I’m Exhausted!

I hear this a lot from my clients as well as experience it myself.  I get up 5 days a week at 5:30am, if someone would have told me that I would do this 5 years ago, I would have told them they were on drugs.  Now in 2009 this is my life.  So that I am able to get up and not be a walking zombie. I have a bedtime, yes a bedtime! I know you haven’t had one since you were like 10.  So every night I got to bed at 9pm and lights out at 10pm.

Are you a walking zombie, are you constantly exhausted’ Did you know that skimping on sleep is not healthy.  Too many sleepless nights can lead to both mental and physical exhaustion. When you don’t get enough sleep you:

• have slower reactions which could lead to accidents,
• be irritable
• not be able to perform your work tasks with the same speed and clarity

Here are some tips to help you get the rest you need and deserve.

1. Keep a regular sleep cycle — wake and go to bed at the same time, including weekends.
2. Create a good environment — Temperature, Light, Sleeping Surface, and Other Factors
3. Exercise — helps you manage your stress
4. Decrease your caffeine intake — determine what time you need to cut it out so that you can sleep
5. Keep the bedroom for sleep and sex — Move the electronics out of the bedroom, this will help you tune out the world and get your much needed sleep
6. Unplug — when you come home declare it a cell phone free zone and turn it off!!
7. Stop smoking and reduce your alcohol intake — alcohol make sleepy but its not a good night sleep and nicotine in cigarettes may act as a stimulate
8. Clear your mind — I know easier said then done, so I recommend you put a pen and paper next to your bed, so that if you are unable to turn off your mind, you can write it done and think about it in the morning.
9. Avoid eating before bed — not it’s not about your waistline. Eating before bed may leave you feeling uncomfortable, spicy food may give your heartburn and drinking too much liquid prior to bed may cause you to make a few trips to the bathroom.
10. Avoid naps — I know naps feel good, but they disrupt your nighttime sleeping pattern.