If you have trouble falling asleep, or trouble staying asleep, you’ve got a serious health condition.

A lack of sleep leads to weight gain and puts you at risk of diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and even cancer. You’ll experience more pain and be in an irritable mood.

What makes your situation even worse is that you don’t always realize how sleep deprived you are or how significant the negative effects are.

Here are some tips to help you enjoy what might be the most important one-third of your life:

Establish a regular time each day to go to bed and a regular time to get up. Make sure that you allow yourself at least an eight hour sleep opportunity each night – eight and a half or even nine hours are better.

• Get rid of caffeine and alcohol in your diet. The sleep-interfering properties of caffeine may be self-evident, but alcohol has a negative effect on sleep quality and duration, too.
• Darken your room or wear a darkening mask.
• No screens! Put down your phone, computer, or tablet for at least two hours before bed time.
• When you’re outdoors in the afternoon, wear yellow-tinted sunglasses. This filters out the UV rays which otherwise would be signaling your brain to delay your biological clock that’s ticking toward sleep-time.
• Keep your bedroom cool – as low as 65 degrees if you can manage it. You want to help your body lower your core temperature, a natural part of the normal sleep cycle.
• A warm bath before bed also (somewhat counter-intuitively) helps you to lower your internal temperature by dilating your blood vessels, allowing a more efficient outward flow of internal heat.
• Don’t use pharmacologic sleep aids.  Although the pharmaceutical companies have shown that they (marginally) increase the time that you’re “asleep,” they don’t improve the natural brain cycles that occur with normal sleep.
• NeuroTactile® Therapy resets your nervous system to help you ease your way into sleep. Call my office at 212-400-9663 for an appointment.

Healthful sleep (along with the right diet and exercise) is fundamental to good health. Don’t rob yourself of its benefits.

Dr. Lavine has been an innovator in the use of movement and touch to promote health since 1981. He practices in New York City and Princeton, NJ.