The prerequisite to any healthy lifestyle is a good night’s sleep. With our hectic everyday routine this can sometimes be a difficult thing. Nerves that are held in a constant state of tension, due to our stress, make it very difficult to relax when we finally get to bed.

There are things that you can do to help you get to sleep on time and to be able to sleep on a regular basis:

•    First on the list is exercise. If you have an office job or any kind of a job where you are stationary for large periods of time, then you definitely need to exercise on a regular basis. Work out your cardiovascular system as often as you can. This doesn’t have to be anything stressful, just as long as you are raising your heart rate a bit and you are maintaining that rate for a good fifteen minutes.

Walks are a wonderful way to exercise, and if you can’t get out for a walk then a nice casual ride on a stationary bicycle is a great alternative. Exercise does more than just get you tired so that you can sleep better. Exercise is the best way to beat stress and make you feel good. A good work out gets your body to release “endorphins” which are the feel good chemical in your brain.

•    Avoid the coffee. It seems that it’s next to impossible to go to work for eight hours now a days without ingesting at least one cup of coffee. The reasons are understandable and there are times when you just need to get your dose of caffeine in. Do try to avoid taking too much though; see if you can go from 3 cups to 1 cup. But if you must have your java, then have a cup early in the day and try to avoid coffee in the afternoon. This will help your body to get rid of most of that caffeine in your system before bedtime.

At all costs try and stay away from those power drinks that are so popular right now. These drinks will usually contain more than just caffeine; they can contain Ginseng, Gingko, Taurine, or all of the above.  Your body has a much harder time getting rid of all of these chemicals and as result you will find that sleeping will get harder and harder.

•    Try to keep some kind of schedule. The biggest thing to avoid is the mid afternoon nap. I personally know a large number of people that say that they have a hard time going to sleep, but you wouldn’t know it when their nap time rolls around. Try to wake up and go to sleep at a certain time and avoid any deviation from this schedule. If you know that you get really tired at a certain time of the day then make sure that you make plans to be out and about during those times so that you don’t fall prey to the “cat nap” gods.

A great way to get you in the mood for sleep is to create a routine. Every night before you go to bed, you might for example want to do few light stretches, fluff your pillow in one particular way, turn off the light, and go to sleep. The idea here is that your body begins to equate this routine with sleep. Eventually a simple routine like this will be all that you will need to get yourself in the perfect state of being for a wonderful night’s sleep.