There are some things you can do to influence your sleep cycle in meaningful ways?
During the day:
- Get up at the same time every day. Going to bed at the same time every day used to be the conventional wisdom but this usually creates more anxiety. It is much easier to control when you wake up and it helps regulate and stabilize your ability to grow tired and sleep at the end of the day. You don’t have to become an early bird just choose a wake up time that you can maintain consistently both on weekdays and weekends. It should realistically suit your life and allow the ideal amount of sleeptime for you every night.
- Load manage your stress. It’s challenging to work off the pent up stress during the evening which leads to restlessness in bed. Keep your overall stress levels manageable by taking five five-to-10 minute microbreaks throughout the day. Each break should be phone free and screen free. You can use the time to meditate, take a walk, talk to a friend, listen to a podcast and/or garden.
- Worry early. It’s easy to save all your worry for when you climb into bed. It is better to set aside 15 minutes during the mid to late afternoon for “emotional” worry time. Set a timer and give yourself permission to fret about whatever is bothering you the most. Don’t try to come up with solutions to your problems. The goal is to give your pesky thoughts free rein. Jot them down on a piece of paper. When the timer goes off, discharge your thoughts by crumpling up the paper and throwing it in the trash before you go on with your day. Then if you do start to ruminate in bed, tell yourself that you will save this stuff for tomorrow and obsess over it in my next emotional worry session.
- Stick your head in the freezer. Instead of turning to coffee or napping if you are feeling low energy, give yourself a mild physical shock which can make you feel more alert. If you can’t easily stick your head in a freezer, fill a sink with cold water and immerse your face or forearms for 15 seconds.
- Hypnosis might be helpful with destressing and calming methods which can help you sleep. If you think hypnosis might help, please give me a call at 361.442.9590 or [email protected] Next post I will talk about more things that you can do at night to help with sleep.