1) A drop in body temperature has been attributed to sleep. So, if you want to sleep, having a hot bath 1 hour before sleeping might help.
2) If you have severe insomnia, try this: limit yourself to 6 hours in the bedroom, regardless of whether you're sleeping or not. If you're not sleeping, stay awake and get out of the bedroom. After one month, you should be able to get reasonable amounts of sleep.
3) Nap: The best time to nap is 2-5pm. Anything earlier, your body just doesn't want to sleep. Anything later, it might eat into your sleep.
4)Snorer? Try over-the-counter solutions, or else see a doctor, especially if you're a heavy snorer, for it might signal a more serious condition (High blood pressure, stroke, etc)
5) Coffee and alcohol disturbs your sleep cycle. Coffee not only makes sleep harder, it inhibits deeper levels of sleep. Alcohol might make you get up several times in the second half of your sleep period. Avoid coffee and alcohol 4 hours before bedtime.
6) If you're a night-shift person (i.e.: you have to be awake before sunrise), you might want to know this: the body produces melatonin, a hormone that helps get you into deep sleep (REM sleep). If the light receptors in the retina detects light, melatonin is either suppressed, or its production stops. More specifically, it appears that blue light can lower melatonin levels. The point? If you have to be awake by 3am and working at 4am, try eating your breakfast near a blue, fluorescent light or something. You might feel more alert and awake by the time you work. At the same time, you might want to cover your windows to prevent light from entering and interrupting your sleep.
7) Thinking of food for lunch and dinner? Well, meals that are high in protein are probably a good idea for lunch as they seem to make people not-so-sleepy as compared to high-carb meals. But for dinner, high-carb meals is a good idea.
8) Jet-lag? There's a new scientific research that seems to say that not eating during your flight might curb jetlag. The idea? You don't eat anything during your flight (other than water), and only eat at the next appropriate meal time at your destination, on destination clock. Why? Because when you're eating at the destination, your body is in a sense syncing to your destination's eating-time clock, and this will overwrite your sleep-time clock. Not bad, eh?
9) Want to get to sleep? Tense up your muscles, then relax them, part by part, from your toes to your bums and to your face. For the choir people you guys should be familiar with this. Well, people sleep better when their body's more relaxed - not tense. by doing this exercise, it ensures all your muscles are relaxed, so you'll hopefully get to sleep better. But this isn't an excuse for sleeping during choir practice. Firstly, the choir room is brightly lit by fluorescent light (see point 6). Secondly, you're not lying flat on a bed.
10) Lavender and Valerian. They are herbs that have been related to relaxation and better sleep as a result.
Hope you learnt something useful! (See? My blog is not just nonsense!)
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adapted from: BBC One
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