Insomnia Ways To Prepare Yourself For Sleep

Insomnia - Ways to prepare yourself for sleep


Try to get your body to relax - practice relaxation techniques and quiet breathing. When you breathe, take a deep breath while relaxing your muscles and then let it out. Do this several times. Do not think about anything other than feeling your stress go away. Other things that might work for you would be to take a warm scented bath, read a good book or listen to soothing music.

Do not think about your day during this time. This is your relaxation time. Any thoughts of your day at work or your troubles could affect your sleep. Do not do any planning for work, school, kids or responsibilities during this time up to 45 minutes before you plan to go to sleep.

If you are having a hard time getting people to leave you alone during this timeperiod, you will need to do some pre-planning and set up some boundaries. To setup boundaries, you will need to let the people whom you come in contact with during the daytime know that you are not to be bothered during this time and throughout the night, and tell them why.

Additionally, avoid the obvious:

Caffeine in any form an hour to an hour and a half before sleep - a better choice is water, but keep in mind that too much water will have you in the bathroom also. This will not help with your insomnia

Food after 7 pm - you don't want your body working when it should be resting or sleeping

Working out an hour before you go to bed - it takes your body time to settle down after a workout and may keep you up

Stressful situations - you do not need to get yourself all worked up just before bed. Try and minimize any arguing, complaining or fighting within an hour of bedtime

Bills - do not process your checkbook balance sheet before bedtime - Do it earlier in the day when you can do something about it. Just before bedtime will keep you up worrying. If you haven't completed this task by 8 pm in the evening, staying up all night long worrying about it won't help you and will hurt you the next day.

Children and animals - get both of these in good habits of going to bed in their proper places at the proper time. You can spend many sleepless nights dealing with letting the animals out and getting glasses of water for your sleepwalking child. I recommend that you stop feeding your animals after 6 pm (actually pick up the dish if they haven't finished it yet) and after 7 pm clear away their water. If you leave either one of these out, they will have you up all night to go to the bathroom. I suggest the same for children. If they are eating late at night it will keep them up later.

Nelson J. Flowers @ http://www.overcomingmyinsomnia.info

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