You know the feeling; you have to wake up early tomorrow but the sandman just won't come. You're stuck watching the clock next to your bed. Every 5 minutes you calculate how much sleep you could get if you fell asleep at that exact moment. Not surprisingly, the next morning you're so dead tired that you can't understand how you could possibly have had trouble sleeping. Well that's about to change. Here's how you're gonna get your 40 winks without delay tomorrow night.
Cereal - the morning crusader also works nights
A bowl of cereal about 30 min before bedtime will help you on your journey to La-La Land. Don't confuse this suggestion with an invitation to eat anything that you can think of before bed. Heavier, prepared meals will get your body in digestion mode and you'll find it much harder to sleep. A light meal like cereal is ideal. I made the mistake of looking this up in the forums. People tended to disagree with the cereal before bed since they had a bowl and they still weren't asleep. That brings me to my next point...
Avoid electronics like the plague
Look at all the cool shit you have! You can listen to music while checking your email while chatting with your friends about Dungeons & Dragons while getting a colonoscopy! As great as all that sounds, none of it should be a part of your routine 30 minutes before you plan on getting to sleep. Devices like computers are highly interactive and will keep your mind fully stimulated. As long as your brain is at this level of activity, no amount of cereal will ever get you to bed. Do everyone who's there on the message boards, bitching that conventional sleeping methods don't work, try shutting down the porn and open a book.
Knockout Tub
For the man who's "in touch with his emotions" a warm bath with some lavender oil added could be just the thing that'll crack this streak of insomnia. Lavender is widely known to be a sleep aid. Combining it with a hot bath makes it even more potent because your not only inhaling lavender infused vapour, but the hot water opens up your pores and you'll absorb more of that nighttime goodness. For those of you who have a bit too much testosterone or are worried that your friends might find out about your late night aquatic escapades, a few drops of lavender oil on your pillow will yield similar results.
Bedroom Association
You should only be doing 2 things in your bedroom, the less exciting of which is sleeping. Other than that, you should be keeping out of your room. Try not to sit on your bed while you have late night chats with your 230 lbs. cybersex buddy, Bambi420. The more things you do in your room, the more your brain associates that area with mental stimulation. If your brain learns that when you’re in bed (alone), it’s sleep time, you’ll eventually find yourself getting drowsy when you enter your bedroom. That’s because your brain will recognize it’s environment and begin to decrease its activity. This is almost the same concept as the environmental tolerance I mentioned in the alcohol tolerance article.
Take a Trip to Palmsdale
If you didn't have a proper workout before going to bed, you're muscles will have trouble entering a state of relaxation. A quick way of putting your entire body and in a state of total relaxation is, obviously enough, masturbation. Playing a solo on the devil's clarinet releases a chemicals called endogenous opioid peptides into your brain. Opium, if you couldn't tell by the name, is also an opioid. Opioids will have a muscle relaxing and sleep inducing effect similar to that of morphine. This, combined with many other hormones released in the process, will have a sedative effect and should have you dreaming in no time.
At the end of the day, we each have something that works best for us. Nothing will work for everyone all the time. Should none of these methods even remotely help, you should consider seeing a doctor and ask about the possibility of insomnia. Staying up late for anything isn't cool. Sleep deprivation result in a lower IQ, impaired driving, poor social skill and, worst of all, ugly bags underneath your eyes. Sleep tight and don't tell your boyfriend you really dream about me at night.
