Do you have troubles going to sleep?

Not long ago a friend of mine was mentioning that she was having difficulty going to sleep at night.  So I asked her what does she do when she can’t go to sleep.  Her answer was watch TV until she is tired, which ends up being around 2:00am, and then she is tired the next day.

A little back ground information, this friend of mine is female and around 60 years of age.  Often women around this age do have troubles sleeping because of hormonal issues.  But in this case my friend is not suffering any other symptoms of hormonal imbalances, so I am chalking it up to something that almost all mothers who read how to raise a baby books know.  Stimulation before bedtime is not going to help your baby go to sleep.  Here I the thing…. This same advice applies for adults too.  Watching TV, playing video games, texting on your phone are all activities that stimulate the nervous system and make it hard to go to sleep.

So I suggested to my friend to try reading at least 30 minutes before bedtime, or listening to music, or some other activity other than something involving electronics or video for a minimum of 1 week.

Results:  She had troubles for the first two days, because it was out of her routine to not be watching TV before bedtime, so she struggled with that a bit.  But after that she started to sleep like a baby.  Every so often now she still has a night or two where she has troubles going to sleep, but most nights she does not have difficulty any longer.

Do you have troubles going to sleep at night?  It could be just as simple as turning off the electronics and stimulating activities… just as you would for a baby.