Manny people waste hours and hours in bed for no good reason. The purpose of this post is to help you, not only to fall asleep faster, but also to improve your sleep system – the idea is that you will ultimately waste less time in bed because you will require less sleep and fall asleep faster. If you don’t have enough sleep, it can lead to depression, high blood pressure and lower productivity at work.

Here are 10 bad sleep habits:

1. Limit time spent in bed. Regardless of how long you slept, don’t spend more than 8 hours in bed. Get out of that bed! Unless of course you and your better half have morning activities of some sort planned.

2. Having pets sleep in your bed: Animal hair can trigger off asthma and other allergy attacks, so it is advisable to keep your furry friends out of your bed. Even children’s stuffed toys can be carriers of dust mites. And that is something you need to watch out for.

3. Slow Bed Movements. Instead of tossing and turning in bed, move around slowly if you absolutely have to move around. Frustration feeds on fast movements. Gentle, slow movements will make you yawn and feel more tired.

4. Cleaning your bedroom: Many disinfectants have chemicals that can irritate your skin, nose, throat and lungs when you sleep. So avoid cleaning your room in the evening, but clean it & give it a make-over in the morning.

5. Don’t concentrate on falling asleep. You should never actively pursue sleep. If you stress because you feel that you must be asleep by a certain time or simply put too much effort into focusing on falling asleep, you will decrease the likelihood of your falling asleep.

6. Putting flowers in your bedroom: Fresh flowers and their sweet scents are great to have in your room. But not while you sleep and in your bed room. Flowers have pollen that could trigger off an allergy attack in allergy-prone folks. Sunflowers are the worst offenders. If you still insist on flowers, have some low fragrance types that can minimize allergy attacks.

7. Don’t eat heavy meals in the evening. Your digestive system slows down during the night, so your system will use a lot of energy digesting late meals—energy that should have been used to rejuvenate your body! So, avoid heavy eating before bedtime.

8. No stressful activities such as decision making, quarreling or working before you sleep. No television, no mobile gadgets to stimulate your mind. Wind down instead. Read a book or say your prayers.

9. Sleeping face down: Sleeping face down can wake you up in just a little while because of the disrupted nocturnal breathing that this can result in. You will not be able to breathe properly when sleeping face down and this will wake you up.

10. Don’t waste your money on sleep-inducing medications. Don’t pop sleeping pills at night. They work for just a few nights but not for long term. Moreover medications contain side

effects.