A good night's sleep is brain food

How and why to get better sleep

Sleep habits and patterns vary throughout life. A newborn may sleep about eighteen hours a day. Adolescents commonly have daytime drowsiness, and actually need about an hour more sleep daily than they did as young children. Most adolescents end up about two hours short on sleep, with all the activities they are expected to engage these days. Sleep patterns continue to evolve through adulthood and many people in their twenties and thirties get half the amount of deep sleep they got at younger ages. By middle age, it is common to experience more nighttime awakenings. This may be partly due to less exercise on average. Then, in the later years, sleeping patterns are vastly changed. It can take longer to fall asleep, and nighttime awakenings are frequent. However, if given the opportunity, older people tend to nap and may accumulate all the sleep they really need.

Given all these differences, the brain still benefits most with adequate sleep every day, or at least most of the time. Recent studies have shown a dangerous rise in sleep deprivation among many groups in our culture. This results in more accidents on the road and in workplaces, which costs us all in some way. Moods are disturbed, thinking is less productive, and generally our lifestyle quality is reduced by lack of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation states that an estimated forty million Americans have chronic sleep disorders. Insufficient sleep is the suspected to contribute to a variety of maladies including heart disease and obesity.

Some simple ways to improve your sleep are:

Cutting down on caffeine - even if you don't stop it completely, reducing it makes a difference.

Get more exercise - walk daily, you will notice a difference immediately.

Keep a sleep diary - this can help you discover what is actually disturbing your sleep.

Listen to tapes before bed - many soothing tapes and CDs are available to rock your brain to sleep.

Take a warm bath before bed.

Maintain a regular schedule - getting up about the same time every day helps keep your rhythm set so that you can fall asleep easily.

Improve your sleeping area - make sure you have a comfortable mattress, it's a great investment in your health.

Use heavy curtains and rugs - absorbing sounds that may disturb your sleep through the night.

Try white noise - if you live in a noisy environment, try using a fan or a white noise maker to create a background and block out sounds.