I think we can all agree that “sleep like a baby” is a silly expression. \u00a0Babies sleep for a couple of hours at a time tops. \u00a0Babies usually wet themselves in their sleep. \u00a0Babies need to sleep on the backs (or whatever position is fashionable this week). \u00a0NO ONE wants to sleep like that!<\/p>\n
What you really want is to sleep like a Marquardt. \u00a0Me and my family have been amazing and irritating spouses, relatives\u00a0and roommates for decades with our ability to sleep through things like sirens, thunderstorms, marching bands and very excited pets. \u00a0We may, quite possibly, sleep through the end of the world and just wake up in Heaven the next morning wondering where we are.<\/p>\n
Granted, my family’s amazing sleeping ability is simply God-given. \u00a0However, there are tricks for getting to sleep that I as the lightest sleeper in my clan have picked up over the years that anyone can use to improve their own slumbertime.<\/p>\n
#1 Decide you can sleep. \u00a0Some people say “Oh, I can’t sleep unless it’s perfectly dark and it’s 75 degrees in the room and the northwest window is open 3 inches and I’m wearing my favorite undies” or something similar. \u00a0Get that out of your head immediately. \u00a0Think of the worse night’s sleep you can remember. \u00a0Did you actually stay awake the entire night? \u00a0Of course not, you eventually fell asleep. \u00a0So yes, you CAN sleep wherever you are.<\/p>\n
#2 Redirect your brain. \u00a0This is the biggest complaint I hear- people can’t sleep because they can’t shut their brains off. \u00a0I can’t shut my brain off either, but I have trained my brain to go where I want it to go when I decide it’s sleepy time. \u00a0 Where that road should go is going to be different for everyone, but it should absolutely not involve anything related to work or anything you are worried about. \u00a0I usually either write short stories in my head or imagine meeting someone I’ve always wanted to meet in a completely fantastic setting- if it’s too real I keep myself awake. \u00a0Basically I’m daydreaming (nightdreaming?) and it works like a charm.<\/p>\n
#3 Make noise your friend. \u00a0Once you master #2 this one is a piece of cake.<\/p>\n
We don’t always get the perfect quiet we want to sleep. \u00a0Having a fan or white noise machine is very helpful- put the fan on the floor if you don’t want the breeze on you. \u00a0But what if their are noises that fan doesn’t cover up or you aren’t at home? \u00a0What then? \u00a0Instead of annoyances, you think of the sounds another way. \u00a0They are either constant, or they come and go so you frame them accordingly.<\/p>\n
Constant noises are the easiest to deal with. \u00a0They become white\/ background noise very quickly if you stop stewing over them and just accept they are there.<\/p>\n
Noises that come and go are best imagined as waves. \u00a0Lots of people use the “crashing wave” sound on their noise machines already anyway. \u00a0Loud talking\/ laughing, traffic, even construction sounds ebb and flow in much the same way waves on the shore do. \u00a0Once you hear it for yourself you’ll be amazed you never noticed it before.<\/p>\n
I will warm you, these mind tricks do take time to master. \u00a0Don’t get frustrated or decide I’m off my rocker if they don’t work right away- practice makes perfect. \u00a0I can’t promise you the sleep of the Marquardt clan, but I can promise you less time staring at your alarm clock or ceiling once you get the hang of them.<\/p>\n
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my nap.<\/p>\n
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I think we can all agree that “sleep like a baby” is a silly expression. \u00a0Babies sleep for a couple of hours at a time tops. \u00a0Babies usually wet themselves in their sleep. \u00a0Babies need to sleep on the backs (or whatever position is fashionable this week). \u00a0NO ONE wants to sleep like that! What you really want is to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/sleeping-cub-1501170-640x480.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}