When you go to bed and when you get up are keystones to restful, refreshing sleep. Once you learn to synchronize your body's biological clock, your body will know when to sleep and when to be alert.

1. Wake at the Same Time Every Day. A good night's sleep actually starts in the morning. The second your eyes flutter open, light shoots down the optic nerve and into the brain's biological clock. There it stimulates the production of a smorgasbord of hormones that regulate growth, reproduction, eating, sleeping, thinking, remembering -- even how you feel from minute to minute. "Sunlight activates the brain," says Frisca L. Yan-Go, M.D., medical director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center. And activating it at the same time every morning synchronizes your body's biological clock. Then your body has a clear direction that at midnight it's supposed to be asleep and at noon it's supposed to be awake. Wake up at a different time every day and the clock is out of sync. You feel groggy and hungover for hours, and even when you start to feel a bit more alert after that first Starbucks, you really never achieve the mental edge of which you're capable.

2. Hit the Sheets Only When Sleepy. No, not just tired. Sleepy, as in your eyes are droopy and you keep losing track of what people are saying to you.

3. Get Up. Sleeping from 11:30 P.M. until 2:00 A.M., tossing and turning until 4, then sleeping until 6 gives you eight hours in bed but only 4 1/2 hours of sleep. That's a huge mismatch that can actually inhibit your sleep drive and cause insomnia all by itself. To prevent that from exacerbating your sleep issues, when you wake at 2:00 A.M., get up and go read a book in the living room. Being up increases your sleep drive -- which just could make you sleepy enough to actually fall asleep when you return to bed. One caveat: Don't stay in bed when you're awake. A part of your mind will begin to associate the bed with being awake rather than being asleep. And that can turn on a nasty "I'm-not-going-to-sleep!" anxiety that will rev your engines whenever you get into bed. It's one of the most insidious -- and potent -- causes of chronic insomnia.

4. Give Yourself an Hour. The one right before bed. You need it to wind down and transition from the woman-who-can-do-everything into the woman-who-can-sleep. Unfortunately, most women are not giving themselves one single second. According to the 2007 National Sleep Foundation poll, during the hour before bed, around 60 percent of us do household chores, 37 percent take care of children, 36 percent do activities with other family members, 36 percent are on the Internet, and 21 percent do work related to their jobs.

5. Beware Sunday Night Insomnia. Staying up late on Friday and Saturday nights and sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday mornings is frequently the gift we give ourselves on weekends after a hard week at work. Yet that little gift -- small as it is -- is enough to screw up our biological clocks. Even if you get to bed early on Sunday night, you will not be ready to sleep, and you will not end up being the happy camper you were expecting come Monday morning.

何時入睡以及何時起床是獲得充足睡眠，充沛精力的關鍵。一旦你學會了調整你的生物鐘，你的身體將自己知道什么時候該睡覺，什么時候該醒了。

1、每天在相同的時間醒來。事實上，好的夜間睡眠開始于清晨。當你的眼睛微微睜開的時侯，光線投射到你視神經，同時刺激大腦的生物鐘，使大腦產生多種荷爾蒙激素。這些激素時刻調節和控制著你的發育，再生長，飲食，睡眠，思維，記憶，甚至是你的感覺。美國加利福尼亞大學洛杉磯分校“睡眠失調研究中心”的醫學主任，醫學博士，Frisca. L. Yan-Go認為：“陽光激活了大腦。”同時也同步激活了你身體的生物鐘。因此你的身體將會產生條件反射，在午夜時知道應該睡覺了，在中午時知道應該醒了。但如果你每天在不同時間醒來的話，你的生物鐘將會產生不一致。你會在數小時內感覺頭暈眼花，心里難受。當喝完了第一杯“星巴克”之后，即使你感覺清醒了一點，但實質上你仍未真正的達到精力充沛。

2、一定要是到困的時候才睡覺。是困，而不僅僅是累。困是指你的眼皮都睜不開，昏昏沉沉的都搞不明白別人在跟你說些什么。

3、關于起床。從晚上11點半睡到第二天的2點，翻來覆去直到4點，之后又睡到6點。這樣的睡覺雖然在床上躺了8個小時，但實質上真正的睡眠時間只有4個半小時。那是明顯的睡眠失諧，實際上會抑制你身體對睡覺的渴望，造成失眠。為了防止你的睡眠問題繼續惡化，當你2點睡不著醒來的時候，不妨起床到客廳讀一讀書。用這種方式使你更加的疲倦，增加你身體對睡眠的渴求。這樣的話，當你再躺到床上的時，你才會真真正正地入睡。一條告誡便是：醒了的時候不要躺在床上。因為當你睡不著的時候，你的一部分精力將花在和床折騰上，這樣反而會使你更清醒，更加無法睡著。從而讓你產生一種煩人的“我將睡不著”的憂慮。不管你什么時候上床，這種憂慮都會縈繞著你，讓你無法入睡。這也是持續失眠產生的最深層次，也是最根本的原因。

4、在上床之強給自己一個小時的個人時間。你需要平靜下來，讓自己從一個無所不能的女強人轉變成為一個睡覺厲害的女瞌睡蟲。不幸的是，很多女性甚至連給自己一秒種空閑的機會都沒有。2007年“全國睡眠基金會”的民意測驗顯示，公眾在上床睡覺之前， 60%的人要做家務，37%的人照顧小孩，36%的人會和家庭其他成員一起活動，36%的人上網，21%的人做和他們工作有關的事。

5、星期日晚失眠癥。在經過一周的辛勞之后，作為一種自我獎勵，我們往往會在周五和周六晚上玩到很晚才睡，然后在周六和周日早上睡懶覺。然而這種小小的獎勵，雖然小，但足以改變我們的生物鐘。即使你星期日晚上很早就上了床，但你卻不想睡。其結果是星期一早晨你失去了所期望的快樂。