A good place to sleep and a giveaway!!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Better Sleep Council for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

A good night's sleep is one of the best things in the world for so many reasons. But sometimes it's pretty hard to sleep well. Having a good place to sleep is a good start.

Here's  a guide for how to get better sleep . My own tip? When there is a lot on my mind, I do word or math puzzles. Get into a comfortable position, close my eyes, breathe slowly and regularly. Pick a subject like animals, names or colors and work through the alphabet, or try to find as many words as possible in a phrase or longer word. Sometimes I'll draw a manala just in my thoughts, or count in Fibonacci sequence. It works pretty well. That's how I get on top for a good night's sleep.
The Better Sleep Council has a ton of information on their site, including some pretty fun things like what does your sleeping position say about your personality.
Between my back problems, and the fact that my husband is a large man, our mattress needed replacing recently. It had developed a husband shaped dip on his side that was making it hard for me to get really comfortable. My previous mattress was a high quality innerspring mattress. The fault in the mattress was simply that it was time to replace it, time and nightly use wore it out. If your mattress is more than 5 years old, you might need a new one.
So how do you shop for a new mattress?

• Check out how to buy a mattress.
• Start with research! There are a lot of types of mattresses out there. 
• Talk to friends, find out who they trust. As my husband says, you can buy mattresses nearly anywhere these days- but getting questions answered and finding the perfect mattress takes a little more time. You're could spend over 10,000 hours in the next 5 years on that mattress. Make sure it's the right one for you.
• Ask the questions. What are your issues? Weight, height, how much room you use when you sleep, how it handles heat, and explain what kind of support you like. 
• Test the mattress using the SLEEP method described on the Better Sleep Council's website.

It turns out that the store that my friends recommended to me is one that links to the Better Sleep Council from their website! So my husband and I went and tried out a lot of mattresses.

The person working was willing to answer all our questions and told us to take our time, to take a nap if we wanted to really know how good the mattress was for our sleeping style. He also had a measuring tape handy so if we needed measurements to figure out if we could fit it in our door, he could tell us. He was knowledgeable and super helpful.
So we got our new mattress, and how does it help? Like I said, we got it a few months ago. In that time, both my husband and I are sleeping better. He's woken up and his first words have been "I love our bed." My back, well, that's not going to be completely better, but because of the way our mattress dissipates heat and how well it contours, I'm not waking up in pain as often. My good days start out good.
So think about shopping for a new mattress on Memorial Day.
So the giveaway? There are actually 2!
Get on Top, win $1,000 giveaway like The Better Sleep Council on Facebook and enter the Get on Top Sweepstakes for a chance to win $1000.00
The giveaway on Don't Eat the Paste is for a $50.00 Visa Gift Card.
Open to US residents, 18+
Contest is open from now until May 30, 2014.
To Enter- just leave a comment on THIS post about your sleeping troubles and how a new mattress would help.
Read the official rules right here. Izea will pick a winner, and we will need a way to contact you so make sure you include an email address.

Sleeping in the Land of the Midnight Sun

Thank you Fred Meyer's and Kroger's stores for sponsoring this post about difficulty sleeping:

Many places have a mountain they call the Sleeping Lady, this is ours. Mount Susitna.The photo was taken from a place that looks over the inlet in downtown Anchorage.

Sleeping in the Land of the Midnight Sun can be hard in the summer. The sun comes up around 4:30 am now, and goes down around 11:30 pm. Dusk and twilight last a while so there is very little true dark in the night. The sun makes people think it's earlier than it is, and kids are out playing until sunset, neighbors are grilling that late too sometimes.


When I was a kid, I loved it, instead of reading under the covers with a flashlight, there was enough light coming in my windows to read by that. After the dark and cold of winter, playing in the sun until it was late was wonderful.


As an adult, it's a bit harder. There is more reason to keep a regular schedule, but sometimes it's very hard to get to sleep. It's still daytime!

Tips I've found work for me:

• Keeping a regular schedule of sleeping and eating. Eating is part of how my body sets it's clock, so when I get busy and don't eat on a regular schedule, it does affect my sleeping schedule
• Go to bed! Even if I don't feel tired. If I stay up later, I might sleep later.
• Mind games- laying in the semi-dark, when I'm not feeling sleepy enough to sleep can be hard. I've found playing games in my mind helps. Alphabet games like trying to name a flower that begins with each letter of the alphabet, alternating male and female names through the alphabet, building structures or trying to draw fractals are all tricks I use. Your own interests might be different. Try making up a cake recipe from scratch, or counting in prime numbers. 
• Breathe - breathe deeply and evenly like your sleeping. Using this with playing games in my mind with my eyes closed is usually enough.
• Rolling eyes- Your eyes move a lot while you're sleeping. When you close your eyes, trying looking down and see how it changes your breathing, then try rolling them up and see how that changes your breathing. Don't roll them uncomfortably like you're trying to see your brain! Just a little bit of movement helps sometimes to relax.

Occasionally it's necessary to take something to help get to sleep. 

Fred Meyer's coupon for Vick's ZzzQuil . ZzzQuil is not for pain, not for colds, it's a non-habit forming sleep aid. 

I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All the opinions expressed here are my own.