Packing

I'm due to go on holiday soon and stay with my girlfriend for a bit. I'm currently in the process of packing. And the start of a successful bout of suitcase packing is a good, thorough list. A list directs tour thinking toward what you'll need and what you can get away with leaving behind. It also gives you a handy roadmap which allows you to see where you are relative to starting and how much more you have left to do.

At the moment, I'm half way through my packing and am currently rounding up some shirts to wear in Austria. The list is a great tool for me because it puts my mind at ease to see things ticked off a list and it lets me forget about packing and enjoy my holiday.

I'm about halfway though but it doesn't take me long to quickly pack. At the most, it would take me about 45 minutes to pack everything I'll need. My girlfriend will easily take 5 times that and will pack then unpack several times. At the very most, it's taken her 2 days to pack a suitcase to travel. This can be frustrating when she's buzzing around but I just sit back and relax and bat down questions about my packing because my list is complete and all items accounted for and successfully packed.

Sleep

Because I've been moving around all over the place recently, I've been sleeping in lots of different houses at different times. It's safe to say that my typical sleep pattern is shot. I do have some simple techniques that I use to help implement a regular sleep routine to help me maximise the amount of good sleep I can get out of a night.

Techniques
For me there are a few simple techniques that I use and I'll talk a little about each one below:

Darkness
For me, there's one thing I can't do without when it comes to sleep and that's darkness. I'm a bit of an owl in that I like total coal-black darkness in order to fall asleep. This means no hall lights, blinds / curtains cut and closing doors to rooms which permit light from outside in.

Quiet
I like real quiet when I go to bed, the dead space is like a blanket and wraps around your mind and body, sending me to sleep. To remedy any noises from outside, I don't go to sleep early and if there is an occasional ambient noise, I focus on the silence and apply a pillow to my ears.

Airflow
It has been proved through countless sleep studies that a good flow of cold (not freezing) air through your bedroom can help put your body to sleep and help you relax. I always have my window open a crack. This cold air is hard to come by in summer so I just switch out a duvet for simple sheets and this helps attain the desired coolness.

Sheets
As mentioned above, I use a bed covering appropriate to the season. In the height of summer, I use a couple of thin comfy cotton sheets to drape over myself to keep the chill off. In the winter, I snuggle under a thick duvet of many tog.

I hope these tips help you get some good rest yourself

health