Miami, FL
Get better quality sleep in 2024 with these five tips

(CNN) – Each new year offers hope for a new beginning that focuses on you. Will it be eating a healthier diet? Getting more exercise? Nurturing new and old relationships? Reducing or coping better with stress at home and at work?
All these efforts are sure to bring benefits to your long- and short-term health. Yet you’re more likely to succeed in your objectives, experts say, if you start by focusing on better quality sleep. Being well-rested boosts mood and improves energy, thus giving you a jump start to achieve your dreams and goals.
The “sweet spot” for restorative slumber is when you can sleep continuously through the four stages of sleep four to six times each night. Since each cycle is roughly 90 minutes long, most people need seven to eight hours of relatively uninterrupted z’s to achieve this goal.
The good news is you can easily train your brain to get restorative slumber. Here are five science-backed ways to obtain high-quality sleep in 2024.
Establish a sleep schedule and stick to it
Establish a set wake-up time, even on weekends, vacations or after a night of poor sleep, experts say. If bedtime and wake-up times change from day to day or on weekends, your sleep rhythms aren’t predictable, and the body doesn’t know how to respond, clinical psychologist and sleep expert Michael Grandner told CNN in an earlier interview.
“The brain likes regularity and predictability,” said Grandner, who directs the sleep and health research program at the University of Arizona and the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson.
“Waking up at the same time every day,” he said, “and then adding light and movement as soon as you wake up, will set your other rhythms for the day and give you increased energy and mood.”
Avoid certain food and drink
Don’t turn to alcohol to calm your nerves or help you sleep. Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but it traps you in the lighter stages of sleep. Your body needs to experience all three stages of sleep – light sleep, the REM or dream state, and deep sleep – to repair and restore itself fully.
Staying away from caffeine after midday and avoiding heavy or spicy foods that can create heartburn or other digestive issues can help as well.
Practice good sleep hygiene
There are many more ways to train your brain to go to sleep and stay asleep. Good habits include eliminating blue light and noise, taking warm baths or doing yoga for relaxation, and keeping the bedroom cool and free of electronic devices.
Science tells us that we rest better in cooler temperatures of about 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 20 degrees Celsius).
Blue and other LED lights emitted by laptops, smartphones and television interfere with the production of melatonin, the body’s sleep hormone.
Make the bedroom sacred
Last, but definitely not least, reserve your bed for sleep and sex. As normal as it may seem sometimes to work from bed or play games with the kids in bed, doing so doesn’t teach your brain to view the bedroom as a place for slumber.
The holy grail of sleep tips
There’s one more recommendation that Grandner swears by, saying that in his clinic it is as effective as prescription sleep medications: “The best sleep tip you can ever give somebody is get up – don’t lay in bed awake but not sleeping.”
“Whether it’s the beginning of the night or the middle of the night, if you’ve been awake for 20 or 30 minutes, get up and reset,” Grandner said. “Maybe you just need five minutes to get sleepy, or maybe an hour, but don’t spend that time awake in bed.”
Why is that so important? Because lying in bed awake can form an association in your brain that can lead to chronic insomnia, Grandner said. Instead of being a restful spot where you peacefully fall asleep, your bed becomes an anxious place where you toss and turn and wake up tired.
“It’s counterintuitive, but spending time in bed awake turns the bed into the dentist’s chair,” he said. “You want the bed to be like your favorite restaurant, where you walk in and you start getting hungry even if you just recently ate. You want the bed to do that for sleep.”
Still not sleeping like a baby? You may need professional sleep training or a visit with a sleep specialist to rule out sleep apnea or serious sleep disorders. Search online for a diagnostic sleep center in your area.

Miami, FL
Miami Dolphins getting new backup for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa

When Tua Tagovailoa missed six games during the 2024 season, the Miami Dolphins offense struggled without the NFL team’s No. 1 quarterback.
Miami won two of the games without the former Alabama All-American, but didn’t score more than 20 points in any of them.
The Dolphins used Snoop Huntley, Skylar Thompson and Tim Boyle in Tagovailoa’s place, but the former Alabama All-American will have a new backup in 2025.
Miami has reached an agreement with quarterback Zach Wilson on a one-year, $6 million contract, the Miami Herald, NFL Network and ESPN reported on Monday.
Wilson’s current contract expires at 3 p.m. CDT Wednesday, when he will be able to sign with the Dolphins. Players with expiring contracts were able to being negotiating with other NFL teams on Monday.
Wilson was the second player picked in the 2021 NFL Draft, but he did not play during the 2024 season as the Denver Broncos went with Bo Nix as their starting quarterback and Jarrett Stidham as his backup.
The Broncos re-signed Stidham to a two-year contract extension on Monday.
The Broncos acquired Wilson and a seventh-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft from the New York Jets for a sixth-round 2024 draft pick on April 22, 2024.
In his first three seasons with the Jets, Wilson started 33 games. He completed 566-of-993 passes for 6,293 yards with 23 touchdowns and 25 interceptions and ran for 498 yards and five touchdowns on 93 carries with New York.
FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.
Miami, FL
How To Watch Miami Heat-Charlotte Hornets, Lineups, Injury Report, Betting Lines

