Tips for Insomnia

Insomnia is a mental health condition that makes it hard for you to either fall asleep, stay asleep, or it makes you wake up too early and it makes it so that you are unable to go back to sleep. Insomnia is something that may need medication from the doctor’s office for you to get help with however, there are some things that you can do by yourself that may make a big impact on your insomnia.

Here are some things that you can do that may help you with your insomnia:

• Just for sleeping

When you get into bed don’t, put on the TV, don’t go on your phone, don’t eat your bed, don’t do anything on your bed apart from using it to go to sleep or to have sex on. If you watch tv, go on your phone, read on your bed, do work/homework on your bed then your mind with associate your bed with everything but see so when you do get into bed at night-time to go to sleep then it will be harder for you to fall asleep as your mind no longer views your bed as an environment for sleep and sleep only. The only other thing that can be viewed as an expectation, is if you need to read a book to fall asleep, then you can but ideally, this book should promote relaxation and sleep.

• Reconditioning

If you are in bed and you are not tired after some time had passed by like 20 -30 minutes then you should get out of bed and go into a different room and only return to your bed when you are tired, by doing this you will associate your bed with sleep, not with wakefulness. By doing this you will condition yourself into associating your bed with sleeping and sex only nothing else, so the next time you do go to bed your body will associate it with sleeping, therefore, hopefully making it easier for you to fall asleep in bed.

• Caffeine

If you suffer from insomnia, try to not consume any caffeine 6 hours before you want to go to sleep, ideally, you shouldn’t have caffeine in the afternoon as it can mess up or delay your production of melatonin which is the hormone that puts you to sleep. Or if you have to have caffeine, try to limit it as much as you can.

• Exercise

It is important to exercise often and if you are someone who has too much or a lot of energy before going to bed then you could exercise a few hours before you want to go to sleep so that way you can use up some of that stored energy hopefully making it easier for you to fall asleep now. However, try to not do any high-intensity workouts before you want to go to bed as that can give you even more energy from the dopamine that is released into your body after you do a high-intensity workout.

• Cycle

Establish a regular sleep-wake cycle, having a routine makes it so that your body can get used to and get accustomed to this new sleeping pattern that you have going on. If you have a regular sleep-wake cycle and if you suffer from insomnia this can help you, as you set a routine your body will naturally start to follow this routine. Once you have a scheduled time set where you always wake up at the same or similar time and go to sleep at the same time or s similar time then your internal body clock will naturally start to follow that time frame as your sleep-wake upcycle. As you do this your body will start to have a scheduled time where it releases melatonin, which will help you fall asleep.

• No naps

Try to not nap during the day, try to avoid going to sleep until later that day so that you don’t ruin your internal body clock as this can throw off your sleep-wake cycle. However, if you feel like you have to take a nap try to limit it to a power nap of 20 minutes only.

• Food 

If you suffer from insomnia, try to avoid foods that are heavy fatty foods, fried foods, and spicy foods, as they may give you heartburns thus making it harder to fall asleep. Foods and sleep have a lot in common, certain foods help the production of help release a hormone that helps you sleep or helps induce sleep. I have previously covered a blog that talks about help and the importance of certain foods and sleep, and I have gone over why those foods are good for sleep, click here if you want to read that, it may help you a lot if you do suffer from insomnia.

There may be some things that you can do to help improve your insomnia depending on what type it is and depending on what the causes are but ultimately if there isn’t anything that you feel like you can do to help your situation then maybe paying a visit to the doctors may be the best options for you.