We live in a 24-hour society with little regard for rest or its well-known benefits. A solid night’s sleep contributes to greater mental acuity and serves us in almost every aspect of life. A lack of sleep leads to poor work performance, irritability, greater risk of injury, and overall poor health.

A poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation revealed that three out of four adults in the U.S. have chronic trouble falling asleep, and that one in three suffers from fatigue due to a lack of sleep that is severe enough to inhibit their daily activities.

So, what’s keeping us up? Work stress and relationship conflicts can contribute to a restless, preoccupied mind, but one could also argue that when trying to fall asleep we don’t respect the process; perhaps because we’ve been doing it so long, we take it for granted. The truth is that falling asleep is not a trait we’re privileged with -- it’s a skill we must develop.

The following four steps have been geared toward developing the fundamental skill of falling asleep. Keep in mind that trying to fall asleep doesn’t begin the moment you climb into bed; plan ahead to accommodate the time you know you will need to fall sleep.

Here are four steps that will help you through the process of trying to fall asleep.

step 1
Take care of pressing business
First things first: The smallest issues, such as responding to an e-mail, can keep your mind alert enough to prevent you from relaxing.

Before you try to fall sleep, make certain you have addressed anything -- any issue or pressing business -- that has the potential to nag at you. In short, if there is anything that might cause you distress and prevent you from relaxing when you climb into bed, take care of it now.

If there are issues you simply can not tackle before going to bed, jot them onto a piece of paper, including any additional thoughts you might have on the subjects. Doing this lets you feel as though you have acknowledged the issues and have taken nominal steps to address them that night -- a reassuring belief that can pay off as you try to fall asleep.

step 2
Hide the alarm clock
We all know what it’s like to lie in bed and, every so often, glance at the clock and do the math: “1:00; I can still get five hours of sleep,” but that optimism soon turns to negotiation: “1:30; four and a half hours. If I skip a shower and don’t stop for coffee, I can still get five hours.” Two big problems accompany this: It is not the kind of mental activity that contributes to relaxation, and by trading away aspects of your morning routine, you severely compromise your entire day.

In any given 12- to 24-hour period, you need your alarm clock on precisely two occasions: at night when going to bed to set the alarm, and in the morning when that alarm goes off. Between those two occasions, you have no use for the thing, so position it so that you can not see the clock face. Taking such a step will also prevent you from knowing what time it is if you wake up in the middle of the night. While it may be reassuring at times to wake up and learn you still have four or five hours of sleep left, there will be other times when you wake up to less reassuring news.

You will benefit in the long-term from eliminating all the distractions associated with going to bed, including watching television or listening to music. Reliance on these stimulants to fall asleep sets a dangerous precedent for those occasions when you’re not at home and don’t have access to them, as well as those times when you awake in the middle of the night and can’t fall asleep again without them.

step 3
Quiet your mind
Filtering out all the rambling thoughts from your mind when trying to fall asleep may be the most important step in the process. It may also be the most difficult.

In order to quiet your mind, get ready to fall asleep with the firm conviction that whatever might be bothering you and causing your mind to race will be there tomorrow, and can wait until then to be addressed. If that thought doesn’t bring you peace, you will need to assume a selfish approach and assure yourself that losing sleep over it does nothing to help the situation, it only serves to hurt you.

Experts recommend avoiding stimulants like caffeine, nicotine or alcohol within six hours of going to bed, since they can exacerbate your restless mind and keep you alert. They can also mitigate the value of the hours you do manage to sleep.

step 4
Follow a single image to sleep
Pick a soothing image -- something that brings you peace. It needs to have sufficient detail to keep your attention; it’s OK for your mind to be active in this process -- just don’t let it be overactive. Your mind’s focus should be dedicated to the colors, shapes and slow, easy movement of this image. Best case scenario, your mind will succumb to the image and it will hypnotize you into sleep.

Everyone’s relaxing image will differ, but ideally it should omit people, or at least people you know. Thinking about a quiet meadow under an easy breeze is fine, but inserting your ex-girlfriend is only going to stimulate a host of other distracting thoughts and emotions.

我們生活在一個只關注利益而忽視休息的24小時制社會里。充實的睡眠會給我們生活的方方面面提供充沛的精力。缺乏睡眠會導致工作效率低下，精神焦躁不安，增加風險最重要的是有損健康。

國家睡眠基金會的一個民意測驗顯示，美國有四分之三的成年人患有慢性的睡眠癥，三分之一的人由于缺乏睡眠導致心智衰弱，嚴重影響了他們的日常生活。

那么，是什么讓我們把生活繼續下去？工作壓力和關系矛盾會造成神經疲勞和精神緊張。有人可能會反駁說，當我們睡眠的時候，我們并不注重入睡的過程，可能是我們長期這樣，我們必須承認。真正的睡眠不是我們特有的特征---而是我們必須改進的一項技能。

你可以通過以下4個步驟來入睡。

第一步

處理好緊迫的事務

首先，諸如一些回復郵件一樣的小事可能會造成你精神緊張，這足以影響你放松。

在你試著入睡之前，要確保你已經處理好了每一件事情---每一件小事或者緊急的公務都有可能打斷你的睡眠。簡言之，如果在你上床之前有什么事情可會影響你休息，現在就解決好它們。

有過有一些事情在你上床之前不能簡單的處理好，那么把它連同你的一些想法謄寫到一張小紙片上。這樣做會讓你覺得你已經解決好了----這種精神勝利法可以讓你安然入睡。

第二步

藏起你的鬧鐘

我們知道我們躺在床上的時候總是會瞥一眼鬧鐘：“一點，我還可以睡五個小時，”三是這種樂觀很快就會轉變“一點半，還有四個半小時，如果我取消早茶和洗澡，我還可以睡五個小時”。兩個大的問題隨之出現了：其一你的神經沒有放松，其二你把早上的事情拿到了晚上來思考，顛覆了你的整天的生活秩序。

在任何一個12-24小時里，你只在兩種時候需要鬧鐘：晚上睡前設上鬧鈴，早上當鬧鈴響的時候起床。在這兩個時刻之間，你并不需要鬧鐘，因此，把他放到你看不到他的地方。這樣做會避免你夜間醒來的時候知道時間，是不是該起床了或者還剩多長時間，在起床之前你可以安心睡眠。

你可能長期借助一些刺激來入睡，如看著電視或者聽著音樂。借助這些刺激是非常危險的，特別是在你不在家或者是沒有電視和音樂的場合，這個時候你如果半夜中途醒來，沒有它們的刺激你可能就再也無法入睡。

第三步

靜下心來

在入睡之前做到平心靜氣可能是這個過程中的最重要的一步，也是最難做到的一步。

為了讓你大腦清凈，你要相信所有可能擾亂你思想的事情在明天都會得到解決。如果這樣還不能讓你的思想平靜下來，你就要用你自己的方法來說服自己：缺乏睡眠除了會傷害你的身體健康之外別無好處。

專家建議要在入睡前6個小時內避免服用咖啡因，尼古丁或者酒精，因為這些會使你的腦神經處于興奮狀態，他們會有損你的睡眠質量。

第四步

隨著一個簡單的意念入睡

找你一個平靜的意念----一些讓你平靜的事物。它要能讓你注意力集中，這對你入睡有好處--只是不要太活躍。你的注意力應該集中在它的顏色，形狀，緩緩的速度，簡單的運動。你腦海的這種意念會對入睡有催眠作用。

每個人放松的意念是不同的，但是它能讓你忘掉別人。想象著微風下的一片靜靜的牧場，但是如果把你的女友安排在這個場景里就會讓你的思想產生雜念。