Game time: 7:30 p.m., Kaseya Center, Miami
TV: FanDuel Sports Network
Betting line: Heat -10, FanDuel
VITALS: The Heat and Hornets meet for the third of four regular season matchups. So far this season, Miami has won both previous contests
and has currently won six-straight against Charlotte. The Heat are 79-48 all-time versus the Hornets during the regular season, including 45-18 in
home games and 34-30 in road games.
PROJECTED STARTERS
HEAT
G Tyler Herro
G Davion Mitchell
C Kel’el Ware
F Andrew Wiggins
F Bam Adebayo
HORNETS
F Miles Bridges
F Josh Green
C Moussa Diabate
G Damian Baugh
G Nick Smith Jr
INJURY REPORT
HEAT
Tyler Herro: Probable – Cold
Alec Burks: Questionable – Back
Andrew Wiggins: Probable – ankle
Nikola Jovic: Out – Hand
Josh Christopher: Out – G League
Dru Smith: Out – Achilles
Duncan Robinson: Questionable – Back
HORNETS
Tre Mann: Out – Back
Brandon Miller: Out – Wrist
Jusuf Nurkic: Probable – Neck
Josh Okogie: Out – Hamstring
Tidjane Salaun: Out – G League
KJ Simpson: Out – G League
Grant Williams: Out – Knee
QUOTABLE
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on the three-game losing streak: “So we’re all in this together, that’s what I told the group right now, I’m fully with them. This is an opportunity for all of us to face our demons to get past this. This is not something that’s comfortable for any one of us. And I see something amazing on the other side if we can collectively overcome this.”
“
Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Miami Heat On SI. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com
Follow our coverage on Facebook
X: @ShandelRich
Miami, FL
Everything Miami interim Head Coach Bill Courtney Said After Season Finale Win

