Tom's Favorite Things : @SeriousSleep

As we have heard time and again, sleep is critically important to maintaining physical and mental strength. According to the National Institute of Health, “Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.”

Everyone’s individual sleep needs vary. In general, most healthy adults are built for 16 hours of wakefulness and need an average of eight hours of sleep a night.  Unfortunately, conservative estimates show that at least 40% of the US population are not getting enough shut eye.

I’m one of those built to not sleep.

Thanks to my FitBit, I’ve found that on a typical weekday, I average 5 hours of sleep. Am I sleep deprived?  Although I don’t feel it, according to the experts, I am. 

I’ve started to solve this problem by doing the standard things - getting off electronics earlier in the night, doing some night time stretching and writing some quick journal entries and things on my mind before hitting bed.  That has helped, but I’ve found two low tech, inexpensive, high impact tools to get a great night's sleep.

Woosh.

With two dogs roaming the bedroom and our older house my light sleeping habits were triggered whenever I heard a dog move or the house go bump in the night.  It seemed like there wasn’t anything I could do, until my wife brought how an incredible tool.

It’s called a Dohm Sound machine and it works like a charm.

White noise promotes relaxation prior to sleep by providing a constant, soothing sound for your brain to settle on. This helps quiet the mind and keeps you from focusing on disruptive sounds which interfere with the process of falling asleep.

Once you're asleep, white noise works all night long to drown out the random noises that would have woken you up - either completely or just as partial 'micro-awakenings,' which you may not even have remembered in the morning. This means that you sleep more solidly and deeply, and rise feeling more rested and restored.

The Original Sound Conditioner first introduced in 1962, the Dohm is so effective, it was named "Official Sound Conditioner" of the National Sleep Foundation.

Instead of a digital recording, it has a built-in fan that creates the sound of rushing air. The Dohm consists of a compact adjustable acoustic housing surrounding a two-speed electric motor with a unique asymmetrical fan. This design allows it to create the soothing sound of rushing air without the disturbance of actual moving air.

This all-natural "white noise" sound has been proven to effectively block noises at a broad range of frequencies, so you can get deep, undisturbed sleep all night long. The Dohm’s two speeds and adjustable tone and volume allow you to control your personal sound environment with the simple twist of a wrist. By adjusting the speed and sound openings, you will customize the volume and tone to find a soothing white noise that's ideal for you.

Now that we had the noise situation under control, time to figure out the other piece.

We love light - the more windows and natural light the better.  This love comes at a steep price - when the sun starks to peak through the windows at 4am, I would be jolted awake. 

As a night-owl, this was miserable.

We got the idea to try a sleep mask after it worked incredibly well on a long plane ride.  After scouring Amazon, we settled on giving the Bruntmor, Lightweight Travel Sleep Mask a try.

This mask is super comfortable with natural cotton, while effortlessly blocking out distracting light. The killer feature of the mask is that the eye socket areas are contoured so they don’t squish your eyes in.  This allows you to open your eyes naturally and not feel confined.  It’s a small feature but makes a huge difference.

I’m never going to get 8 hours of sleep a night on a consistent basis.  It’s just not how I’m built.  But using these two tools will make it a lot easy to make sure whatever sleep I do get is spent in a deep, recover-filled slumber.