Hi lovelies,

Did you get your beauty sleep last night? You can’t expect to be one of my lovelies without it, now, can you? Although this makes for a nice sentiment, what exactly is the message in the phrase, “beauty sleep”?

Why Do We Sleep?
We—that is, people—have evolved on a planet that has night and day. Our world’s spinning around has made us what we are—taking care of business during the day and resting and recuperating at night. Back in the caveman days, the sun came up, men hunted and gathered, women reared the young, everyone ate what was hunted and gathered, and then the sun went down and everyone went to bed. Every day.

Long having left our caves, today there is night life, homework, television and other media, and romance rituals that have delayed going to bed long after supper. And that’s O.K., but only up to a point.

The human brain needs sleep, and while most see this time as just recharging their batteries, sleep keeps our brains just as busy as they are during the daytime. Sleep is the time in which important short-term memories are consolidated into our long-term memory, which allows us to navigate our future actions. Sleep allows time for the debris of daytime brain activity to be cleared. Simply put, without sleep we don’t learn and then we die.

What Is Sleep Hygiene?
“Sleep hygiene” refers to a healthy routine of sleeping as an integral part of our day. Most sleep specialists (yes, there are such a thing!) feel that 7-9 hours of sleep each night are essential to feel and act one’s best during daytime hours. Sleep, however, is more than just conking out for those hours, but a complicated series of rapid eye movement (REM) phases and non-REM phases. These phases make up the anatomy of your good night’s sleep. Anything that interrupts this orderly process will cause your sleep hygiene to suffer…and there goes your beauty sleep!

How Should You Fix Bad Sleep Hygiene?
No matter how it happens—drinking alcohol, using stimulants, caffeine, or just nightlife and partying—at some point bad sleep hygiene happens to everyone, and you pay for it during the day. This is when it is tempting to take a sleeping pill, such as Ambien, prescribed by a doctor. But this is a temporary fix, designed to re-establish a routine with the ultimate goal being to do that routine without medication. Taking sleeping pills, without the goal of good sleep hygiene without them, is a bad plan. It is abusing sleeping pills, and it is cheating! And it is no different from any type of substance abuse.

So How Do You Do It Without Cheating?

Here are five ways:

1. Enforce your circadian rhythm. Go back to the caveman days. Be busy during your day, and after supper retire to bed at the same time every night (whether sleepy or not) to get your 7-9 hours (your own mileage may vary!).

2. Get up at the same time every day, even if you’re sleepy. This, of course, depends on step 1, above. Getting up may be a drag at first, but you will get used to it. It’s in your genes.

3. Avoid caffeinated beverages after midday—that includes coffee, colas, and energy drinks.

4. Avoid alcoholic beverages beyond what your body can naturally “detoxify,” which is usually one drink every few hours.

5. Sleep with someone you love—the payoff goes way beyond the sleep, nurturing all of the right neurotransmitters in your brain. (Even sleeping with your pet can do it.) We are loving creatures, and love’s chemistry continues during sleep, giving you the same “feel good” neurohormones, but without the addiction.