Trouble Sleeping? 10 Habits that Promote Beautiful Sleep Every Night

Sleep should be the most natural of all activities for every one of us.

But in this modern world, with all its stresses and demands, for some of us, it may no longer be so. We may have trouble falling asleep. Or we may wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall asleep again. We feel tired and cranky for the rest of the day.

We then worry if we can sleep well that night. This anxiety prevents us from sleeping. And so we enter a vicious cycle which stops us from entering a natural, restful sleep.

We may end up taking pills which creates a dependency and is unhealthy.

But this, believe me, can change.

So here are 10 Habits which will help give you a wholesome, restful, revitalising sleep every night:

1. Go to bed at the same time every night. Your body has a natural body clock that follow a 24 hour cycle. If you sleep at the same time every night your body becomes aware of this and sleep comes more naturally.

2. Wake up at the same time every day, even if you haven’t slept well the night before. Use an alarm clock if you have to. Again, you are creating a routine to help with your natural body clock. You are teaching your body and mind, when it’s time to wake up and when to sleep.

3. As it gets dark outside, keep the lights dim, perhaps just have one table lamp switched on or a candle burning. Dim lights promote relaxation. The lack of strong light entering your eyes, tells the body that it’s night. This helps your natural body clock.

4. Eat your meals at regular times, especially dinner. Again this helps the natural body clock know that bed time is approaching. Don’t eat within two hours of going to sleep.

5. Turn off all electronics an hour before going to bed. No mobile phones, TV or iPads. Read a real book instead of an electronic book. You don’t want the brightness from the electronic devices entering your eyes. If listening to music, ensure that it’s calm, relaxing music played at a low volume.

6. Brush your teeth etc. an hour before bed. You can then now relax. Spend this time quietly in your bedroom. Read a real book. It’s better to read a more literary work rather than an exciting book which might keep you awake. Write in a journal. Sketch. Listen to soft, relaxing music.

7. Don’t allow yourself to worry about what happened during the day or what will happen tomorrow. Worrying won’t change anything. Nothing you can do can change the past or future. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. All you have is now. This quiet, peaceful time before bed.

8. Massage yourself just before bed. Start with massaging your feet, each individual toe, then your calves and thighs. Spend at least 15 minutes doing this.

9. Drop caffeine from your diet. No coffee, tea, energy drinks or soft drinks.

10. Learn to meditate. (I recommend Hurry Up and Meditate by David Michie) Meditate for ten to twenty minutes an hour before bed. Then just relax. It will not only help with sleep but with life too!

That Music Event, 30 Years Ago …

In these seemingly inauspicious times, we may recall that 30 years ago famous musicans from the UK, the US and Europe came together and raised £150 million for starving children in Africa. It that summer of 1985, two live concerts, one in London, the other in Philadelphia, played simultaneously to record crowds and was beamed across to 1.9 billion people in 150 countries.

Enduring names like Queen, David Bowie, U2, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Madonna, Phil Collins and others, more famous in the 80s, like Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Boomtown Rats, Sade, Paul Young, Simple Minds and Duran Duran performed for LiveAid.

My post from 3 years ago …

 

 

I was then a student in London and felt that we, as a human race, if united could achieve anything. Yet the events of recent weeks also tell us that we, once divided, whether by race, religion or culture, can cause death and, ultimately, our destruction.

Whilst we argue about religious extremism versus freedom of expression or distracted by cultural minutiae and political bickering, every 10 seconds a child dies of a hunger-related disease. It’s not that some these things are not important (they are), but not all causes are equal, and we really only have a finite time on this fine world of ours!

[My post from 3 years ago …]

A website update, 5 years later

They say that you should keep your website fresh and updated. They (whomever these Gurus may be) will find me terribly guilty, as it’s been 5 long years since I meddled with it.

The difficulty is compounded by having to learn the web editing software again, doing all the ftp stuff and uploading pages which never load! Very frustrating this website business!

The joys of website updating is not very interesting when there is so much news.

Floods in Malaysia, a plane crashing in the Java sea, cartoonist getting tragically murdered, the subsequent French police raids, massacre in Nigeria and the many more that will surely come our way.

