The Overlooked Key to Success: Sleep
Not sleeping enough and not sleeping well is not OK. As a matter of fact, there is quite a price to pay. It may surprise you to learn that chronic sleep deprivation, for whatever reason, significantly affects your health, performance, safety, and pocketbook. Successful people know that good sleep is essential in the path to greatness and personal trainers list sleep as important as any other in a fitness program. Larry Miller, owner and operator of one of the largest specialty sleep shops, Sit N Sleep, lists planning for sleep, facing our current stressors and finding the right accessories as the most important factors for improving our sleep patterns.

What are the essentials for a good night's sleep?
Sleep deprivation affects more than 70 million Americans, and people are spending $24 billion a year just trying to fall asleep.

Sleep expert Dr. Michael Breus, author of Good Night: The Sleep Doctor's Four-Week Program to Better Sleep and Better Health, says that your bedroom might be keeping you from a restful sleep. Here are his bedtime essentials:

A calming paint color
"Studies have shown that color can produce emotion," he says. "And so we know when we walk into a room, we want to have a sleep environment that's conducive to sleep." Also, don't use high-gloss paint. "You want a flat paint because, again, it helps with the tone of the color."

The right light
Keep your same lamp, but use a 45-watt bulb. "It is not so bright that it's telling the brain that it's morning time and then you would stop producing melatonin, which is one of the things that helps you sleep," Dr. Breus says. "Another thing I have people do is put dimmer switches in their bedrooms to again create that ambiance."

A good reading light
Dr. Breus likes the Light Wedge. "What's interesting about this is you place it across and it actually shoots light across the page. So you're not getting that bright light that would prevent you from getting melatonin," he says. "But also you don't have that spotlight where you're kind of looking around trying to figure out what's going on, on the sides of the page. So it reduces eye strain as well." Learn more about the Light Wedge at www.lightwedge.com.

Ambient comfort pillows
This pillow can help increase oxygen levels in your body by up to 29 percent. "It uses a specific thing called nanotechnology, and what it does is it takes the ambient energy in the air and it pulls it in, and when you lie on it, it helps give it back to your skin which on your skin helps bring oxygen to it," he says.

The Indulgence pillow
This is perfect for people who sleep on their sides. "What's great about that is it's a little bit thicker, it's got a little bit more fill in it. What's also nice is it's completely hypoallergenic," he says. Find these pillows at Bed, Bath & and Beyond, www.bedbathandbeyond.com.

A Great Mattress
One good mattress option to consider is Tempur-Pedic's Rhapsody mattress. "It's made with the temper foam, and if you push down, it molds to you," Dr. Breus says. Sit N Sleeps philosophy is to offer a wide range of mattresses to tailor to a consumers concerns and maximize sleep time.

For comfort pillows, a variety of mattresses and more information on sleep, visit the Sit N Sleep website at www.sitnsleep.com.
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