Why A "Checklist?"

Why did I write The Great Sleep Checklist?  Why does it take a checklist to restore sleep?  Why won't sleep happen if you follow a few tips?

I wrote the Checklist after spending my life trying desperately to get a good night's sleep.  Sure, there were periods (months at a time, matter of fact!) when I slept well.  I worked hard, played hard and fell into bed at night and experienced blissful nights of slumber. 

But there were other times, when I worked equally hard and enjoyed myself every bit as much, yet could not put my head and my pillow together for anything but what seemed like an eight hour battle.  It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a restful night.

I finally realized that a lot of little things were keeping me from sleeping.  These were things that could be avoided.  And if I wanted to get to sleep, I'd better get started on knocking them out ofmy life.

Further, I realized that if I wanted to fall asleep, stay asleep and have very restful sleep, I was going to have to do more than just eliminate the obstacles and things that were preventing my sleep.  I was also going to have to start doing some other things to "smooth out the kinks" that kept me from the really great, restful and deeply satisfying sleep that I wanted.

The Great Sleep Checklist is a concisely compiled list of all the things that I changed to start sleeping better, and a few that I didn't have to bother with.  It's all the tips I saw on the internet, all the things that I found helpful, a few others that I could see were helpful (but didn't personally experience) and the ways I found to "boost" my chances of a good night's sleep.

Next time, we'll talk about one of my more controversial "strategies" for sleep and why it works.  Because you need a checklist to get back to sleep.  And you need a strategy to get GREAT sleep.

What I Did on My Vacation

I've just returned from three weeks visiting my aging parents in the West.  Time is getting short for them and occasionally, I lose sleep worrying about their health and other issues.  But in addition to helping Dad pull weeds from his potatoes and fixing the kitchen overhead light for my Mother, I used the time to "fix" a few problems with my sleep.

You see, I know what I'm supposed to do, but like a lot of other people, I don't always accomplish it. 

For instance, I want to go to bed earlier, but I don't always.  And when I do go to bed, I got in the bad habit of (before I sorted all my sleep obstacles and organized them for all to read) of playing solitaire on an outdated PDA in order to lull my brain to sleep.   I rationalized at the time that it was "part of my regimen," when I knew darned well that the electronic screen was "anti-rest."  But it was a habit and darned hard to break.  Here's the little electronic device of doomed nights now...

It was not a good habit to have and a real struggle... until I went to Mom and Dad's house.  There, with the country air, early to bed habits of The Folks and of course, my PDA solitaire game on the opposite end of the country, I routed that nasty electronic device from my regimen.  I was able to rewrite and reorganize my sleep habit and come back from vacation, rested and refreshed, minus the bad habits that slow me down.

I do still struggle with my own sleep issues, but this one has now officially been eliminated.  And if I take care to make sure that the solitaire game is not allowed in bed ever again, I will sleep much better. 

So will you.  Lots to do, lots to do, a few things to stop doing on The Great Sleep Checklist.

Sleep Tip: Familiarity Builds Sleep

I'm proving my own advice this month.

 I'm in the West, away from my usual Washington, DC location, visiting my aging parents. I came because there were issues with their health that I wanted to give personal focus to. I came for three weeks and with only a carry-on.

That means an unfamiliar bed (sleeping arrangements have changed in the years since I left home), a different time zone, and unusually longer hours as I take care of various issues and concerns. I've not slept much in the past several weeks, in spite of a deep satisfaction with my parents home and life.

It's wonderful being here. But I work and enjoy my parents all day, then try to catch up on some professional issues online at night.

The changes in my resting place, longer hours and exposure to electronic lights are taking their toll. I'll go home at the end of the week a happier, but tired daughter.

To start to restore my sleep, I'll start my familiar bed and known surroundings.  I'll miss my parents, but I am hoping I'll also sleep better knowing the way we've worked together to better their situation.

The Great Sleep Checklist... on Radio

The Great Sleep Checklist was published about 3 weeks ago.  I thought "Whew!  It'll be such a relief to get it done, published on Kindle and then I can move on with my life."

I'm moving on, but how did I miss that people would want to talk about it?  I thought "Create a useful tool and make it available.  What's next?"  I have always enjoyed finishing my projects so that I could get things off my plate and move on to the next thing.  But it turns out that's not the way things go in publishing.  It turns out that sometimes, writing a book about something, even a short book, makes you "an expert."  Or so it would seem in modern life.

The upshot of this is that a WGN Radio producer contacted me this past week and asked me if I was available to answer questions about sleep disorders on the radio?  I was interested, but I'm not a "sleep disorder expert."  I'm a former insomniac who worked and organized her life in order to sleep better and is in a position now to discuss how I did that and how others can do that.  As soon as they understood that I couldn't really discuss apnea or snoring (other than yeah, it's going to keep you up), I was definitely game.

Host David Plier is a businessman who hosts the weekend show and frankly, is a great conversationalist.  He's friendly, knowledgeable and handles everything, including prank callers, with capable style and personality.  I felt very comfortable and confident that I was in good hands throughout the entire interview.

So here's the podcast of that event at 2 o'clock this morning on WGN.  They posted it for us.  I hope you like it and feel free to comment with any questions of your own about sleep issues.  But not sleep disorders.

Sleep well!

To Sleep Better... Reset Your Body Clock

Circadian rhythms.  Sounds like something involving a bug and a percussion section, doesn't it?  But what most of us refer to more simply as our "body clock" controls our sleep and for a lot of people, it seems out of whack.  It seems to control sleeplessness.

How to resolve the struggle between a person and their body clock has been a big question, but now there's a study showing evidence of a rather simple (and enjoyable) solution: go camping.

The study, conducted by the University of Colorado in Boulder, found that many people's body clocks responded to the simple "sun up, sun down" rules that are pretty clearly stated by the world around us.  It was reported in the online journal "Current Biology."

Researchers took their study group to the tents and campfires but left behind flashlights and all tech gadgets. "No artificial lights" allowed.  The result?  The eight (yes, it was a very small study group) were allowed only campfire light, and while they still shifted back on when they went to sleep, the total amount of time they spent sleeping stayed the same.

The advice agrees with a lot of the things that we've recommended in "The Great Sleep Checklist."  Back away from the computer screens in the evening.  Turn down the lighting around your house.  Dim the dinner overheads and see if you can "power down" the lit faces of the clocks around you.  You might sleep better for it.  

(Photo: courtesy BBC online.)