21 Day Plan

Discover How to Fall Asleep Fast with the 21 Day Fall Asleep Plan

Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 21

Fall Asleep – The End and a New Beginning

Fall Asleep easily for a good night's sleep

Now is the time to establish how well you have done in preparing yourself for sleeping. If you have worked through the 21 day plan you should have seen some positive changes to your sleep and you should have gained some insights into what affects your sleep health.

Here is a brief summary of the actions you have taken over the past three weeks. Go through them again and see if you are following the plan as required. You can always go back and revise a section or see where you can make improvements.

Go through the check list answering each question with a yes or no, and if you answer a question with no then go back to that section and revise what you can do to further improve your sleeping arrangements.

In the last 24 hours:

• Was your actual time in bed within 20 minutes of your preferred time in bed?
• Is your sleepiness at appropriate times?
• Was your actual bedtime within 30 minutes of your prefered bedtime?
• Did you drink caffeine only more than ten hours before bedtime?
• Are you a non-smoker who still doesn’t smoke or have you increased the time between cigarettes by at least 10 minutes?
• Did you do any fun activities? (exercise, for yourself, with the children, charitable etc)
• Did you work at night in the evening or the early morning and take a nap?
• Did you sleep at night without taking a nap during the day?
• Were you satisfied with the comfort, light, heat and noise in your bedroom?
• Do you turn off the TV at least 30 minutes before going to sleep?
• If you have failed to fall asleep within 30 minutes and sleep wasn’t imminent, did you get out of bed?
• If you are a day or early morning worker, did you get bright light in the morning (but not the evening)?
• If you are a night worker did you avoid bright light in the morning?
• Did you and your partner keep a satisfactory agreement about bedtimes and avoid disturbing each other during the night?
• Did you avoid being disturbed by children or the phone and any pets?
• Were you active for at least 30 minutes during the day?
• Did you avoid using sleeping pills or alcohol to help you sleep?
• Did you avoid suffering from a routine medical problem – eg an allergy?
• Did you avoid worry or stress and thereby manage to sleep?
• Have you managed any pain so as to prevent it from affecting your sleep?
• Has your meals been taken at the appropriate times to avoid confusing your body?

If you can answer yes to everything then you are well on your way to resolving your sleep problems. You may already feel you are beginning to control your sleep but may need more help.

Try the Sleeptracks programme

You should see a doctor if things have not got any better for you despite completing this course and taking all of the appropriate steps.

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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 20

Fall Asleep – Eating the Right Things at the Right Times

Our digestive systems are partly controlled by our natural biological rhythms so our patterns of eating are crucial in relation to the time of sleep. The biological rhythms allow us to anticipate large meals by providing enzymes before the food arrives to aid digestion. The problems occur when the enzymes are delivered and the food doesn’t arrive, so the empty stomach gets attacked and then when the food does arrive the digestion process takes longer.

If food is eaten too late, in the last two hours before sleeping, then it can cause arousal and counter the natural relaxation to sleep. Late eating causes the metabolic rate to increase along with the body temperature and just before bedtime is when both of these should be slowing down. During the day, a large meal will help you to feel sleepy, but that is because your body temperature is already high so an increase in metabolism causes a move of energy away from your muscles promoting inactivity and sleepiness.

Eat Regularly, and do not Eat Meals Within Two Hours of Bedtime.

Be sure that you know when you should be eating in order to achieve better sleep. Eat regularly at the same time of day – especially for your large meals.

Don’t eat meals within two or three hours of bedtime. Try to eat your main meal earlier in the day, at lunchtime rather than in the evening for example.

What you eat is also important. Choose healthier foods. Eat most protein earlier in the day and more carbohydrate at night time. (Carbohydrates provide you with the nutrients for good sleep.) Eat more digestion friendly fruits and vegetables.

Avoid heartburn giving foods late in the evening. Protein-rich, spicy, heavy, fatty or greasy food are especially to be avoided.

Being overweight can cause problems with breathing during sleep, such as snoring and apnoea – pauses in breathing as you sleep. It may be associated with diabetes and night sweats. Try to control your weight through lifestyle management that includes a good diet and moderate exercise.

Look after your heart health with fewer fatty foods and less red meat. Drink more water, but too much near bedtime.

