Trouble falling asleep?

Falling asleep quickly is a problem for many people. While having a set schedule helps a lot, there’s still more you can do:

Have a screen-free hour before bed

Falling asleep is the process of your body and mind winding down after a stressful day. You can decide whether that process starts an hour before you go to bed, or whether that process only starts after you put your phone away one hour into laying in bed.

Looking at screens like your laptop or smartphone strains your eyes and prevents your body from producing Melatonin, which regulates your sleep-wake cycle.

Instead of browsing the Internet, use that hour for calming activities. You can read with dim light, draw, meditate, write or do something else that helps you calm down. Give your body a chance to wind down so you can fall asleep quickly.

Control your breath

Use breathing techniques to breathe slower. This helps tremendously with calming down and will impact how quickly you fall asleep. You can follow the 4-7-8 routine:

1. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.
2. Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.
3. Hold your breath for a count of seven.
4. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.

This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths. If you are not getting enough air, try it with 4-4-4 seconds first.

Count backwards from 200

This is a simple but effective technique. Mentally count from 200 backward with your eyes closed. Counting sheep is a great alternative to this and great for boring yourself to sleep.

The act of focusing on something calming prevents yourself from getting excited because you’re thinking about doing things. Research shows that just thinking about an activity like playing tennis is enough to raise your blood pressure. Thinking of mundane and calming scenarios that don’t involve yourself moving is best for calming down.

Use the 2-minute technique

The US military developed this technique to allow jet pilots to fall asleep quickly between missions. It works like this:

1. Relax all the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the muscles around the eyes
2. Drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go, followed by your upper and lower arm, one side at a time
3. Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from the thighs and working down
4. Spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about one of the three following images:

• You’re lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear blue sky above you
• You’re lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room
• You say ‘don’t think, don’t think, don’t think’ to yourself over and over for about 10 seconds.

If you get used to this technique, meaning that you use it every time you fall asleep for multiple weeks, it’ll start working like magic.

Exercise

Working out during the day helps you fall asleep much more quickly. as it uses up your energy, In turn, you will sleep more and end up with more energy the next day. That’s the reason regular exercise increases the energy you have available in the long run instead of using it up.

If you’re not into sports, you should still at least take a walk or do some lighter exercising.

Watch your nutrition and caffeine intake

Caffeine affects your body for 4-12 hours after ingesting it. This means that having a coffee at lunch can impact your sleep, even though they are quite a bit apart.

Eating can have just as much of an effect on your sleep. Try not to eat anything in the last 2 hours before going to bed. You can still drink some water if you need to.

Getting the right nutrients has major effects on your life so it is always worth sorting that out.

Improve your sleeping environment

Is your room too warm? Does light get into your room at night? Is there a lot of noise coming in from outside? What about your pillows and your mattress?

All these factors impact the quality of your sleep and you should look into all of them. Sleep takes up roughly one-third of your day and will continue doing so for the rest of your life, so it is worth optimizing.

Generally, an optimal sleep environment is:

• Cool
• Dark
• Quiet
• Comfortable
• Stress-free
• Only used for sleep or intimate relations

Herbal tea

• If you find yourself waking up tired it is a good idea to cut out caffeine from your diet. Fortunately, this does not mean that you have to give up on warm drinks entirely. Chamomile tea is a great option if you struggle to sleep like the soothing properties of this herb has been used to help people go to sleep for centuries. Alternatively, you could opt for a cup of peppermint tea if you prefer something with a refreshing taste.