Blog posts tagged with 'tips'

Summer is fantastic, the kids are out of school, the weather is amazing, and you are ready to go and travel the country! One of the biggest mistakes people make when traveling is forgetting to prioritize sleep especially on road trips. Drowsy driving causes approximately 72,000 car accidents each year. Driving while drowsy can be just as dangerous as driving while drunk. Each hour of sleep you don’t get only increases your and your family’s chance of a crash.

Here are some helpful hints to making sleep a priority while on vacation

1. Try to drive during the parts of the day when you are most alert. Typically mid-morning, early afternoon, and evening people tend to be at their most alert (luckily this also corresponds to the time where the roads tend to be less crowded)
2. Bring your blanket or pillow! This might sound strange but when traveling to multiple destinations or staying in unfamiliar areas and mattresses having a part of home helps you sleep better.
3. Be careful of what medicines you are taking. You don’t want to become drowsy because of a side effect of an allergy medicine.
4. Take advantage of any time you get to relax. Use those rest areas to get out and stretch and even take a nap.
5. Don’t rush your trip Take that extra day to stop and stay the night rather than booking it straight from one destination to the next. You can always find somewhere to stay that has something interesting for the family along your journey.

Simple tips that make your bedroom a better sleep zone.

Get the light right.

Stick with lower output light bulbs with warmer orange shades of white light instead of bright white light bulbs so your bedroom light is more similar to shades of light you’d experience at sunset. Bright white light sends you the signal to be awake. Check your light bulb’s packaging and look for the light appearance rating around 2200K to 2700K.

White light with a cooler appearance rating makes you feel like it is day time.
Our natural circadian rhythm is the normal rhythm that our body and mind adheres to which is based on the light from the sun. Luckily, we live in a time where light is enjoyed at the flip of a switch but this artificial light interferes with our natural circadian rhythm which can make getting to sleep more difficult.

Using a bedside lamp for ambient light is better than using overhead lighting that shines down on you. You can improve your bedroom’s lighting with an end table equipped with a lower watt bulb. Remember, a warmer light color appearance rating is going to limit the wave lengths of light that make you feel like it’s time to be awake.

Make it smell swell.

Maybe your bedroom doesn’t stink but if you are struggling to fall asleep, a calming scent like lavender, jasmine, vanilla or rosemary could help you relax. Have you ever smelled something and recalled a memory? Our sense of smell is linked to our memory. Calming scents can be used as a signal to your body that it is time for sleep. A potpourri bowl next to your bedside with calming herbs could do just the trick but be wary of candles if you are unable to put them out before bed.

It’s time to mention your television.

If you are struggling to sleep you may want to limit TV time at night. Exposure to the light emitted by TVs, tablets, computers and pocket game systems has been shown to make sleep more difficult. Reading a book, magazine, newspaper or e ink tablet before bed could help limit your exposure to the types of light that tell your brain to stay awake. You may also be able to change settings on some devices to limit these types of light.

Make sure your mattress is supporting your back, not holding you back.

If you want better sleep visit one of the 18 Mattress Direct showrooms around St. Louis Missouri and Illinois.

All Mattress Direct factory direct show rooms have mattress specialists trained to fit you for the best mattress for your sleep needs.  Plus, Mattress Direct makes shopping for the right mattress easy with our nationwide guaranteed lowest price factory direct savings. You get the lowest prices on everything in our showroom up-front so we can focus on finding the best mattress to help you.

Mattress Direct is a factory direct showroom for Tempur-pedic, Sealy, Stearns and Foster, iDirect, King Koil, and Campbell Mattress of Missouri. We proudly carry mattresses made in USA such as the Sealy Posturepedic, King Koil, Sealy Posturepedic Hybrid, Sealy Conform, Tempurpedic Cloud, Tempurpedic Conform and Tempurpedic Flex, Stearns & Foster Estate, Stearns & Foster Lux Estate, Stearns & Foster Reserve and Stearns & Foster Hybrid. We are locally owned and operated serving the greater St. Louis area and growing. Please visit our factory direct mattress showrooms so you get the lowest price and the very best mattress for your particular needs.

Is Freddy Krueger living in your nightmares? Are you afraid to fall asleep because that Wendigo will chase you around the forest again? Is Pennywise the clown luring you into the sewers at 2 am? Here are 4 of the scariest dreams, their meanings, and some possible solutions!

1.        Falling

One of the most common dreams this tends to be about inability to control your own life. Unforeseen circumstances might have changed and put you into a situation out of your control leaving you feeling helpless and alone. Falling from a tall building or mountain illustrates your inability to catch or hold onto something leaving your mind feeling like it is in a free fall.

2.        Being Chased

Confrontation is the key here. We tend to avoid confrontation at all costs not wanting to bother or antagonize whatever problem we have so we run from it. Having a dream where it is manifested as running from a 60 foot snake or Freddy Krueger is understandable. Avoiding the confrontation builds it up in our minds and we need to escape it hence the dream.

3.        Teeth Falling Out

There are two prevalent theories on teeth falling out. One is concerned with our own vanity. No one likes being seen as less than and a lot of us have inner turmoil about our outward appearance. The second is about growing older. It is something we cannot stop everyone will age. Teeth falling out represent the decay of one’s body over time especially the fear of aging.

4.        Being Naked in front of a crowd

This one ties in a little with the teeth falling out; again it is stress about personal appearance and self-image. It is the fear of being judged demonstrating itself in a dream. The person experiencing it is not only feeling embarrassed but they are being judged by everyone there. This is a very anxiety heavy dream.

The science of how to stop nightmares from happening is still rather unknown. This isn’t as easy as popping a pill and making it go away. We have to sleep and with sleep comes dreams, but there are a few ways we can hopefully prevent nightmares.

Relax

Clear your mind before sleep. We all have ridiculously stressful lives and if you take those anxieties to bed with you they end up manifesting in your dreams. Try yoga, deep breathing, or chamomile tea and give yourself 20 minutes to wind down from your day so that you can have a restful night. Deal with your daytime stressors and don’t just put it off for tomorrow because it will come after you at night.

Dream journal

If you write out your dreams more than likely you can see where they are coming from. If you wake up every Friday terrified after falling it could be a result of the Thursday staff meeting or class. Typically a pattern will appear and then you can use relaxation techniques to calm yourself while unpacking the meaning of your situation. Also most times when someone wakes up with a particular nasty dream we forget the details very quickly. The faster you can write it down the more information you will have to be able to work through the stress that is causing it.

Optimal sleep environment

Dreams happen in REM sleep. Typically the dreams we remember happen closer to our time of waking. You need to have an all-night optimal sleep environment. What that means is it needs to be dark (as dark as you can make it even red alarm clocks can keep you up, blue light only) and set at the proper temperature. The optimal sleep temperature is 67-69 degrees. Also, the more restless you are the more likely you are the lighter the sleep you are getting and the more likely you will remember your dreams. People tend to be more restless if they are sleeping on a mattress that is not giving the proper support and pressure relief.

Hopefully these tips can help you become a dream warrior at night.