MSNBC has an article today about a report in the journal aptly titled “Sleep”. According to the 6 week study those that slept too much or not enough gained weight.

Hours in the sack may have more to do with your weight than hours in the gym, finds a new study that shows too little – or too much – shuteye is a major factor in obesity.

Previous research has found that lack of sleep is associated with weight gain, but it was unclear whether the sleep problems drove the weight increase or vice versa.

To get a better handle on this chicken-or-egg issue, Canadian researchers tracked how people’s sleep patterns affected their weight over a six-year period. In the study, which appears in Tuesday’s issue of the journal Sleep, those getting six hours or less of shuteye nightly were more likely to become overweight or obese compared to those getting a solid eight hours of nightly slumber. And surprisingly, those getting nine or more hours of sleep were also more likely to become overweight or obese.

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I have written a little bit in the past about how important it is to get a good nights sleep but I never really laid out a plan for the best way to get a good nights sleep so I thought that i would do that now.

First of all I believe that it is important to get enough sleep. I know that we all hear about, and sometimes even meet people that can get by just fine on four hours sleep. The people at the other end of the spectrum that need 11 hours sleep are never going to admit it becasue they will be looked at as being lazy no matter how unfair that is.

How much sleep do you need?

So to get a good nights sleep firstly it is important to analyze exactly how much sleep that you get on average during a week. I am not talking about how musch time that we spend in bed, or how we were tired one day but caught up the next, no really we need to just look from monday to Monday, see how musch sleep we tend to get and break it down from there. Most people have an alarm that wakes them up on Monday to Friday, and then maybe go to bed late Friday and Saturday which inevitably leads to sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

To be fair in this regard I wake up by myself around 6:30 every morning and maybe 30 minutes or so later on the weekends as I have a job that allows me to start anytime I would like between 6:30 and 8:30, of course the kids would get me up if I slept in on the weekend and I do not want that.

What can hurt your sleep?

There are a multitude of sleep breaking habits that many of us have. First of all make sure that you are not consuming anything that will really hurt your sleep. Coffee is one of the big culprits for people that have sleep problems.  That mid-afternoon coffee may be a great pick me up after a bad night sleep but it is going to hurt tonights sleep. I have fallen into the same trap, if only I get my energy up now I can get a good night sleep tonight.

The next issue will be heavy food or spicy food late at night. Although both may seem like they are fin they will definitely affect your sleep. Alcohol is the same, some people think that having a night cap is a good way to get tired to sleep but really it will lead to sleeping shallow and not as deep as you need.

Exercise is a good thing to do to reregulate your system so that you can sleep well. Do not exercise too late at night but a late afternoon or early evening  workout will do wonders for making sure that you get a full nights sleep.

Preparing to sleep

Next thing to remember is the dreaded reading or watching TV in bed. Beds are for sleep. Only lie in bed when you are ready to fall asleep and do not go to bed until you are really tired and ready to sleep. One of the big problems that people have is to get into bed fully awake and lie there thinking about what happened today at work, what they have to grocery shop for and anything else that just pops into your head in the dark. One great tip on this that I got lately is to read on the couch in the living room later in the evening and then once you can not read a couple of pages without keeping your concentration then you know it is time to go to sleep.

Well if this helps great. The problem for some people though is that they get enough sleep they think but are still tired. There are a couple of issues that maybe t work if you do not feel rested in the morning. First thing to notice is that if you are sleeping but occasionally waking up then you may have some additional stress in your life that you need to deal with. Another problem that you may have is Sleep Apnea. Sleep Apnea is a real disorder that is characterized by bad bad breathing that forces you to wake or nearly wake thoughout the night. If you have a problem with either of these issues then it is a good idea to check with a doctor and get some further help.