Practical Tips To Help You Sleep Better
In my early twenties I struggled with my sleep and developed horrendous sleeping habits. I used to dread the hours before bed time. I’d lie in bed tossing and turning with a racing mind and pounding heart. After 5 years of struggling with my sleep enough was enough. I had to do something about it….. And I did.
The inspiring thing for you to know is that you can change your relationship to anything… yourself, your partner, your business, your fitness, diet etc, and sleeping is another relationship you can work on and improve.
A few things were going on for me….
I had some root issues… I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed in life. I was feeling a lot of pressure from society and the stories racing around my mind created anxiety in my body.
I developed unhelpful habitual patterns such as not being able to get to sleep for hours. Hating bed and night time. I developed a poor relationship with my sleep and I was up and down and very unrelaxed in bed.
I now LOVE my sleep and have been sleeping well for 10+ years with the odd night when I have to apply a sleep technique.
What I started to implement
I committed to a CBT course for 6 weeks.
I committed to my meditation, breathing & yoga practices.
How yoga and meditation supported me
The mediation and yoga helped me to understand my nervous system. When I was too much in my stress response and how to calm my energy before bed.
It taught me how to self-regulate through breathing amongst other techniques.
It helped me to understand and manage the root cause of my insomnia. (The stress, anxiety and overwhelm).
How the CBT course helped me
It helped me to rewire my brain and overcome the poor habitual patterns I had developed.
The 6 week CBT course I followed was from the book ‘Sleeping Disorders and Insomnia’ By Colin Espie. He has now developed this so do check him out.
The top tools and techniques that helped me to overcome my sleep
Even if you’re not an insomniac you can apply these. If you’re someone who’s a bit hit and miss when it’s a miss try applying some of these techniques.
Only treat your bed for sleeping. Don’t hang out in your bed.
If you’re not asleep within 15 minutes get out of bed and read something that’s not very stimulating and then get back into bed 5 minutes later. This would usually help me straight away. If you wake up in the night you can apply this as well.
If you’re going through a bad patch limit or cut out alcohol, sugar and caffeine after 12pm. I gave this all up for 6 weeks when doing the course and at the end of the 6 weeks my sleep was pretty much cured.
Surrender and accept - this is a big one. Teach yourself to fully accept the fact that you’re not sleeping. Trust that you’ll sleep the next night or at some point. When we do this we take away the resistance to it. Once you surrender and accept the fact you can’t sleep often you’ll drift off and if you don’t it’s ok, you’re in a less stressed place. We want to keep the nervous system calm.
Hypnosis - I recorded a script from the book I read and every time I listened to it I was asleep within in minutes, but it’s only because I had applied all the other stuff as well. If you’re someone who’s a bit hit and miss find a hypnosis on an app e.g. Feel Better, Calm, insight timer and there are many more.
Before bed write down anything that is on your mind and park it until the next day. It can be helpful to write down what’s in your control and what’s not in your control. Surrender to the things that aren’t in your control and write action points against the things that are. Take refugee in the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it (as it’s the evening) and physically place the piece of paper outside your door for you to revisit tomorrow.
Sleep diary… note when you fall asleep and when you wake up. You might start to notice that you slept more than you think on some nights. Celebrate the hours you slept even if it’s just a few. Shifting our attention from lack to abundance can help us build a more positive relationship with our sleep.
Some practical tips - have the room cold and dark. If you’re someone who loves the feeling of clean sheets, change your sheets more often. Limit screen time. Limit anything that’s too stimulating.
If your mind is busy try saying ‘let’ on the inhale and ‘go’ on the exhale. Continuously repeat this softly surrendering to the moment.
Visualise something really peaceful to help you feel calm. I like to visualise myself sitting and looking out to sea on a beach that I love.
FEAR - surrender to the fear of not sleeping. Call it out. e.g. ‘Thank you for flagging ego mind that I’ afraid of not sleeping tonight. I fully trust in myself and I fully trust in these practices and I trust that I will sleep’. Call out any fear ! Don’t let it sabotage your sleep.
I spoke about the above on a insta LIVE, you can find the recording below.
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