HEALTH: Good sleep

Here is my recipe for making sure you have great sleep:

• Do vigorous exercise (cardio and weights and ...)
  
• Do not sleep in the afternoon (definitely not for more than an hour)
• Go to sleep between 10 PM and 2 AM. The body has been found to best repair itself in that timeframe (I got this from a blog whose source is unconfirmed, but the times do sound reasonable).
  
• Make sure you have taken care of everything you need to (put the cellphone in the charger, prepared your bed so that it does not have any stuff left on it, set your alarm clock, left your shoes by your bed so you can jump off the moment you wake up... -- checklist on the way)
• Spend a few minutes on your journal and visualizing all the things that it would take for tomorrow to be an ideal day. Close the journal and have it ready for your next entry.
  
• Now, go do your business in the toilet (why sleep with waste in you)
• Put on some relaxing music if your bedroom/bathroom are connected (even if they are not, good music can be waiting for you -- just set it to sleep)
  
• Take a cold shower (for efficiency, you can brush your teeth while showering) for 3-5 minutes
  
• Wrap yourself in a nice warm towel (you might even want to pre-heat your towel)
  
• Once you are nice and dry, get into bed and sleep. Do not think. Just sleep.
• Become an early riser -- wake up at the same time EACH day. To me, 6 AM seems to be the perfect time.
  

As for beds, I strongly recommend Tempurpedic.

Links:

• Scientific American: Why we sleep