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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 19

Fall Asleep Plan – Avoiding Stiffness, Discomfort and Pain

Fall Asleep easily for a good night's sleep

The night time can be made unbearable by pain. It can be discomfort, distress or absolute agony but the end result is the same, a difficulty in falling asleep or being able to stay asleep. One type of pain in particular which is the cause of sleepless nights has been attributed to fibromyalgia – muscle pain that is not usually located in one place, but moves between the large muscle groups. To alleviate such pain it is normal to be using a painkiller or analgesic.

If pain is a problem for you and a reason for your insomnia then you have to use three tactics. Minimize, tolerate and mask. You may be using just one of these but more likely if you live with pain then it will be a combination of all three.

Minimizing Pain

This can include a variety of healthy living strategies.

Avoid anything which makes the pain worse. For example, the wrong temperature or a bad mattress. Whatever you need for maximum comfort you should seek to be using. If you need a water-bed, or a hard mattress or a foam mattress then get one.

Avoid any challenge which makes your pain worse. Standing around, extremes of temperature, overeating or over exertion for example.

Pay attention to what you are doing. Some days the pain will be worse. Why is that? Is it the way you are sitting? The shoes you are wearing? An uncomfortable chair? What is it that is able to make your pain worse?

Tone your body. This will help to minimize the sensation of pain, will help prevent further damage and make special exercises easier.

Masking Pain

This involves the use of:

• heat and cold
• medication – see your doctor
• complementary therapies. Eg: massage
• Always consult with your doctor with regard to pain relieving methods.
• Tolerating pain

Even after minimising and masking there may be a requirement to tolerate some degree of pain. Learn how to adapt a mental attitude that is comforting, using your thoughts and behavioural patterns to allow you to do your best. Pain does not devalue the essential you and is just one of many handicaps in life. Many people have grown stronger from the challenge of living with it, even though chronic pain is not to be wished upon anybody.

Consider changing the pattern of your sleep. Since an extended time in a single position can be more painful, many people consider taking a long nap in the day and shorten their nights sleep. Sometimes the nap may be taken in a reclining chair, indeed, sometimes the main nights sleep can be more comfortable when laying in a recliner.

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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 18

Fall Asleep – Worry, Stress and Depression

Fall Asleep easily for a good night's sleep

More than two-thirds of people who have trouble getting to sleep, or of getting back to sleep, complain of an over active or racing brain. It is not always the case that this type of issue always causes the problem of sleeping, but they certainly do not help and can seriously impede a successful outcome. If you are going to fall asleep fast, then dealing with worry stress and depression first is important.

Basically, you have to force the issue. Don’t take problems to bed with you. Deal with them before bedtime and view going to bed as a place where you can go and leave problems and worries behind. The bed is a place that is worry free, stress free and somewhere you cann be free from any concern. Just lay back and enjoy your time in bed.

Obviously, if you feel hopeless or suicidal, if you have lost interest or pleasure in things, are getting panic attacks with a sudden overwhelming feeling of dread, a racing heart or difficulty breathing then you need to see your doctor and get proper medical attention. However, sometimes sleep problems are a result of depression and that is not able to be resolved by successful medication.

Depression – is a depressed mood characterised by sadness, despair and discouragement.

Anxiety – is an unpleasant emotional response to the anticipation of unreal or imagined danger.

A Panic Attack – is a sudden attack of anxiety with relatively severe physical or mental symptoms.

Stress – is the sum of the biological reactions to adverse conditions.

You need to deal with depression, anxiety, panic and stress before you go to bed.

Dealing with problems to help you fall asleep

Over the past two weeks have you felt that your brain was too active whilst you are in bed? Think about what is causing your stress – is it work, your home life or both?

Remember the advice given in earlier posts. If you are lying awake in bed and sleep is not imminent, don’t just lay there worrying, get out of bed and take a bath or read. This is particularly important if you are prone to worry as lying there awake will just increase your anxiety. Get up and read and the problems will attain a more realistic perspective.

Set aside 15-20 minutes each afternoon to think about your main concerns. Tackle them on your own, on your terms whilst you are wide awake and able to focus. There is little point attempting to solve your difficulties at a time you want to switch off and sleep.

Be honest about the things which concern you. Examine the problem and even think about the worst possible outcome of what is bothering you. Stare it in the face and view all consequences even at their most dire. By doing it in the day, you lessening the chance that you will think about these things when you get into bed.

For each problem you identify think of one thing – no matter how small – that you can do to improve the situation or work towards a resolution. For example, if the problem is work related can you discuss with a colleague or speak to, perhaps even make a complaint to your boss.

