9 Tips to Fall Asleep Faster

By BEN FORER

June 15, 2011

Having trouble falling asleep at night? ABC News spoke with Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and author of "The Sleep Doctor's Diet Plan," for these suggestions:

1. Count Backwards from 300 by 3s

Breus said the most common reason people have trouble falling asleep is that they cannot turnoff their mind. Breus uses a variety of distraction techniques, one of them is telling people to count backwards from 300 by 3s.

"It's mathematically so complicated you can't do anything else, and it's so doggone boring you are out like a light," Breus said.

He also suggests using a worry journal. A worry journal is where you write down the problems you are thinking about on one side of a piece of paper and a solution to each problem on the other. The solution can be as simple as scheduling a time to think more about the issue.

2. Reduce Caffeine Intake

You should be caffeine-free by about 2 p.m., according to Breus. Most people are not aware that caffeine has a half life of up to eight hours and can affect not only your ability to fall asleep, but also the quality of sleep you are getting.

3. Take a Hot Bath

Take a hot bath 60 to 75 minutes before bed. The bath should be warmer than 100 degrees Fahrenheit and you should be in it for longer than 20 minutes.

Breus said the bath will relax your musculature and increase your core body temperature. He explains the increase in body temperature is important because once you leave the bath your body temperature will start to cool which is a signal to your brain to release melatonin, a hormone that helps you fall asleep.

4. Stop Exercising Four Hours Before Bed

Exercise is great for sleep, but Breus said that it's hard for the body to wind down after doing it. He advises finding an earlier time in the day to do exercise.

5. Keep the Kids and the Animals Out of Bed

Kids and pets can wake you up in the middle of the night and disrupt your sleep cycle.

6. Have a Comfortable Bed

Often times just buying a new mattress can be the secret to getting a better night's rest.

7. Sleep in a Cool Room

According to Breus, people sleep best when the room is between 65 and 75 degrees fahrenheit and the bed's surface is between 82 and 86 degrees fahrenheit.

8. Eat Your Last Meal Three and a Half to Four Hours Before Bed

Eat your last meal three and a half to four hours before bed. The body was not meant to digest food lying down, it was meant to digest food sitting or standing, Breus told ABC News.

9. Monitor the Amount of Light in Your Room

Breus said that light resets your biological clock and can trick your brain into thinking it's morning. As an example he suggests using a book light to read by rather than a lamp on a bedside table that uses a much stronger bulb.

Kids Today Fall Short on Sleep Time

By MICHAEL SMITH, MedPage Today Staff Writer

Feb. 13, 2012

Kids don't get the recommended amount of sleep -- and they never have.

That's the conclusion of Australian researchers who tracked changes in sleep recommendations, and what was known about actual sleep time, over more than a century.

The rate of change varied with age, but recommended sleep consistently fell and the changes were significant for eight ages: Infants as well as children ages 4 to 8, 14 and 15.

At the same time, actual sleep also fell, declining by about 0.73 minutes per year over time.

A systematic review of the literature revealed that, since 1897, sleep recommendations for children of all ages have consistently exceeded what was known about actual sleep time, according to Lisa Anne Matricciani and colleagues at the University of South Australia in Adelaide.

In addition, both have also consistently fallen, almost in lockstep, over the years, Matricciani and colleagues reported online and in the March issue of Pediatrics.

The issue has been a matter of concern since the 19th century with observers worried that the stimulation of modern living would overtax children, the researchers noted.

The stimulation itself was usually blamed on whatever new technology was current, from radio and reading to television and the Internet.

On the other hand, those making the recommendations were consistent in admitting they had little or no evidence on which to base their suggestions, Matricciani and colleagues pointed out.

Their literature search turned up 28 studies that made sleep recommendations, and 218 that offered self- and proxy-reported sleep duration for children of various ages.

The analysis showed that, on average, recommended sleep fell about 0.71 minutes per year, or about 70 minutes over the course of the 20th century, Matricciani and colleagues found.

For 173 of some 360 recommended sleep durations, matching data were available on actual sleep. In 144 of those (83 percent) of the comparisons, recommended sleep exceeded actual sleep, with an average difference of 37 minutes.

The researchers found that recommended sleep duration was almost always higher than actual sleep duration "as if children always needed extra sleep, no matter how much they were actually getting."

A limitation of the study was that in this review, sleep duration was based on reports, rather than on objective measures such as actigraphy and polysomnography.

But those approaches have only been developed recently, are expensive and time-consuming, and have usually been applied only at the individual level, the authors noted.

Although lack of sleep has been associated with a range of adverse consequences, Matricciani and colleagues argued, there is still little understanding of dose-response effects or even the mechanisms that might lead to negative outcomes.