Anxiety not letting you sleep? Here’s what you can do to overcome this issue

How often have you come across situations where you are lying on bed for hours without a wink of sleep? Or you sleep but get jolted and woken up with a random fact at 3 am? Or you try to delay your sleep for a long time until you are so tired that you cannot keep your eye –lids open anymore? The reason to all these problems can be anxiety.

But the good part is its not just you, at least four out of ten people suffer from sleep anxiety and are unable to get a good night’s sleep. While you can of course seek professional help, but before that here a few tactics which can be applied, just in case they work and you can get your sleep patterns right.

How to get your sleep patterns right by overcoming sleep anxiety?

Here are a few ways in which you can try to combat sleep anxiety in the initial stage. 

Calm yourself

Most of sleep anxiety stems if your mind is filled with a lot of things, especially worries, deadlines, thoughts and more. To attain peace of mind, meditation in any form can be practiced right before going to bed. Breathing exercises like deep breathing or ones which help in relaxing the muscle helps in reducing tension. You can also listen to some white noise or light instrumental music which will divert your mind from the worries and create a peaceful atmosphere around you. 

Follow a routine

If you are a reel addict, then bed time routine videos are no strangers to you. While fighting sleep anxiety, its time you create a bedtime routine of your own. Dim the lights at least 30 minutes to an hour before you sleep which helps you produce melatonin which is the sleep inducing agent in the body. Similarly, avoid any electronics especially mobile phones right before sleeping. If need be, switch them off or put them in silent mode, but avoid looking at the screens. Choose an estimated time say 10 pm by which you will dim the lights and take to bed. And the most important part of creating a routine is to follow the routine.

Food impacts …

Although you might ask how food would impact your sleep patterns, it is important to note that what you consume, in fact, plays a major part in triggering sleep or giving you sleep anxiety. When you hit the bed, you must not be starving yourself and you must also not be very full. Eat as much as your body needs. Alcohol intake should be limited and definitely avoided before going to bed. Caffeine should be limited. Often you wood notice that many who are severely addicted to coffee suffer from sleep anxiety and that is because caffeine strongly disrupts sleep patterns.

Create the mood

Reserve your bed as the spot for sleeping. The more you bring in work or other activities on to your bed, the more your brain might register the bed as a space for numerous activities. This triggers during sleep anxiety when you are lying on the bed but even then sleep evades you. Draw the curtains, keep the room quiet, make it cool and use essential oil diffusers to add in a touch of gentle aroma.

Write your thoughts

One of the biggest reasons why you cannot sleep in the innumerable thoughts which ring in when you are trying to sleep. To avoid such thoughts haunting you while you are about to sleep, you can maintain a daily to-do list and keep it near your bedside table or desk. This list has all your next day’s work jotted down and your brain doesn’t need to remind this over and over again. For all other thoughts, write a diary or a journal where you put in moments that you liked during the day, or actions you think can be worrisome later on and such. This helps you empty the vessel of thought before going to bed so that you can sleep peacefully.

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