If you are tossing and turning and checking the clock to see how many hours you have left to try to sleep before that alarm goes off - Stop.

I know, you want to know how do you Stop trying to sleep and really get to sleep.

In the cold light of day, bleary eyed and grouchy from lack of sleep - take a good hard look at your bedroom. The origin of your trouble sleeping is probably right here.

Is it clean and neat or are there piles of clothes and shoes on the floor, books stacked up on a desk or a sewing machine covered with the latest project? Is there an exercise device staring you in the face?

No I have no idea where you are going to put this stuff but get it out of your bedroom. Your bedroom is supposed to be a safe calm haven where you rest or engage in sex. Everything you have junked up in your room is a distraction to sleep. It is a reminder of what you didn't get finished today, or last week, or last year. No wonder you have trouble sleeping or feeling romantic.

If the treadmill is covered with clothing, you suffer from failed goals, and you wasted money. Not good thoughts to put you to sleep. And certainly not conducive to a romantic evening or morning.

Ok - now you have a nice clean room dedicated to a bed. Wait, do you have a TV, DVD, clock, telephone or any other electrical device? Is it blinking? Does it have a nice little blue, red or white light? All those little lights can be "seen" by your brain and they indicate day time - get rid of the little lights.

Now I know you are not going to move all those gadgets out of the room. Put a little piece of tape over the lights. I have an electric toothbrush that the holder blinks a blue light whenever it is charging. And that is every night after we brush our teeth before bedtime. No one can sleep with a blinking light strobing the room.

Cover the display lighted time on your clock radio or alarm. It will ring when it should and you really don't need to know what time it is after you go to bed. You can make a very simple cover for the display by putting a piece of tape over the edge of a large enough black paper. Tape it to the top of the device and you can turn it up during the day if you really need that light.

Does the moon or the street light shine brightly into your window? Invest in Venetian blinds or a dark heavy drape you can close at night. You won't have any more trouble sleeping with the light sources covered.

Ok, now you have a clean, dark room. Check the temperature. Studies all show that most people sleep much better at a lower temperature. So move that thermostat to between 65 and 70 degrees. This may be too cool if you are a mouth breather.

Your brain is going to signal sleep time because of the lower temperature. That is why you need a little time after an evening bath before going to bed. You need for your body temperature to drop.

If you are still having trouble sleeping, you may need to do a simple brain dump to get all those swirling thoughts out of your mind. Just write down everything that is going through your mind - what you need to do, who made you angry, what bills you can't figure out how to pay - everything. Now you are finished writing, you just simply tell your brain - out loud - "Ok I wrote it all down, I won't forget any of it and I expect you to come up with the solutions by morning."

Now you can go into that clean, cool, dark room, snuggle into bed and forget that you ever had any trouble sleeping.