The world goes on in joy and pain. Such is the world. We will all get old. We will all get ill and die.

Still we live here and carry on. We follow our daily routines. We do what we have to do. Sometimes what we want to do. We take joy when we can.

This is called life.

I’m not sure what that has to do with updating my website. It is, after all, an ephemeral, perhaps egoistical thing.

Hmmm … just like life.

 

 

 

“What things scare or fascinate you?”

“… and how do you turn those things into horror stories to scare other people?”

That was the question posed by Pop Club, which is Popular Book’s magazine, one of the largest book sellers in Malaysia.

So, lying on a sofa in a one bedroom Sydney apartment I found on Air B&B, I tapped away some sort of coherent answer. That was a couple of months back.

I received the mag a few weeks back. So here’s a copy of the article which I thought you might like to look at, if you, of course, have nothing better to do, this holiday season.

I quite like that photo of me screaming on the pillow. I used my iPad for that selfie as I thought of all the horrors that could join me in bed. No jokes about ex-wives or ex-girlfriends please!

Anyway, new year is approaching fast. It’s almost 2015. It’s the mid-point of the decade. 2020 is not too far off. The years roll on. Time is unstoppable.

“Time, it makes fools of all of us.”

That’s a quote from Last Breath, I think. But it may have been edited out …

Isn’t life fascinating?

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Take your Last Breath as an ebook

I love ebooks because they never get old.

I carry close to 80 books on my Kindle. Some I’ve bought and some are samples. I must confess that I’ve been reading many more classics because they’re mostly free! :)

I also love the dictionary function because there really are so many words that elude me. My memory isn’t the best either because I keep looking up the same words!

I do enjoy reading on my Kindle more than on the iPad because it’s light, I can use it in bright sunlight and that its battery last ages. And no … Amazon is not paying me a fee.

But it’s time to spruik (don’t you just love/hate that word) my latest novel …

Especially to my friends in the UK, Australia and anywhere else in this globe of ours, my novel Last Breath (which incidentally took me 5 years to write and was mostly written on a boat and in an 1890s cottage) is now available as an ebook.

You can find it on smashwords and on iBooks (where a most generous sample of 62 pages is also available).

I’m not sure why it’s not available on the trusty Kindle yet but a lot of my other books (including my first novel Dark Demon Rising) can be found there.

This spruiking is hard work. Wish there was someone else who could do it for me, so that I can go back to my napping … I mean writing!

Last Breath v The Gods

That was what it seemed like last week at the book launch of my novel Last Breath. En Rozlan was also launching his book, The Gods and in all good humour asked the audience to buy this book instead of mine!

Buy this one or the other?

This was all in the spirit off light-hearted competition. Although, I have to admit that authors competing with each other is new territory for me. I’ve always imagined us authors tapping away on our keyboards in some dark cubbyhole, isolated, alone, and working hard on our craft and the tale, with book sales being the furthest from our minds. But I suppose there are thousands if not millions of books out there and in a person’s lifetime, a reader can only read (or buy) a limited number.

I have sometimes wondered if I should stop writing fiction because I’ve no great desire to add to that ever-growing mountain of books. But then I realise that writing is what writers do and if I am struck by an idea then I am compelled to write. It is of secondary importance whether the book is ever published.

So for new writers out there I would suggest that you write because you feel compelled to write, rather than having need to be published. If the latter is your aim then perhaps writing may not give you the satisfaction that you crave for.

En Rozlan and I

The Last Breath Book Launch: Georgetown, Penang 29 Nov

If you’re in Penang or would like to take a trip there this weekend, then why not join me for my book launch?

It’s so at 6.00pm at Twelve Cups Coffee, Whiteways Arcade, Lebuh Pantai, Georgetown.

I haven’t been to Penang for years and I’m most excited as I’m told that it’s a happening place!

So what is the 450 page novel, that has taken me 5 years to write, which I thought would never be published, all about?

It’s best described in the blurb …

This, as you can see, is not horror but in this alternate history there is a langsyuir that is sucking the life blood of the nation, whilst we blame the Dolobs for everything.