I Can’t Sleep, How to Sleep Better?
Tired of not being able to sleep properly?
Feel like a zombie every day?
Would you like to sleep better?
Are you having problems falling sleep?, or do you take too long to fall asleep because your brain keeps you awake thinking about your day?
Bad sleep quality may result in:
Bad mood.
Less energy physically and mentally.
Less chance of having a good day.
If your sleep quality is mediocre, your chances of enjoying a better daily life, will also be “mediocre”.
I hope that some of the following tips will help you sleep better. If you want to keep sleeping badly, you can avoid them, you already know how it feels...
First Tip: Move
Easier said than done, but, being simple, landing in bed with your body tired, will increase the chances of sleeping sooner and better.
The more tired your body is, the less energy and freshness your mind will have to babble you to death before sleep.
To make your body tired, it’s not required to have a complex two hours training session.
The goal here is to introduce a little “extra” physical activity to your daily routine.
It is not necessary to make things complicated, is just about moving your body a “little extra” every day.
The easier way to activate your body is just by walking, no need to spend a dime or get complex training gear, just walking with somebody or listening to your favorite music or podcast will do the trick.
Increasing your walking and standing time every day, will help you get your body more tired than usual, resulting in better sleep.
If your body is not tired enough before sleep, less chances to have good sleep.
Second Tip: Limit Unproductive Thoughts
Now is the time to start sorting out your mental activity, to help you arrive at bedtime with a “cleaner” mind.
Thinking and distracting your mind all your awake time, with work or academic issues all day long, without control of any kind, will result in mental fatigue.
Besides, this will charge more pre-sleep babbling ammunition for your brain at night, and may result in less physical and intellectual performance in the long term.
An advice that may help you to maintain a steady mind, and reduce brain agitation before sleep, is trying not to think about professional or academic matters, the time you are not being productive.
The idea is to avoid overthinking, planning, or recreating scenarios without control, as a "general" routine, and only allow these thoughts when you are really solving problems or doing things that will help you advance in your career, academics, or personal life.
Not controlling your thoughts, and allowing casual and irrelevant information to overflow your mind, will only reduce your mindfulness.
Remember that if your problems involve external factors or people, it doesn't matter how much you shake your thoughts inside your brain, you can only have real influence, on what depends on your side.
You will learn this, with time, or with pain, your choice.
If your mind is not quiet, less chances to have good sleep.
Third Tip: Screen Time Before Sleep
Nowadays it is impossible to stay away from technology.
Obviously, smartphones and computers are incredible for making your life easier and have leisure, but, when used to the extreme, without control, can reduce the chances of sleeping well.
The more time you are exposed to screens, and closer to the sleep time, the more chances to be mentally disturbed before sleep.
Controlling digital activity before sleep, plus scheduling your productive thoughts, can create a powerful “mindfulness cocktail” to keep your mind quiet before sleep.
Without control of digital life, less chances to have good sleep.
Fourth Tip: Dedicate Time to Yourself
One activity you may try to substitute the usual smartphone time before sleep, is to start digging into your inner self.
Nowadays it may seem forgotten, but knowing more about yourself is an incredible source of inner peace to include in your daily routine.
Inquiring within yourself, with personal reflection and meditation, may awake a hidden part of yourself, that will bring great joy and inner peace.
Self-knowledge is like a hidden gem, where you can generate inner peace from within, independently of the external circumstances.
With self-knowledge, you can learn to disengage and reduce the importance of irrelevant issues, increasing the presence and power of your soul in your daily life.
Even in the worst case scenario, when everything and everybody fails, the only person that will always be there to cheer you up, is yourself.
With more knowledge about yourself, you are more prepared to endure the worst conditions, with the self-generated power of your inner self.
Self-knowledge is something that many people don't know even exists, maybe because the forces created, by the material senses in our mind, are very strong.
The material world may fade away our core strength, making us blind to see the power that can shine from the inside.
The self-awareness call is complex to be explained, and understood from the external. But, when the call comes to your life, from the internal, it can bring huge changes to your life, that you thought were impossible.
For many people, the self-awareness call is clear in painful moments, when they accept their situation as it is, and decide to search for different ways to approach their problems.
They realize, that no solution created by their minds, close people, or the material world, will really solve their inner problems.
So, they start exploring inside themselves, and ponder about, if pain is everything that life has to offer, or, if something inside ourselves, can help us to go through our miseries, and allow us to advance and keep fighting.
Self-knowledge is something very hard to grasp, but, when you are out of options, exploring within yourself, maybe, is the only way to go.
You can decide to keep jumping from one material satisfaction to another, keep going from overconsumption to overdose, keep feeling dead inside, with a walking body without nothing to fight for, or, you just can open your mind, make it work for you, and not “against you”, and, inquire about your inner self.
If you decide to experiment with new things, with a different perspective, there is not much to lose, especially if each step in your life is painful to the core.
Improve Sleep Debrief:
Move, train, exercise
Limit unproductive thoughts
Screen before sleep
Dedicate time to yourself