Sleep help

Maybe this is covered in another thread but I didn't see it. I was wondering what different things people try or use to help them relax before they go to sleep. I saw one person used meditation and would like to know more about that. What helps you go to sleep? What keeps you awake? Do you fall asleep in front of the TV? Do you sleep with a light on? Does it have to be completely dark? Do you take naps?

Just thinking of ways we can help each other!

Hi Ruby, Maintaining good sleep hygiene I find can help one to fall asleep. Going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time even on weekends or days off can help one's body get accustomed to a schedule.

I like to read in bed for a short time....it doesn't take long to make me sleepy, but you don't want to use a very bright light. I also put lotion on my arms and hands when I wash up for bed and it smells like vanilla.....I find it very calming. Lots of people like some form of aromatherapy but may like different scents. If you are interested in meditation, etc., I found a couple good ones on you tube by Eli Bay that I liked. There are short and long versions.

Great bedtime tips, Jorja! Research also has shown that reading using a "light emitting" reader before bed is associated with more sleep problems compared to reading a printed book. So, its also useful to consider avoiding light from the various devices we are so used to using. Others use downloadable programs to change the light from computer screens (which also can be very helpful to preventing ones circadian system from getting out of balance.) Here is the abstract to that article

AbstractSend to: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Jan 27;112(4):1232-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1418490112. Epub 2014 Dec 22. Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness. Chang AM1, Aeschbach D2, Duffy JF3, Czeisler CA3. Author information Abstract In the past 50 y, there has been a decline in average sleep duration and quality, with adverse consequences on general health. A representative survey of 1,508 American adults recently revealed that 90% of Americans used some type of electronics at least a few nights per week within 1 h before bedtime. Mounting evidence from countries around the world shows the negative impact of such technology use on sleep. This negative impact on sleep may be due to the short-wavelength-enriched light emitted by these electronic devices, given that artificial-light exposure has been shown experimentally to produce alerting effects, suppress melatonin, and phase-shift the biological clock. A few reports have shown that these devices suppress melatonin levels, but little is known about the effects on circadian phase or the following sleep episode, exposing a substantial gap in our knowledge of how this increasingly popular technology affects sleep. Here we compare the biological effects of reading an electronic book on a light-emitting device (LE-eBook) with reading a printed book in the hours before bedtime. Participants reading an LE-eBook took longer to fall asleep and had reduced evening sleepiness, reduced melatonin secretion, later timing of their circadian clock, and reduced next-morning alertness than when reading a printed book. These results demonstrate that evening exposure to an LE-eBook phase-delays the circadian clock, acutely suppresses melatonin, and has important implications for understanding the impact of such technologies on sleep, performance, health, and safety. KEYWORDS: chronobiology; digital media; electronics; phase-shifting; sleep Comment in

Is it ok to add a couple of drops of some nice smelling oil into the water at night so that I would have a pleasant odor coming into my nose? I've heard about aroma therapy and wondering if I could use it with my CPAP machine?

Hi @azpatsmr. Manufacturers generally do not recommend adding oils directly to the water chamber of your CPAP machine. The oils can cause buildup in your water chamber, and some oils may actually damage the material the chamber is made from. There are other ways to add aromatherapy to your treatment. If you Google CPAP aromatherapy, you should find some results. Several of the systems involve placing a small disc or wafer (usually cotton or some other absorbent material) with a few drops of the aromatherapy product near the intake on the CPAP machine. Let us know if you try one of these and what you think!

I ordered some today from the company that makes it for CPAP only. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm real excited to try it.

i generally read or before i go to bed, however someitmes im just so tired i am able to just go to bed and fall asleep with no problem. If I have alot of thoughts running through my head and cant sleep i write everything down in my journal

Sigh..."sleep hygiene" reminds me of high school...but I do 15 minutes of back decompression exercise during which time I meditate...stretch my leg muscles...put a couple of hot water bottles in the bed to keep my legs from cramping up (addressing low vitamin D has helped that greatly)...reading in bed for about 15-20 minutes (nothing too good, like one of the Game of Thrones novels, which kept me up way too late!)...and keeping lights low and NOTHING really mentally or physically stimulating for a about 1.5 before bedtime...and getting up at the same time every day (my doc was stern about this and I think he's great so I listen to him)...has helped enormously. The lightbox in the morning has me in better sync, too, a huge help. I'm sleeping better now than I have in decades.