5 easy to learn habits that will help you sleep like a baby

As parents we sometimes feel that at the birth of our first child we say “Sayonara” to sleep for the next 20 or so years.  While lack of sleep at certain points of parenthood is inevitable and unavoidable –like me right now, for instance.  7 month old teething baby wants to be soothed all hours of the night!–proper sleep is vital to both our long term and short term health.

In his work as a Psychologist, The Husband often has to council people how to get more sleep.  Unfortunately, simply wanting to sleep and wishing to sleep sometimes isn’t enough to convince our bodies to give in and just give it a rest!

So, to help you get the best sleep possible, here are 5 ideas to help improve your quantity and quality of sleep:

1. Make sure you have the right mattress for your body.  Some people sleep better on soft mattresses, some on firm mattresses.  Because good sleep is so vital to our proper functioning during our wakeful hours a high quality mattress is a worthwhile investment.
2. Limit cell phone and tablet use before bed.  A study done by the Lighting Research Center  found that 2 or more hours of cell phone or tablet use before bed can suppress melatonin production by 23% making it difficult to fall asleep (and stay asleep).
3. Leave your cell phone outside the bedroom! There are cases where you may need to have your phone near you at all times like if you are on-call at work.  But, generally speaking, there is nothing so urgent on our phones that cannot wait until tomorrow. The point being to avoid the temptation to just “check Facebook really quick” or do other tasks should you wake up for a bit in the middle of the nigh.  If you absolutely need your phone in your bedroom just resist the urge to turn it on when you hop into bed or when you wake up at night.
4. While on the subject of technology, if you’re currently having sleep troubles or just can’t seem to get to bed early enough, make sure that you do not have a television in your bedroom.  Not only does watching tv in bed keep us up later, it can also disturb our sleep cycles.
5. Avoid taking long naps during the day.  While this may seem counter intuitive, taking long naps during the day can make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep at night.  Even if your dead tired a nap of 30 minutes or less is your best bet.

And because they know how important a good night’s sleep is, The Mattress Experts at Havertys are giving away 1 Tempur-Pedic pillow each week to a lucky winner!  The Mattress Expert Sweepstakes is going on now and runs through 9/2.  So hurry over and ENTER THE SWEEPSTAKES now!

For more information and sweepstakes rules visit the Havertys Mattress Expert page.

Did you know Havertys carries top brands like; Sealy, Tempur-Pedic, Stearns & Foster and Serta? Visit havertys.com to find a store near you!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Havertys. The opinions and text are all mine.