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3. Manage the Electronics. This is tough. Few of us can survive for more than 30 minutes without being hooked up to a cell or Black Berry at the very least. But the technological innovations that were supposed to give us more leisure time have instead made it easier for us to work all the time. The issue is that by their very nature, they create stress by forcing what Rockefeller University's Bruce McEwen, Ph.D., calls "a wholly artificial sense of urgency" on us. The minute your cell phone rings, you tense. And if your phone rings often, you never get to un-tense. That makes it difficult to wind down at night and get to sleep. The thing is, we don't have to do without our electronics to cut stress. All we have to do is control them. Answer e-mail three times a day instead of every 30 minutes, and turn off the instant notification feature. Moreover, turn off your cell after 6:00 P.M.4. Don't stay late at Work. The prevailing thought is that you have to stay late to get the job done, says Margaret Moline, Ph.D., former head of the sleep disorders center at Weill Cornell Medical College in White Plains, New York. But working right up until bedtime is bound to disrupt your sleep. So go home at a reasonable hour. The truth is that it's better to go home and go to sleep, then comeback and do more work in the morning. Studies show that after a good night's sleep, your increased ability to concentrate means that you can work faster -- and more accurately.
5. Don't Check Your E-mail. At least, not before bed. Researchers at Stanford University have found that the light from your monitor right before bed is enough to reset your whole wake/sleep cycle -- and postpone the onset of sleepiness by three hours.
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