Do you find your best sleep is in a crowded, overly warm, cramped meeting room, while your boss talks about 2016 performance and goals? Well, that’s not good.

Turning off our power-plant of a brain is nearly impossible. Our desire for information is overwhelming our circuitry. People are sleeping less and less, and the scary things is, we are almost proud of it! “Look how productive I am!” Don’t mistake activity for achievement! Ten million prescriptions for sleeping pills are written every year in England alone, and a survey by Crampex has found that 86% of us suffer from sleep disturbance. Great thinkers, athletes, and achievers all agree – without real REM sleep, we are not as productive. Look how cranky we all get with each other. In many cases it is a direct reflection of our lack of sleep.

How do I get to sleep? The next time you are going to sleep, try these expert natural tips for getting the sandman to visit:

Tip #1   Turn the temperature down. As we approach sleep, we need to cool down. Being too warm, causes us to stir. Keeping your bedroom temperature 2 degrees lower than the daytime room temperature, can work wonders

Tip #2   Take hot shower before bed. Remember the cool down from Tip #1? This further assists that process in being the most effective it can.

Tip #3   Inhale through your left “Ida” nostril. Have you ever taken yoga? It works! The Ida energy, on the left, is the moon energy: reflective, calming, cooling, and feminine. The right nostril is Pingala and has the energy of the sun: bright, fiery, stimulating, and masculine. We compare these systems in our Western terminology, as the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic system, Pingala, is the fight or flight system and charges you up in times of danger. The parasympathetic system, Ida,  slows you down and helps your body automatically run its day to day jobs of digestion, elimination, sleep and more.

Tip #4   Load up on air. Have you ever hung up the phone from an important call, and found yourself almost out of breath? During the call, we may have been so focused that we forget to breathe – literally. When trying to get to sleep, load up on air. Charles Linden, the author of “Stress Free in 30 Days” (£7.12, Hay House) adds: “On another slow breath, curl your foot up toward your knee, then release. Breathe again, contract your calf muscles, then your thighs, buttocks, belly, chest, arms, and so on until you have moved all the way up your body, squeezing and releasing the muscles one by one.” When you have gone from your toes to your head, your breathing should be steady and you should feel ready for sleep. Take deep, slow, long. breaths…….Good Night!

Tip #5   Stop bragging about lack of sleep; it will catch up with you. Ever take a rare vacation, and then end up getting sick the first few days? Our mind says, ok – we are off duty – so am I, and our systems are weak. Or we survive the work day, only to be on stage at home with our loved ones and be too tired to be really engaged in what matters most.

Tip #6   Turn the Lights off. Some of us watch TV or play with our iPad before bed and have ambient lights everywhere. Darken it up – our minds need quiet, and that includes reduced light.

Tip #7   Keep a pad of paper by your bed. Are things bothering you? Lean over, write it down, and forget about it until morning. Even a good idea will be better when we’ve slept with it on a notepad, and it isn’t rattling around our heads.

Mr. Sandman, is kicking my butt – good night!

Jim