Effective bedtime routine!!!

During a recent sinus infection and dealing with sleep disturbances caused by decongestants, I’ve stumbled upon a really great bedtime routine. This has helped me have three LDs within the last week – a record for me!

  1. Plan to be in bed at least 9 hours before your alarm will go off, preferably 10 hours. This is not news to you, but the brain needs enough time in deep sleep and enough time to get into those long REM periods toward the end of sleep.

  2. Up to 20 minutes before bedtime, watch a TV show or movie or read something that has helped you LD. (Just be cautious about anything with too much suspense or action – you don’t want to wind yourself up.)

  3. 20 minutes before bedtime, take a melatonin tablet and water. I’ve found the 3mg strength with added B6 is great. Your stomach should be otherwise fairly empty.

  4. Also 20 minutes before bedtime, take a hot bath. But first, do your usual before-bed routine (brush teeth, etc.) so you can head to bed pretty quickly after your bath.

  5. Between the melatonin and the bath, you should drop off to sleep quickly.

As a result of being relaxed, having a lot of sleep time and the melatonin/B6 combo, I’ve had long periods of REM sleep toward the morning and have been able to go into an LD fairly easily about half the time. And when I haven’t LD’s, at least my dreams have been very fun and entertaining!!

Good luck.

I wouldnt suggest melatonin tablets. When your body starts getting used to that, its gets harder to fall asleep normally.

With melatonin I find it’s really helpful for setting your routine.

example –
Most people have school/work/commitments at a certain hour in the morning (7am), but end up going to bed late (1am) , they only end up getting 6 hours sleep. They want to go to bed at 10pm but never end up getting to sleep until 1am, this is because that’s what they are use too. But taking melatonin 30 minutes before the desired sleep time (10pm) they can get into the desired routine. After only a few nights you can get to sleep on your new schedule without the melatonin.

I do this all the time, I have a messed up schedule and regularly have to get myself back on track. It works great for me.

I regularly record my sleep time patterns and find that 10pm - 8am (10hrs) is optimum conditions for myself. After 10 hrs it is very difficult to get back to sleep. (This includes a forced wakeful period for about 40 mins at 4am and all subsequent brief wakeful periods)

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Should be made sticky :smile: And like P8E (hey, I don’t think we’ve met before have we?) I think you should use melatonin only until you finish setting up your pattern (a week or less maybe) and then go to sleep without the supplements. That way it’s easy for you to set your pattern yet you don’t develop a dependency because you use melatonin for only a short period of time.

I don’t dig the melatonin tablets part, but other than that the routine sounds like a good one.

Let me know if it helps you at all! :happy: