Struggling to get to sleep?
Its OK. You are not alone. A lot of people struggle with getting to sleep.
However, it is important that you take quite bold action in helping yourself with this. Sleep in my view, is the most important aspect in your life you can work on to having better well-being. That's right, this is the exciting part. There's opportunity here. Its something you can work on, yourself.
I appreciate that putting it into action and actually achieving more restful sound and lengthy sleep can sometimes seem not so straight forward. In fact, its often when we really want to get to bed earlier, and make a great intention too, that we notice our mind ticking over at night, then we get more frustrated and upset because we are angry that we are STILL not asleep yet! We finally get to sleep in the early hours of the morning, then the dreaded alarm wakes us to face our day...when we had finally just got to sleep. Waking up feeling sluggish and tired at the start of the day is HORRIBLE!
Often sleep comes second to our work and family life. Arriana Huffington wrote in her book Thrive that "Too many of us think of sleep as this flexible item in our schedule that can be endlessly moved around to accommodate our fixed and top priority of work.” A lot of us are pushing ourselves with work commitments so much that we don't even know what peak performance is anymore.
I recommend getting really bold with making better sleep a priority. Make boundaries with the people around you to carve out habits to help yourself sleep. Treat it as if its so important you feel like you're being a bit over top. You are not - you cant help others if your own cup is not full and you're dragging your sluggish self through the motions of day surviving instead of thriving.
Here I am sharing 3 of my top three best tips for helping us get to sleep when it seems almost impossible:
1. Get outside for a walk
Preferably up a hill. Exercising outside in nature can do wonders for our well-being. The key is to boldly carve out time for yourself to do this. Make boundaries with others, be courageous and get outside and just walk. Make it as important as cooking dinner, or brushing your teeth. Even if you are in week 2-3 or completely exacerbated with sleeplessness, carve out a short half stint of exercise where you get a bit huffy and puffy and remove yourself from your normal daily routine. The exercise will help you sleep but will also give you tonnes of other benefits the doctor cant prescribe you - like getting a better perspective on your issues, help you snap out that ruminating, and generally uplift your mood.
2. Do a plank
I know this sounds random, but sometimes when we are lying in bed at 2am and wishing we would just go to sleep, the worst thing we can do is lay in bed and continue 'wishing we would just go to sleep'. Here, you need to be quite outrageous.....it might seem nuts. But get out of bed (probably feeling crappy and scratchy) and go to the dark lounge room and do a plank. Hold for 30-45 seconds and make your self struggle or shake a bit. If a plank is not for you, do some push ups, on your knees, whatever. Just make yourself do 10-20 repetitions of a movement. Getting out of your head and into your body is the key here. We want to slightly tire ourselves so we eventually help switch on our parasympathetic nervous system - rest and recovery. We just have to be a little smarter than our ruminating thoughts - override them with getting into action, and into your body.
2. Try a Yoga Nidra class
Yoga Nidra or yogic sleep is a yoga class where you experience a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. Your yoga teacher will lead you step by step into a state similar to the “going to sleep” stage. This guided relaxation helps you restore and recover as you become aware of your inner world following a set of verbal instructions. Yoga Nidra uses the natural workings of the brain to bring you into a deep relaxation experience. Does this sound a bit weird to you? Remember, its always good to stay a little open minded with our wellbeing and get curious about how self soothing and yoga can help our busy minds.
There are many other strategies recommended by researchers including:
Totally getting rid of any screens at night - laptops TVs, phones
Cut down of coffee after 2pm
Avoid alcohol right before bed to give the body time to metabolise it
Have clarity of purpose - this doesn’t just drop on our doorstep of course. Clarity of purpose helps us cope better with adversity and stress. Attending a Wellbeing Workshop at Heart and Mind Yoga is a good place to start the personal enquiry on getting clarity of purpose.
In summary, usually its a spiral effect with these things. Getting more exercise helps you sleep, and sleeping more makes you more inclined to exercise, and eat well. Find your entry point, experiment with what works. And be patient and kind to yourself. Change is hard, but worth it.
The next Yoga and Wellbeing Workshop Saturday November 2nd 9.30am-12.30pm Book here
Jo Jarden is a personal trainer and yoga teacher and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio in Central Christchurch. With 10 years experience in health promotion, she now helps people one on one with their wellbeing. Services include, yoga teaching, personal training,workplace yoga and wellbeing workshops.