Learn To Fight Insomnia Effectively
Having a good day starts with having a restful sleep. Insomnia affects many people and fighting it is an objective that ranks high on their priority scales. If we haven’t slept at all during the night, we will probably try to “catch up” sleep during the day with a nap, for example. This can contribute to the return of suffering from insomnia and the vicious circle to perpetuate.
The lifestyle habits we have are extremely important for homeostasis and for the adjustment processes that take place in our body. It is important to take care of our health by doing everything in our hands. Acquiring good habits before going to bed is one of those things. This technique is called sleep hygiene and it can help us sleep more and better.
We’re used to hearing that it ‘s necessary to sleep at least eight hours a day, but to be realistic, with the busy life we lead, hardly anyone achieves that goal. The workload in many cases is very high, and we want to enjoy our free time. That’s why we dedicate our free time to activities, watching television… and we try to go to sleep as quickly as we go from one daily activity to another, and sleep needs some preparation time.
Here are some tips that experts offer to help us enjoy a better rest and to learn how to fight insomnia:
Advice to End Insomnia
1. Establish a time to sleep and wake up
Establishing some guidelines helps a lot in regulating sleep. Going to sleep and waking up at the same time every time creates a habit that can facilitate sleep when the usual bedtime approaches. Also, if one day we haven’t slept well, it’s important to wake up at the same time as usual. This will make it easier to fall asleep at night.
2. Avoid drinking alcohol before bedtime
Although alcohol is a central nervous system sedative and causes drowsiness, it does not provide restful sleep. Alcohol causes us to have poor quality sleep with multiple interruptions and a shorter time in the REM phase. If a person consumes a lot of alcohol, in addition to fragmented sleep, they may sweat and have very vivid dreams.
3. Sleep in a room without light and at a suitable temperature
There should be no bright lighting in the room, such as red LEDs or lights that could awaken our senses. It’s also not a good idea to have digital clocks that we can be constantly looking at while we can’t sleep. Temperature also influences. The room should have a pleasant temperature, not too cold and not too hot.
4. Exercise daily, but not just before bed.
Sport is beneficial to almost every aspect of our health. Exercising daily for 20-30 minutes causes energy expenditure that can influence rest and the need to sleep at night. But it ‘s always good to have a gap of at least three hours between when we’re done exercising and when we start getting ready for bed. If we train too late, we will shift our activation to bed, and it will be harder to fall asleep.
5. Do not use electronic devices in bed
The bed is a resting place. It must not be used as a place for leisure; it’s best to avoid using tablets, phones or televisions in bed. While at first it may seem like reading the news or watching television can make sleep easier, in reality it can slow you down. Paying attention to the monitor can take our sleep, in addition to causing our body to stop relating the bed with the act of sleeping.
6. Do not stay awake in bed for more than 30 minutes
There are days when it’s just impossible to sleep and we just keep tossing and turning. Allow yourself 30 minutes to try to sleep, if you can’t, get out of bed and do some relaxing activity. It’s important not to spend too much time in bed without being able to sleep, the only thing you’ll get is frustrated and indulge in insomnia.
7. Relaxation techniques before bedtime
It is advisable to perform some relaxation exercises before going to bed to prevent insomnia. For example, breathing exercises, quick stretches, listening to relaxing music or taking a long bath. All of these activities make us relax and let our worries go.
8. Avoid consuming caffeine after 6 pm
Of course, having coffee before bed is not beneficial for falling asleep, but drinking it even in the afternoon can influence it. We have to keep in mind that caffeine stays in our body for 4 to 9 hours. As a stimulant, it will directly interfere with sleep. Not only is coffee stimulating, tea, chocolate or cola can also keep us awake.
9. Awakening to sunlight
Some experts recommend waking up to sunlight. This can help to regulate our circadian rhythms and get our body to start functioning and, at night, when we are in the dark, it favors the production of melatonin naturally in our body. Melatonin is a neurohormone secreted by the pineal gland that regulates the sleep and wake cycle.
10. Not thinking about or dealing with important matters in bed
This advice is not easy to follow. When something that worries us doesn’t leave our mind, the time to go to bed is one of the most susceptible to think about it. Even if we try to blank our minds, that thought overwhelms us. Therefore, solving our problems before bedtime, making lists of what we have to do the next day, for example, can help.
11. Beware of naps
This is not to say that you have to eliminate naps altogether. There are people who benefit from them and who need to take naps to recharge their energies. But it’s important to be cautious. It is not recommended that it last longer than 30 minutes, and should not be used to compensate for lack of sleep. If we don’t usually take a nap and we do it because we’ve had insomnia, the same thing might happen again the next night.
It’s not just about sleeping eight hours a day, those eight hours have to be quality sleep. The goal of maintaining good sleep hygiene is to have energy and feel good during the day. Implementing these habits in our daily lives is a good way to take care of our health and fight insomnia easily and effectively.