Write down your planned action because you may need to refer to them during the night. If you find yourself worrying about the problem, get out your planned resolution and look at it. Remind yourself that the problem is on its way to being solved and the problem is being taken care of.
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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 17

Fall Asleep – Routine Medical Problems

Lack of Sleep?

Routine medical problems can affect the quality and quantity of sleep a person has. Sleep can be disturbed by pain or discomfort for example. Allergies and nasal stuffiness can make snoring or sleep apnoea worse.

There are several choices about the type of health cure you use.

Allopathic medicine is a type of medicine in which diseases are treated by producing a condition which is incompatible with the problem to be treated.

Homeopathic medicine seeks to create symptoms which are similar to the ones being treated.

Complementary or alternative medicine are terms for medical approaches which are outside of the scope of Western Medicine. These would include such methods as homeopathy, naturopathy and acupuncture.

If you have ongoing nagging health problems they can prove to be detrimental to sleeping well. Do you follow your doctors advice for minor medical problems such as allergies, athlete’s foot and heartburn? Do you have nagging medical problems which you have never tackled?

Have you had a medical check up recently? You should have one every three to five years if you are under 40 and every other year of you are over 40. Seeing doctors for other issues is not a replacement for a routine check up.

Review all the things you have been advised to do with regard to your health, and make sure you are taking any prescribed medicines in the correct quantities and at the right times. If you have any doubts about any medication you are taking then see the doctor about it. Think about the lifestyle changes recommended, the diet or exercise you have been advised to do and check that you are following the instructions. If you are not following advise then maybe you need to seek help as there may be some barriers which are preventing you from entering a new regime. If you have major problems then obviously seek help. Maybe others are worried about you? Then do not dismiss their concerns, go and get professional advice.

If you have minor problems such as occasional pain then try a non-prescription medicine to see if it helps. If it does then see the doctor for a longer term plan. You might get pain from some activity you engage in; back pain from driving for example. In that case experiment with cushions and other ways of making yourself more comfortable.

Medical problems, even seemingly very minor ones are capable of disturbing you in sleep and can be a burden when you are trying to fall asleep. Be sure to take steps to overcome these minor irritations and do not let them linger if you can prevent this type of discomfort.

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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 16

Fall Asleep – Sleeping Pills and Alcohol

Sleeping pills, is the popular name for medication which helps you to fall asleep or stay asleep. They may have their short terms benefits in some cases but they are not a cure for insomnia. Rather they merely mask the symptoms of insomnia without providing any long term solution.

Many sleeping pills will cause rebound insomnia which is where the insomnia problem is actually worse when you stop taking the pills than it was before you began. Indeed, it has been said that sleeping pills actually cause insomnia rather than cure it. For that reason, most sleep clinicians argue against the use of sleeping medication for long term sleeping problems. BUT – Do not suddenly change these medications without first consulting with your doctor.

Some medications people use to achieve sleep are not strictly speaking sleeping pills. A common pill used is the antihistamine which is a hay fever drug which causes drowsiness. They are however not good at promoting a good nights sleep.

Sleeping pills can have their uses. For travelling through time-zones, managing grief or in times of extreme stress. These are only short term solutions for short term problems however.

Avoid non-prescribed sleeping aids such as alcohol.

If you use antihistamines to sleep the you should stop taking them. If you use them more than twice a week consult your doctor first before stopping taking them.

Alcohol does release sleepiness, but the sleep is not a good quality sleep and will most likely be disturbed. Alcohol induced sleep will often be accompanied by sweating, a racing heart and restlessness. There is also a good chance you will wake up early feeling dehydrated. Alcohol also contains a lot of calories and is not conducive to an overall feeling of good health. There is some evidence which shows alcohol can be beneficial to heart conditions but it is in small quantities. Two beers a day for males and one beer a day for women is the upper limit. As you increase above this amount your blood pressure level will also increase.
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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 15

Fall Asleep – Exercise and Sleep

Lack of Sleep?

Getting a reasonable level of exercise each day is a crucial component of achieving a good sleep. Older people tend to do less exercise during the day and consequently need less sleep during the night. Insomniacs have a similar pattern. They sleep badly so feel tired and need to rest during the day. Then by the evening they are insufficiently tired to achieve a good and deep sleep.

Disclaimer: Each of us is different and at different stages in our lives so if in any doubt about your physical health and ability to engage in exercise you must always seek professional medical advice first.

To be able to fall asleep it is advisable to have a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise each day and at least 3 sessions of aerobic activity in each week.

