Need some help sleeping? my 4 methods so far.

the past couple of months, i hadn't been sleeping well.  takes forever for me to knock out and boy it is darn annoying.  how i miss the days when all i had to do was simply to place my head on the pillow and within 5 minutes, i'm off to la-la land.   now i understand what friends mean when they say insomnia's a b***h.

naturally i tried a couple of things.  first, i removed the LED clock in my room as one article said to have absolutely NO light at all.  well, it does work to some extent.  I get up in the middle of the night to go to the loo (on a sad sleepless night - it was a good FIVE times!), and not knowing what time it is and having a bright shot of light to my eyeball does help me relax and not fret that I STILL hadn't sleep after an hour!

[caption id="attachment_1859" align="aligncenter" width="280"] this is actually a really useful clock - LED clock, alarm and radio rolled into one. glad it has a new home at my sis's place - rather than sitting in my cupboard![/caption]

another thing i do from time to time is switching off my white ceiling lights and using the my lamp for about 30 mins to an hour before i sleep.  the warm yellow light does help provide some gentle ambiance, so when i head to my bed, my brain's not so 'awake'.

[caption id="attachment_1856" align="aligncenter" width="547"] my table lamp! i had to clip a paper 'shield' over my lamp cos' it was way to bright and hurt my eyes! with the shield, the light is nicely diffused.[/caption]

another thing which I felt helped...now please don't laugh and think i'm weird.  It started with me trying to stop the annoying 'fan-hair'.  you know - at night when you sleep and the fan blows your hair all over your face and tickles annoy you?  one night, out of sheer irritation, i grabbed the bamboo towel my mum got me and used it to cover my eyes, forehead and kindda 'wrap' in and contain my hair. and i found that using the bamboo face towel to cover my eyes - not only blocks out light (and prevent me from looking around instead of trying to focus on sleeping), it was also softer and heavier - so that slight pressure helps me to stop fidgeting so much.  of course, there are still many times I would throw off the towel, and then head to watch TV cos' sleep just wasn't gonna come. but it does help.

[caption id="attachment_1860" align="aligncenter" width="500"] bamboo towels are surprisingly soft! previously i thought all hype, but when I used my cotton towels i totally felt the difference! bamboo's way softer and surprisingly heavier at the same time![/caption]

and this I just tried this afternoon and am so gonna try this later!  there is this app called 'Relax Melodies: Sleep & Yoga'.  It's available for iphones and android phones.  what it allows you to do is simply to select some music that you like and then you listen to it while you attempt to sleep.   I tried this afternoon for my nap and fiddle with a few sounds until i settled on 'butterfly', 'bird', 'slow waves' and 'dreams'.  I love the sound of nature, and I did eventually sleep - though I have to disclaim I was also exhausted from re-potting my plants!

[caption id="attachment_1862" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Relax Melodies![/caption]

so there! my 4 ways of trying to go to dream land!  Let me know if you have any other effective ways! i sure need some help!