HEALTH

Losing one night’s sleep is bad enough, but when one becomes two and two turns into a whole week, it can often feel like you’re never going to get a good night’s sleep again.

Before you do anything, I suggest scheduling an appointment with your physician, just to make sure nothing serious is keeping you from sleeping. Subtle things like growing pains or a medication you’re taking can keep you awake in the middle of the night. When all else fails, he might even be able to prescribe or suggest a sleeping aid—prescription or over-the-counter—to help ya snooze.

In the meantime, check out our list of sleep-getting’ strategies:

Stressed? Keep a notebook by your bed. Before your head hits the pillow, take 10 minutes to journal about your day. Let out all of your frustrations on paper, and when you feel like you’ve said all there is to say, tuck yourself in and turn off the lights. Still find yourself dwelling or thinking about everything you have to do the next day? Pull yourself outta bed and keep writing.

Addicted to technology? Go through your room and take stock of everything with an on/off switch. If you have a TV in your room or a stereo or a computer, plug them into a surge protector. Before you go to bed, flip the switch to “off”. You’ll be conserving power and getting rid of those annoying blinking lights that can keep your mind awake.

Turn on the fan. It’s difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep when your room is too hot. If you can’t control your home’s thermostat, turn on an overhead fan or reconsider your comforter. Now that the weather is becoming warmer, you might want to swap that down duvet for a thinner blanket.

Up the white noise. Tech-y stores like Brookstone sell special machines that produce static-like white noise, which is meant to block out other bumps ‘n’ creaks in the night. For an on-the-cheap version, ask Dad to take you to a hardware store to pick up a box fan for about 10 bucks.

Turn off the tube. Instead of watching television, surfing the Internet or doing HW until you hit the hay, grab a just-for-fun book or turn on some super-mellow music. Turning off the working part of your brain will let ya fall asleep faster.

Good luck, girlie!

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by Brittany Taylor | 2/1/2016