Try This If You're Not Sleeping Well During COVID-19

Phentermine is the name of a health website (and the name of an amphetamine-like stimulant used for weight loss). The site recently posted a piece about the impact COVID-19 has had on our health.

A lot of the statistics gathered pertained to food. For instance, just 21% of people polled in this research say their overall diet has been worse because of the lockdown, 45% have been cooking more meals at home with healthy ingredients, and only 20% say they've been snacking more--all good indicators. But, another part of the study offered bad news about our sleep patterns.

Only 27% are getting more Zzzz's these days. We can identify. It's been a tough stretch in in our house...until this past weekend.

To be fair, there are a LOT factors leading to insomnia in our home, the least of which may be COVID-19 and its consequences. The dogs share our bed. I snore. Beth worries. About everything.

But, we may have found a cure. And it's a lot better than the method endorsed by the military that we told you about last year. Here it is: The night we turned on a fan in the bedroom, our sleep improved. And, maybe it's just our imagination or the fact that we were too unconscious to notice, the dogs slept better as well.

A 2013 article in Huffington Post seems to support our theory. In that piece, Johns Hopkins University's Dr. David Neubauer also advocated fans: "white noise can be soothing because it blocks out sudden variations in sound." And fans also cool the body to an optimum sleeping temperature.

If you're not buying the white noise theory held by Neubauer and unequivocally proven by us, there are a few other solid sleep-inducing options...

Michael Breus, the Sleep Doctor, prefers this bedtime trick: "Counting backwards from 300 by threes is my take on counting sheep, which research has shown is too easy to be effective."

And, from StartSleeping.org, here's a list of foods that may promote drowsiness: