Tips, news, and resources on sounder sleep, natural health, and financial success.

In Today's Chat

* How To Stay Asleep Without Drugs

* Consultant and Business Owner Pricing Tip

* Quick Sleep Fact

* Final Thoughts for Today's Chat

Today's Quote

David Starr Jordan

How to Stay Asleep Without Drugs

It's called Stimulus Control Instructions (SCI) and it works well for sleep maintenance insomnia, which is the technical term for waking up in the middle of the night.

The idea behind SCI is to retrain how you relate to your bed and sleeping habits. If you can't stay asleep, and popping awake has been a long-term problem for you, your body and mind will perceive this as a sleep habit.

In other words, when you go to sleep at night, you expect to wake up in the middle of the night. The mind is powerful. So if you believe you'll wake up, you'll wake up.

Therefore, you have to retrain yourself. You have to relearn the association between your bed and sleep. You have to prove to yourself that when you fall asleep, you now know how to stay asleep.

The six steps of Stimulus Control Instructions

Here's what you need to do for how to stay asleep.

Step 1. Let's say you have no problem falling asleep but wake up after only a few hours of sleep. If you're lying in bed, and unable to get back to sleep within twenty minutes, force yourself to get out of bed.

Step 2. Stay out of bed until you feel sleepy and believe you can fall asleep again if you get into bed.

Step 3. After you get back in bed, follow step 1 again if necessary.

Step 4. Only use your bed for two purposes: sleeping and sex. It's not a place to watch TV, eat, surf the Internet, or read a book.

Step 5: On weekdays, get up at the same time each day. Again, you are training your body and mind. On Saturday and Sunday, you can sleep an hour later than you do on weekdays if you so desire.

Step 6. Do not take naps.

Here's what's going to happen

Initially, when you start Stimulus Control Instructions, you'll probably be doing step 1 above over and over again. For many people, they get angry when they keep waking up. And yes, in answer to a reader's question, there are links between anger and sleep deprivation.

However, don't get discouraged. When you drag yourself out of bed, the best thing to do is read.

If you have a stack of unread magazines, newsletters, or newspapers, here's your chance to read them. The big key is to avoid getting worked up with an exciting novel or stress-causing business reading.

You want to read with the goal in mind of getting sleepy. You also do not want to turn on your computer or TV. The light from these gadgets will suppress melatonin, the sleep inducing hormone. I also recommend you read with a book light to avoid too much light getting into your eyes.

It will probably take an hour of reading before you feel sleepy enough to get back to bed. If you don't feel like reading, try meditating. Or sit quietly and think of pleasant thoughts.

Using Stimulus Control Instructions may go on for two weeks or so before it starts working for you. Yes, you'll be sleepy due to sleep deprivation. Keep in mind however, you were experiencing the effects of sleep deprivation before when you just stayed in bed, rolled around, and did not get up.

So give SCI a chance. It's a process you're just going to have to get through as you retrain your body and mind for sleep. Just be cautious. Understand you will be irritable and tired. Be careful driving. This can work for you though, as it has for many others.

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Quick Sleep Fact

Possible heart attack cause? High blood pressure. One of the warning signs of sleep deprivation is high blood pressure.

For help with high blood pressure, see the articles on my website under the sleep deprivation heading on the left hand side of the home page.

Consultant and Business Owner Pricing Tip

Therefore, when selling against a lower-priced competitor, communicate the price difference—your extra cost—in the smallest unit of measure possible.

For example: You sell an annual service agreement covering home appliances for $395, and a competitor charges $295. Customers like you better, but are having trouble with your fee being $100 higher. What they don't see is that $100 divided by 365 is only 27.4 cents a day. You need to focus on that small price differential in your selling. Point out they are getting superior service—and greater peace of mind—for just 27 cents a day..."less than the price of a first-class postage stamp."

Source: The Selling Advantage, Special Issue, 10/6/07, p.2.

Final Thoughts For Today's Chat

Keep in mind that much of the advice for how to stay asleep applies equally well to how to fall asleep in the first place. So read the information on my website on how to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, millions of people resort to hypnotic medications, also known as prescription sleeping pills, to stay asleep. I've written about these, as well as over the counter sleep aids, in other articles on my website. Recently, I've been studying the research of renowned sleeping pill expert, Dr. Daniel Kripke.

He makes it clear that the risks of taking sleeping pills are far greater than the small, very small, benefits you receive when you take them. One disturbing finding of Dr. Kripke's is the increased risks of cancer from taking prescription sleeping medications.

In future articles I will be addressing other techniques for how to stay asleep. One in particular, bright light therapy, is a highly effective treatment for insomnia.

For now though, I'm outta' here. Life is a journey. Keep exploring.

We'll chat soon.

Rich

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