A recent article in Woman’s World magazine has some good tips for helping us get to sleep.

1. Drinking coffee before 11:00am. Caffeine takes up to 12 hours to  be broken down by our livers. So if we drink it too late in the day, it could have an adverse affect on our sleep.  So, enjoy our morning cup or two and then give our bodies time to process and get rid of the caffeine in our systems.
2. Eat nuts in the afternoon. Nuts, especially almonds, have a lot of calcium and magnesium which relaxes our muscles and nervous systems which promotes good, deep restorative sleep. For best results, they need to be in our system for at least six hours. A good portion to eat: 1 oz. daily.
3. Drink enough water during your day- just not too close to bedtime. We do not sleep our best if we are dehydrated. Being dehydrated stimulates our bodies to produce stress hormones. Try drinking 75% of our daily fluids before 4:00pm to prevent a lot of middle of the night waking up.
4. Enjoy a “sleepy” snack. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that eating a bowl of buttered jasmine rice right before bed will promote good sleep. Jasmine rice is a unique long-grain rice with a nutty flavor and a fragrant, soothing aroma which increases our body’s production of serotonin and cytokinins, brain hormones that calm our nerves and induce drowsiness in just 20 minutes.
5. A supplement to try: try supplementing with 200 mg. of L-theanine.  Japanese researchers found that stressed people who take this amino acid at night feel relaxed and ready to sleep within 30 minutes. L-theanine boosts production of calming brain waves that help us drift off. Please always check with your doctor before starting a new supplement.

Related Posts:

• Four States of Mind Conducive to a Good Night Sleep