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — One last time for the Miami Hurricanes Interim Head coach Bill Courtney as he was able to hold his head high after a dumpster fire season that was given to him.
He takes nothing for granted and the opportunities that he was given this season show that he can still be a coach in college basketball.
it’s an incredible joy, like you know unless you’ve been in the arena and you can feel that kind of joy after a wind of big wind, um it’s hard to describe.’s, you know, you’re not embarrassed to show any kind of emotion in those moments and which you whether you with a group of guys that it really care for each other and they’re all good kids. it makes it that much sweeter again when you vent through what we’ve been through and then that you know, kept the chaoticness of the week, and we couple weeks before and just everything circling around and try to remain focused, trying to keep them focused on the games. almost impossible. I mean, the last two days of practice have been just, you know, I don’t know, they’ve been on, but for those guys to again, they focused and lock in and they play extremely hard as they did, was the testament to who they are and they care.
Yeah, um you know, we got the time out and, you know, we said we were going mad, and they were trying to face guard them. Dante out was making very difficult and catching hall from what they also screen form, uh and then they were doing some switching, and so what happened was we told them the fake the handoff to the side with your and when he did, Dres actually helped a little bit, but didn’t switch some bad at the o to the basket.
They contested it late, uh brains bad and then bring you followed up, and dunked it, you know, I was very happy because I just didn’t wanna leave on it any time on o’clock for them to get a shot.
Guys just kind of dugging, right in to play incredible defense. We were very aggressive. I thought that was the biggest difference we were much more aggressive in the ball, much more active with her hands, he would get deflections and steals and then we were able to rebound. You know, because, you know, one of the things that has always been good for us is if we can rebound, then we can run because we got some fast guys. You know, that’s going to be impossible to stop and transition. um Divines who’s fast and transitions, and also Swartz even got a lot of transition today, so those guys will rebound or whatever crazy.
you rebound it first, and we know they are going to shoot. They take a lot of shots that you might not expect him to shoot. So you gotta be ready, you got a guard that. and you got a rebound. But once we rebound you know, we can out, we said that. We said, don’t run for threes with storing, let’s do that second half a couple of times. run for lamps, all right? If we have to kick it out to shoot three, that’s great, but we’re gonna put pressure on the rim transition. and we made a point emphasis to run for lamps. I think we did that in the second half
we have a game on Saturday, and they have to meet with Jai tomorrow. So you, with your freshman, if you with you, what are you thinking about? You think about the game is stay, you with the new head coach on Sunday, right? And so, it’s difficult, you know, especially for 18, 19-year-olds to kind of compartmentalize and play a game, but then again, I’m so proud that they were able to do that. uh you know, those five guys at the end of the game did a great job of locking in and focusing. Brandon and Matt the last game in college, right? It’s still the last game, so they did want to go out with a bang, and they did that. You know, we talked about it memories that they’ll have of this game were gonna last for the rest of their life being easier her talk about. I remember my senior night vividly. No matter what happens, how much you get paid in basketball no matter what it happens, this memory will stay with you forever. So if for it to end like you did, it’s very, very sweet.
that? It’s all my interactions with these are really, really the quality of a human being an individual, so I always have nothing but the best EP falls all over the place and college basketball now. I hope that you’ll be able to kind of again, attack with some of those things right away and and be able to have success. you know, I think he knows how you doing he’s been in great programs, with some great coaches. I can’t wait wait to see you know, he does. Hopefully, my son is still here as a grand sister, so he might see pop up every once in a while. But again, I was those guys nothing but the best.
It’s hard I mean, what we were able to accomplish Jim Larranaga at Miami, you know, guys that have been here a long time, recognized how special he was. Miami basketball I was at Virginia. I was in Virginia. We came down here for road games. There was nobody here. There was no winning. The guy with the four Sweet 16 one ACC titles regular season and conference championships, turned the trists. The guy with the back-to-back elite eight in the final four and college basketball’s modern history, I think there’s been in fact three teams that have done that, right? Anybody in the country would have wanted to do that sort of success he has had, you know, achieved him or has to be appreciated, you know, and again, everything changes. I understand, that. But God believes it, that guy I, you know, I want to start to the movement to get a statue of do outside the radio lead to coordinating down to him. because he he set a legacy here with Miami basketball, that would be very, very hard to match.
Well, you know again, it’s a tough situation. I was really depressed that we lost the first two days because we put a lot of emotional energy and tried to win and then we had bad matchups and their guys got hurt so now just becomes trying to keep the thing together with toothpicks and glue. um, you know, and so, you know, we just try to stay together, try to become a team who I mentioned it before we up in California, we were really struggling, they got blow out like three straight games. and I think that was where in the genesis of our team came together. we weren’t gonna always win, but I thought that we were always gonna compete and I thought we did that for the rest of the year, we competed in every game, no matter who we had out to the floor. these last two games that basically seven guys, uh on the roster with no bigs, essentially. Kiree Huie is still rusty, but, you know, if I’m the co, I’m just trying to go dunking on like George Tech. but the guys just fought like crazy, um and so you know, it was a great opportunity for me. I loved every minute. I don’t care if I was mad at them. They were mad at me. We were struggling, we were losing again. It takes like 24 to 48 hours to just be depressed on the set of a couch about The Bachelor. That is literally what I do you, because the Bachelor, makes me think about nothing, you know, this chill I and you know, once I got over the Bachelor and it came back in the office, I tried to have a positive attitude every day, tried to leave these guys by example and tried to teach them lessons about life. Life is not always gonna be easy. We keep telling that, you know, as again, we always talk about attitude. life is 90% 10% of what happens to you in 90% of how you react to it. And I think our guys are doing a great job with that.
They will be terrific players. All improved this year in particular with their basketball IQ. They’ve learned to play the game. again, when you’re thrown into the fire like that, you have no choice. You can sink or swim and I thought they did a great job of swimming, especially in the second half of the season. Divine you seem like got a big three tonight and the confidence to take that shot is what was impressive to me because he wouldn’t have taken that shot before. Jalil learning shot selection, and discernment, got so much better on defense. I think Austin Swartz has a chance to be special, honestly. He came here last summer, he was the 13th man and he just kept working and learning how to work and it got better and better. So I think all three of those guys have incrediblyfutures no matter where they’re at.
I don’t I have no idea. I mean, college basketball is a funny sport. I imagine I’ll be coaching somewhere next year. Trying to win, try to teach less, you know, has to become then. You know, that’s my goal with this thing. I think that’s a bigger part of and, you know, it’s much changes as they are, as much money as they’re getting there still kids that are trying to be led and it took me a while to figure that out that you could still lead them. You still have to coach them, coaching in the way you think that the best way possible. so, you know, if I’ll be doing that somewhere next year.
More Miami Hurricanes Basketball News:
Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University and is the site lead for Miami Hurricanes on SI. He can be reached at justice.sandle111@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter@Justice_News5.
Follow all social media platforms to stay up to date with everything Miami Hurricanes- Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and BlueSky.
-
Politics3 days ago
Agriculture secretary cancels $600K grant for study on menstrual cycles in transgender men
-
Politics3 days ago
Republicans demand Trump cut American legal association out of nominee process
-
Politics1 week ago
OPM's second email to federal employees asks what they did last week — and adds a new requirement: report
-
News2 days ago
Gene Hackman Lost His Wife and Caregiver, and Spent 7 Days Alone
-
Politics6 days ago
EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk PAC thanks Trump for 'saving the American Dream' in new million-dollar ad
-
News3 days ago
States sue Trump administration over mass firings of federal employees
-
News3 days ago
Trump Seeks to Bar Student Loan Relief to Workers Aiding Migrants and Trans Kids
-
News1 week ago
ICE is making more arrests, but critics say some claims don't add up