first post in our new series on sleep – The 12 Step Sleep Routine Rehab program. This isn’t a program to treat addiction – it’s meant to take you through a series of (handily-enough, 12) steps to address the different areas of your daily routine that affect your ability to fall asleep at night. We want to give you the tools to take back control, and make falling asleep enjoyable again.

Yes, there will be 12 blog posts. Each post will have specific tips, easy changes to your routine, and other small steps that you can take. At the end of 12 weeks, after these small changes you will have addressed (or at least be conscious of) many of the situations and choices you make that influence your ability to sleep. Taken in small steps, these changes should be easier to focus on and will not seem overwhelming.

Week 1 – Morning Routine: From what you have for breakfast to the time you get out the door, your morning routine is the start of your sleep pattern.

Week 2 – Exercise: Your body want to sleep when you are tired. Picking the right time to exercise and the right kind of exercise is important!

Week 3 – At Work: Stress and anxiety on the job has a huge impact on sleep. We can’t all have easy jobs, but there are things you can do to naturally control stress.

Week 4 – The Caffeine Cutoff: Caffeine is the enemy of sleep. That’s why we use it! But it can also be your enemy at bed time. Find out how the rules of the road for caffeine and sleep.

Week 5 – Lunch: What you eat and when you eat can impact your ability to sleep. We cover some basic food-sleep rules.

Week 6 – The Commute Home: If you’re not falling asleep at the wheel, most people think the drive home has nothing to do with sleep. Wrong!

Week 7 – Dinner: This is the last meal before bed time (or should be!) so it has even more effect on sleep. From meal choice to timing, its important to choose a dinner that will help you sleep.

Week 8 – Night Time TV: An overactive mind is one of the leading causes of sleeplessness. Choose the amount and kind of TV wisely. And don’t fall asleep in front of the TV.

Week 9 – Sleep Hygiene: Bathing at night, at the right time, is an important part of sleep but so are other hygiene rituals as well as ensuring your sleeping area is clean.

Week 10 – Sleep Rituals: A nightly routine can be a great way to prepare for sleep. We go over some great sleep ritual ideas and some less-than-great ones.

Week 11 – Bedtime: Ok, you’re in bed…now what? This is the most important part of falling asleep. We go over some tips and tricks for getting to sleep easily.

Week 12 – Falling Back Asleep: You just need to fall asleep once? Lucky you! Many people wake up at night, either on their own or because of a child or other environmental factors. We cover how to get back to sleep successfully.

Start thinking about these topics, note if any of them have been a particular problem for you and check back when we post each week!

Disclaimer time! We’re not doctors and these methods are not medically proven. If you work on these topics and still experience trouble sleeping you may want to consider seeing a sleep doctor.

The sleep routine scorecard is a tool that you can use if you have difficulty sleeping to help you make adjustments to your routine that can help you fall asleep more easily at night. The checklist should take 5 minutes per day total.

Sleep by the Hours

How to use the sleep routine scorecard to get better sleep

Print (or if you can save a tree by working with the digital copy, please do) the scorecard and each day, each hour check the “yes” or “no” column if you have done what is on the checklist. In the morning, look at your checklist from the day before and decide on one hour to focus on improving. Over time, you will make small adjustments to your routine that will eliminate factors that can prevent you from falling asleep including stress, diet, caffeine intake and sensory stimulation.

We know that this is a pretty rigid hourly scorecard. Feel free to make adjustments based on your schedule (we know not everybody goes to bed at 9pm and wakes up at 6am). If you have suggestions for alternate versions of the scorecard, such as for shift workers or students, please let us know in the comments.

If you go through the checklist for 1-2 weeks are still have trouble falling asleep you may want to try the NightWave Sleep Assistant.

Good luck! ]]> http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/sleep-by-the-hours/feed/ 1 http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/delta-sky-magazine-feature-on-sleep-aids/ http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/delta-sky-magazine-feature-on-sleep-aids/#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:00:44 +0000 nightwave http://blog.nightwave.com/?p=71

Delta Sky Article Featuring NightWave

Delta Sky has magazine chosen to include the NightWave Sleep Assistant in an August 2010 Trend Watch featuring high-technology sleep aids. The articles focuses on new technology people get a good night’s sleep. Featured alongside NightWave, the article also mentions the Philips Wake-up Light, and a sleep-monitoring device by Zeo. Another solution offered in the magazine is a high-technology bed, such as a Temurpedic or Sleep Number bed. Out of all of the suggested technologies, we are proud of the fact that NightWave is the only device featured that actually helps users fall asleep. And at $49.95, it is also the most affordable sleep aid featured.

On another note, the article does provide some useful tips on behaviors that can help with more successful sleep. NightWave is all about natural sleep solutions, so these kind of recommendations are right up our alley. In the article, Delta Sky suggests you:

1. Keep the temperature cool in your bedroom
2. Avoid alcohol near bedtime
3. Exercise during the day, avoiding evening workouts
4. Try supplements such as melatonin, chamomile, Valerian root, or magnesium

We believe that for many people sleep can come easily without the need to ingest anything, so we say “great!” to the first three suggestions, and reserve judgement on the last. Thanks to Delta Sky for featuring NightWave!

]]> http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/delta-sky-magazine-feature-on-sleep-aids/feed/ 0 http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/sleep-noise-filter/ http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/sleep-noise-filter/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:30:07 +0000 nightwave http://blog.nightwave.com/?p=55

Harvard Medical School Sleep Study

A recent article in Wired covers a discovery by Harvard sleep researchers that shows some people have a built-in mechanism for blocking noise and other environmental factor that would wake most normal people. What happens is that the Thalamus, a region of the brain that acts as a sort of switch board for sensory information such as sound and vision information, turns into a filter by creating special waves the researchers call “spindles” that block out sensory stimulae. This is an amazing discovery! But before you go buying the next hyped device that acts as a “Thalmus Spindle Activator” or something similar, remember that the researchers just discovered this, they don’t know how it is caused.

These types of discoveries highlight a couple of important concepts for those who have trouble with sleep. First, there are two varieties of sleep issues: falling asleep, and poor quality sleep (often because of waking up at night, and being unable to fall back asleep). It also highlights the issues that we are most keen to discuss: Which sleep problems are medical, which are caused by environmental factors, and which are caused by behavior.

Our philosophy is that the best way to address sleep issues is take care of the environmental factors, such as noise or light in your sleeping area, then begin to address any behavioral factors such as diet, exercise and an overactive mind. The medical component is important, as sleep is a complicated process of the brain with new discoveries happening frequently. We’re encouraged to see this, and it helps with filling out the picture of the variety of causes of sleep issues. To the sleep doctors – keep it up!

]]> http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/08/sleep-noise-filter/feed/ 0 http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/07/the-new-nightwave-com/ http://blog.nightwave.com/2010/07/the-new-nightwave-com/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:18:46 +0000 nightwave http://blog.nightwave.com/?p=43

The New Nightwave.com

We have just launched a brand-new nightwave.com! This project has been months in the making, and we are very excited by the results. The new website has several exciting new features, and just as importantly makes it easy for us to add to the site in the future.

For our loyal customers, and those finding us for the first time the feature that will be most interesting are the discounts, coupons and promotions we can now offer. We’ll be posting discounts and promotions on our Facebook page.

We have also created a brand-new animated movie that explains how the Nightwave Sleep Assistant works.

There are more new features in the works, and resources for people who need more high-quality sleep. Check back often, and if you are a satisfied customer please send us an email, or post a video telling us about your success with nightwave.

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