2023-04-16 19:50:21
Often, when someone occasionally has trouble sleeping that can’t be explained by a medical reason or poor sleep hygiene, it can be due to what psychologist Shelby Harris calls “brain fatigue.”
Here’s how the author of Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia recommends resting your brain to support your sleep, according to mindbodygreen.com.
Imagine that you have a busy day when things take a little longer than planned. It’s lunchtime and your to-do list is only half full. You focus to get everything done and eventually go to bed on time. Success! But then, lying in the dark, you cannot sleep, even though you are completely exhausted.
Familiar? Harris says this is a perfect example of brain fatigue that happens when we don’t give it enough time to relax and recover before bed.
“When you are moving all the time, it’s hard to turn off the brain,” she says. This makes it difficult to fall asleep and/or stay asleep at night.
That’s why it’s so important to start the process of “calming down” at least 30 minutes, but better than an hour, before you want to fall asleep, because sleep does not work like a “switch”.
When you find a steady set of relaxation tools—whether it’s meditation, breathing exercises, a bathing ritual, or sleeping pills—you can combine them together to gradually signal to your brain that it’s time for bed.
While each person’s routine is slightly different, Harris says most people can start by “brain offloading.” It’s just a way to let go of certain thoughts or worries so you don’t carry them to bed with you.
These three practices can help you calm your mind before bed. Try them all and figure out which one works best for you, or combine them so that it’s easy to make them a habit.
Create a to-do list.
Research shows that making a nightly to-do list helps people sleep better. The rationale, Harris explains, is that making a list allows you to collect all your tasks and worries in one place.
“If you think regarding it later, you might say, ‘No, I already wrote everything down,'” she explains. For those with a really long list, she recommends breaking it down into “to do,” “would like to do,” and “not so important to do” columns to make it easier to assess their importance.
Keeping a diary.
If you have one particular thought that is haunting you, you can write regarding it in your diary before you fall asleep. This way you will be less likely to think regarding it in bed. You have already thought enough regarding this and reflected some of the ideas on the pages of the diary.
Allotment of time for “minutes of alarm”.
Similar to a diary session, “anxiety minutes time” is 20 minutes devoted to just one thing: anxiety.
“It sounds strange, but during those 20 minutes you are allowed to worry without a break,” says Harris.
She has observed that this approach helps people who tend to be anxious regarding the future, as it gives them a structured place to express their fears and worst-case scenarios. After those 20 minutes, they can get on with their day knowing that the time for anxiety minutes has passed and any stressful thoughts that come up later must wait until tomorrow.
Cursor wrote earlier that falling asleep less than five minutes following getting into bed might be a “bad sign.”
We also reported that sleep is a very important part of our life, because during the night’s rest, the body recuperates. But many people face problems that do not allow them to have a good rest and sleep.
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