The 30 minutes of exercise can be merely walking and should not necessarily involve one 30 minute session. A ten minute walk to work, a 5 minute walk up the stairs to a different department in your office block and two ten minute strolls with the dog each day would give you 35 minutes of exercise. Sometimes you may have to make the effort to accumulate 30 minutes of exercise. If you jump in the car and go ‘door to door’ for each trip, always take the elevator and never walk a dog then you will need to take steps to build a 30 minutes a day routine. Maybe walk to the local shop, or find a route which makes a pleasant stroll. Incorporate it in to your daily routine where you can and just leave the car behind or take the stairs.

Developing such routines will help you to protect your heart, help bring down the weight and though it will not give you aerobic exercise it will increase your physical tiredness and help you to fall asleep.

Doctors permission given, you can also add in three 30 minute sessions a week of more vigorous exercise. Jogging, sports, heavy work in the garden. The type of exercise which gets you breathing heavily and brings you to a sweat. Such physical exercise will be most beneficial for helping you rest. However, don’t do too much exercise in the last two hours of your day before trying to fall asleep.

Good exercise is beneficial in a number of ways. It promotes good sleep, helps control body weight and excess fat, and helps with a more balanced life. Try and do the kind of exercise you enjoy and it is a fun way to help you fall asleep.

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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 14

Fall Asleep – Check Your Progress

Fall Asleep easily for a good night's sleep

Check out your progress now that you have been looking at the fall asleep programme for two weeks. Are you implementing the ideas in the programme? Are there things you can review and make more effort to put right. It is better to go back and take more time than to skip forward and do things sloppily. Go through the different pages again and see if there are things you could be doing better. Make sure that at each stage you are doing as much as you can to move forward and to fall asleep easily.

Think about how well you are sleeping. Are you getting more or less sleep? What is the main cause of the problem if you are getting less sleep or the same amount of sleep. Repeat sections and if you have to. After two weeks you may well be in the hardest time.

You can assess how well you are doing in a few different ways. Do you feel more alert during the daytime? Are you more restful during your sleeping and relaxing time? It is early days so do not expect a huge improvement, but you should be laying the groundwork for building into a longer deeper sleep if yo have got this far.

Are you taking less than 20 minutes to fall asleep?

Do you wake up for more than an hour during your main sleep period?

Do you wake up more than 5 times during your main sleep period?

Have you at any time, felt sleepier during the day than you would have liked to have been?

Think about your progress and look at your preferred time in bed. You calculated a preferred time for bed earlier. Is this a good sleeping time for you or would you benefit from going to bed earlier or later? Are you getting up at a good time or again, could it be earlier or later? You may find this to be a good time for making slight adjustments on the time you spend sleeping and the time you plan to fall asleep.

In the last two weeks we have covered some of the bigger topics in sleep fitness, but the final week may be most mportant. That is because all of these topics require some thought, and refinement. As you enter the final week keep reflecting on the topics we have already discussed.

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Fall Asleep – Fall Asleep Plan – Day 13

Fall Asleep – Pets Children and the Telephone

Fall Asleep easily for a good night's sleep

Sleep disturbances are often avoidable. If you are a shift worker then sometimes you will be awoken by someone banging on the door. Most of us however do not have to worry about callers at 2am. You really shouldn’t be disturbed in your sleep by anyone other than very small children.

How often do you get disturbed during your sleep and how many of these disturbances are truly important?

• If you have pets don’t let them sleep in the bedroom.
• Set rules for thephone, and be strict about who is allowed to call. This is important, not only for the time you are to be sleeping but also in the time leading up to sleep. Use an answering machine or even turn your phones off.
• Talk with your partner about ways to share the child care during the evening/night.
• If you are a shift worker with young children then it is important to set the ground rules – with some rewards for compliance. Aim to make at least four hours of your sleep absolutely undisturbed, with no visitors, noise – such as vacuum cleaners or washing machines and no coming into the bedroom. Ideally this is a good time for everyone else to be out of the house. If you have a basement or attic bedroom that may be a more suitable place for you to be sleeping. When you wake up make some effort to spend some quality time with those who are supporting your sleep.
• If the noise which disturbs your sleep is coming from outside then try and soundproof your sleeping area. If it is noisy neighbours or their pets which are keeping you awake then talk to them. Explain your problem and see how you can get their help to provide you with some time. They may be unaware of the difficulty you face or they may be able to alter their daily schedule so they are out of the way when you need quiet. You may as well ask if it is a problem.

Find ways to cut out the disturbances to your sleep. Seek help from those around you and remove the noise and interruptions to your sleep.

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