Sleepless and Wide Awake

 

Around 25% of all adults get inadequate sleep - a fact that probably contributes to why many people today are easily annoyed. Sleep is the key to reinvigorating a person’s body. A person deprived of sleep is sure to feel sluggish, since their capacity to perform very rudimentary tasks is diminished.

 

Insomnia is the situation in which a person doesn’t get the necessary amount of sleep. It isn’t a sickness, but rather a symptom of something else. Often, insomniacs don’t sleep because they’re stressed out or are in deep depression.

 

Usually, insomnia exacerbates the condition that actually causes it. Left untended, stress-induced insomnia brings more stress, which leads to more sleepless nights.

 

In case you find yourself awake at godforsaken hours, there are a few things you could do to get that much needed sleep. Here are ten.

 

10. Separate Your Sleeping Space from Your Work Space

 

Insomnia is often caused by stress, and since work is usually considered a stressful activity, keeping your sleeping space away from your work space is a sensible thing to do.

Once in bed, insomniacs often find their minds racing. They think about anything, from the issues of days past to the agenda of tomorrow.

 

Now, if the focus of your stress is right beside your bed, it’s not very hard to see why you are losing sleep. In this case, the edict “out of sight, out of mind” is pretty useful. Therefore, keep your work away from your home, or even just your bedroom, and you might actually get the sleep you need.

 

9. Keep Away from Caffeine

 

True, coffee or tea in the morning gets the day started off. Without the usual caffeine fix, keeping alert early in the morning probably is an Olympic sport in itself.

 

That cup of coffee or tea might be useful for you in the morning, but having one too close to bedtime is useless in the insurgency against insomnia. Caffeine is a compound that stimulates a person’s brain into heightened activity. Since sleep provides the chance for the brain to rest, it’s not hard to see how avoiding the compound can help cure insomnia.

 

8. Have a Warm Glass of Milk

 

Remember how, when you were little, your mother would insist you to have a glass of warm milk before going to bed?

She’d often justify the imposition by saying milk helps you grow faster and taller, especially when you’re asleep.

 

Though a lot can be said about the bedtime milk’s capacity to aid the growth process, the drink also does well as a sleep-inducer. Milk contains L-tryptophan, a substance that causes the brain to produce serotonin. Higher levels of serotonin make a person sleepy.

 

Mom was right to give you that glass of milk 30 minutes before your bedtime. It was her way of getting you to bed faster.

 

7. Sleep on Your Back

 

Generally, all cures for insomnia are about getting the body relaxed and calm, since doing so makes it easier to sleep.

 

The key to most relaxation techniques is deep breathing. After all, oxygen is important for various bodily functions. When deprived of oxygen, the body reacts in an alarmed fashion. Breathing rate is heightened, which, in turn, increases all other activities in the body – a situation that’s not exactly good for getting a good night’s sleep.

 

In this regard, studies show that when a person sleeps on their stomach, their lungs have to exert more energy to get the necessary amount of oxygen. On their backs, a sleeping person frees up their lungs, making it easier to breathe and, consequently, relax.

 

6. Keep Your Bedroom Comfortable

 

Some people can fall asleep almost anywhere. Others, however, are constrained to only do so in controlled environments. They would require their beds and pillows to support their weight in a certain manner.

Likewise, room temperatures have to be cool, but not freezing. Sleep is all about relaxing, and it’s pretty hard to do so in an environment that’s outright uncomfortable.

 

What is considered comfortable, though, differs from person to person. The point here is to know what gets you relaxed. It could be a certain pillow, or that stuffed toy you always slept with when you were little. Once you’ve found what gets you comfortable, make sure that these elements are present every time you go to bed.

 

5. Switch off the Lights

 

Dealing with insomnia is one of the instances when it is better to keep yourself in the dark.

The human body is predisposed to follow certain sleeping cycles that are pretty much dependent on the time of day. Commonly, people are up and about when the sun’s shining and fast asleep in their beds when the moon is up.

 

Sleeping in a brightly-lit room, then, becomes an insurmountable task. When light shines through a person’s eyelids, the brain interprets this as a signal that it is still time to stay awake.

 

Switching off the lights is a simple thing to do, but it is crucial to a good night’s rest. In case, however, your bedroom is still pretty bright even with the lights off, a sleeping mask would easily do the trick.

 

4. Refrain from Any Highly-Stimulating Activities

 

No, this does not mean that a cure for insomnia is to just while away the time in long, drawn-out periods of inactivity. Still, engaging in highly-stimulating endeavors just around bedtime can keep you from getting a good night’s rest.

 

A particularly engaging book can keep your mind awake and, consequently, away from a night’s rest. Likewise, a few minutes on the treadmill pumps up your adrenaline, keeping you wide-eyed longer than usual.

 

You, the insomniac, should keep a pre-sleep routine that lets you wind down. A warm bath or a few mindless chores can prepare your body for a good night’s rest. The key here is to be consistent with the routine. In time, the body will start to look for it, making it easier to get that good night’s rest.

 

3. Exercise!

 

Mostly, the events that lead to bedtime have a hand in whether a person is able to get a good night’s sleep or not. After all, you get stressed over things you deal with when you’re awake.

 

Exercising on a daily basis can help cure insomnia because the exertion gives the body ample reason to look for sleep. At the end of the day, if you’re tired, your body is sure to shut down faster.

 

2. Don’t Force It!

 

If you find yourself lying wide awake at night, sometimes it’s best to stand up and do something else.

The more you keep tossing and turning on your bed, the more your body will associate wakefulness with lying down.

 

Once up, try to find something that doesn’t involve much mental or physical work. You shouldn’t plan on fixing the plumbing or finishing Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” if you’re struck with a bad bout of insomnia. Choose to do some small-scale tidying up. You could even do the dishes.

 

The point is, sometimes it’s best to be patient and to not force things to happen. Anyway, rest will surely come.

 

1. Will Yourself to Sleep

 

There are a few instances, however, when some effort is needed. Insomnia is mostly a state-of-mind that can be addressed only by some willful perseverance.

 

If something that’s bothering you is keeping you from sleeping, you could focus your energy on other things. For such relaxation techniques like meditation and deep-breathing exercises to be effective, the person performing them needs to concentrate.

Instead of getting overwhelmed by the day’s issues and problems, try not to think of them altogether. True, this might be a struggle, but whoever said good things come without a fight? Though a bedroom can be equipped with the firmest beds and the softest pillows, if a person’s mind isn’t ready for sleep, no good sleep can happen.

 

Dealing with Insomnia

 

The ideas written above are only some of the many things you can do to combat insomnia. The truth is, there’s no real clear-cut way of curing sleeplessness. The underlying theme, however, is that the insomniac is responsible for finding the best way to get a good night’s sleep. For more information regarding this article read the 12 top tips to fall asleep and stay asleep longer and tips on how to get rid of insomnia.