Tossing and turning in bed is a curse that most of us have experienced. When your alarm finally goes off in the morning, you feel frustrated, your day is off to a bad start. Sleep is ingrained into use from birth and this article explains how you can enhance this ability with easy-to-incorporate examples.
Make it a routine
Sleeping and waking up at a certain time every day is one of the most straightforward yet challenging improvements one can make. More often than not, a lack of good sleep comes from stress and anxiety over events of the day. It will be useful to know how to deal with stress (check out other article). The patterns that you create are powerful and can soon turn into habits, going to sleep at the same time will soon be engraved into your every day life.
Avoid screens – read a book
You might have heard of blue light ruining the quality of your sleep. However, in a world dominated by online media, what alternatives are there? For one, you can read a book. Try to pick one that does not evoke strong feelings (anger, hate, excitement, etc.). Instead, pick something that bring you peace. You may even pick a book that you have read multiple times, something that signal comfort. If this is something that does not work, you can try enabling settings on your device (such as night mode) that decreases the amount of blue light emitted by devices. You may even want to purchase blue light glasses. Even with this, the media you consume can still evoke emotions that make it difficult to fall asleep.
Avoid stressing over it
Thoughts about the negative effects of the lack of sleep can consequently cause a lack of sleep. A vicious cycle can thus be formed. It is imperative to break this cycle. For example, thoughts like “I cant fall sleep” may lead to wondering how you are going to wake up for work and can end up with you not falling asleep. The most important thing is to avoid this stress in the first place and understand and accept your problems. Maintaining a calm and easy breathing, and meditating are thus useful tools to help you along your way. I have found it useful to not think about the events of the next day and accept the feelings of not falling asleep. I convince myself that everything is going to be alright (which it usually does) and do not get worked up over not being able to fall asleep. This may not be an overnight fix, you need to build your belief over a ling period of time. However, from personal experience, it seems to be the most effective.
Activities that calm you down
When tossing and turning in bed, it is not always a good idea to continue staying in bed in hopes of falling asleep. Instead, it is advisable to get our of bead and do activates that calm you down. Get your mind of the sleeplessness and enjoy arts and crafts, reading, or other low intensity hobbies. When you do feel sleepy, calmly finish up your work and head to bed. This method ties in with both the above: finding yourself a calming activity and avoiding anxiety over sleeplessness.
Exercise daily
Getting your body tired may help with sleeplessness. Exercising for thirty minutes a day can greatly improve the amount of time you sleep and stay asleep. If you are the type of person to forget exercising or find that you do not have time to exercise, it may be best to start of slowly (three times a week), building up to a more rigorous schedule. Humans are creatures of habit, and you will soon find yourself wanting to exercise everyday which can in turn help you fall sleep.
Go outside during the day
Over time, if you do not go outside, it becomes harder to sleep at night. While sunlight is important to set circadian rhythms, it is also important to associate the daytime with activities that can be done outside the bedroom (or house). Then, by the time you get home, you are tired enough to jump straight into bed. For example, instead of exercising indoors, you can go to the gym or walk on a trail. You can even take your work outside. This also works to associate the house (and more importantly the bedroom) with an area of rest.
Avoid using the bed during the day
The bed should, ideally, only be used for sleeping. In fact, you can go a step further and allocate the use of the bedroom to sleep-related activities. Using the bed for other purposes can cause unwanted associations to form. For example, if you eat while in bed, you may start to feel the need to snack rather than eat every time you lay down for sleep. Not to mention keeping your sleeping area clean and comfortable is the most basic step to a good nights rest.