Are your senses causing you sleep grief? Too much light or too much noise killing your quiet time? Or is it your over-active brain keeping you awake?

It seems our brains can't or don't want to turn off sometimes. They are like battery operated toys that just keep going even when you try to switch them off! In many cases we are not helping the situation by continuing to stimulate our brains when we are trying to sleep.

Too much light sends a message to your brain that it's still daytime, so not time to sleep yet! Too much noise keeps your brain processing. "What's that noise!". And there are primitive parts of our brains that won't let us sleep through noise as it could be the last thing we do (especially if it is a pack of wolves on the hill looking for dinner!!). The other problem is often we don't give our brain any wind-down time before we hit the pillow. We go straight from Action TV or Facebook straight to bed. Our minds are still buzzing with all that stimulation and definitely aren't ready to turn off. This problem is compounded by the 'bright screen' effect of TVs and other digital devices such as phones and tablets. They shine bright in our eyes telling our brain it is the middle of the day. 5 seconds later we're in bed with the lights off expecting our brains to just flick off like the switch. They don't!

There are lots of simple changes you can make to to your evening routine to avoid sensory overload before you sleep. There are also lots of simple sleep aids that can make life much easier.