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Before you turn to pills to treat your insomnia, try these 9 simple suggestions for a better nights sleep naturally.

1. Soften Your Bedding
Sounds too simple but the fact is using a softer pillow and a softer feeling comforter actually relaxes the body naturally to help induce drowsiness.

2. Sleep in the Dark
Even the light generated from a led alarm clock can distract the brain into remaining awake. Try pulling the shades and making your room completely dark. The natural clock within the human body recognizes darkness as a time for rest. If it is not possible to darken your room, try wearing a sleeping mask that is soft and silky to shut out the light.

3. A bed is for sleep and sex
A human brain makes habitual patterns which are difficult to break. These patterns are made without thinking about them. Have a chair to sit in and read if you are going to read. Watch TV in the family room not in bed. Any activities other than sleep or sex should be done off the bed.

4. Give it 20 minutes
When you lay down to sleep and you toss and turn, give it 20 minutes before you get up in frustration. During that 20 minutes practice deep breathing clearing your mind of everything but your breathing. If after 20 minutes you are still awake, get up and go into another room and do something quietly such as reading, then return to bed and give it another 20.

5. Keep a schedule
Regardless of what your work schedule is, keep a sleep schedule. Goto bed at relatively the same time each night (or morning) and rise at the same time. Brain patterns are made through habits. You can develop a habit of sleep once it becomes a regularly scheduled part of your day.

6. Ban the booze
Drinking alcohol in the evening may make you drowsy but the fact is it promotes a habit of needing the drink to sleep just as a pill develops a habit. Most times even a glass of wine can cause wakefulness in the middle of the night when the effect of alcohol induced drowsiness evaporates.

7. Food
Just as you have heard a large meal right before bed time can keep you awake. However, the opposite is also true. Your body can become hungry during the night and wake you up. Try eating a few crackers right before you retire at night to keep the belly rumbles from waking you up.

8. Caffeine is out
Remember that a lot more than just coffee contains caffeine. All caffeine should be avoided for at least 4 hours before you plan to go to sleep. Caffeine is also in tea, soda and chocolate.

9. Scrap the nap
If you are taking longer than a 10 minute power nap during the course of the day, scrap it. It might just be the reason you can not fall asleep at night.

If after trying these methods for a few weeks you still find that you can not sleep, contact your medical doctor as there may be an underlying problem.

Learn more about this author, Reverend Ashira Goddard.
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