Here's
what a Psychologist- Richard has to say about getting more quality sleep.
1. Avoid Smartphone and other light-emitting devices at
night. Your Smartphone is the devil. Your TV cackles with glee when you
have insomnia. They all give off blue light that your brain mistakes for
sunshine. And that tells your brain it's time to wake up, not go to bed. Stay
away from them during the hour before you try to nod off.
2. A good nightly routine is key. No alcohol
before bed, think positive thoughts and play the alphabet game. Drinking
alcohol an hour or two before you go to bed is not a good idea. You'll fall
asleep quicker, but it keeps you out of deep sleep. In the morning you wake up
feeling pretty terrible. Richard says thinking positive thoughts before you go
to bed is helpful and can promote good dreams. One of the biggest things that cause
insomnia is that anxiety about getting to bed. When those awful
thoughts start running through your head at night, try this little
game. Here's Richard: Just think about a country or a vegetable or a fruit
for each letter of the alphabet. You just slowly work your way through and that
can take your mind off negative thoughts.
3. Naps
are awesome. Just keep them under 30 minutes. Drink a cup of coffee before
you lay down. Don't go down for more than an hour. 20-30 minutes is great — but
even five minutes can give you a big boost. Here's Richard: ‘Anything over
an hour is probably not a great idea, but twenty or thirty minutes of napping
is incredibly good for creativity and focus. Naps can make a massive,
massive difference. Even five minutes increases reaction time and focus’.
4. Sleeping in two chunks is natural. Get up and do
something for a little while and then go back to bed. If you wake up in the
middle of the night that's perfectly natural. Before electric light people
would talk about "first sleep" and "second sleep." In
between they'd go and visit their friends or play games. So if you do
wake up in the middle of the night, that's fine. Get out of bed for twenty
minutes and do something. Don't lay there feeling anxious.
5. Remember the "90 minute rule." Think about when
you need to be up and count back in increments of 90 minutes so you wake
up sharp. Your body goes through sleep cycles of 90 minutes. Wake up in
the middle of one and you'll feel lousy no matter how long you've been in
bed. So plan your sleep schedule in increments of an hour and a half. Here's
Richard: ‘Sleep scientists all use the "90-minute rule" which is
basically a sleep cycle which is moving from light sleep, to deep sleep to
dreaming and repeating that again and again. That cycle is roughly ninety
minutes. You're best off waking up at the end of a cycle. Plan your sleep
in ninety minute blocks to tell you the best time to be falling asleep.
Then you go to bed about ten, twelve minutes before that because that's how
long it should be taking you to fall asleep’.
6. Sometimes we're our own worst enemy. We stay up surfing the
net or watching Netflix. How can we behave better?
John Durant offers
a piece of advice I follow: ‘forget the morning alarm clock; set an
alarm to remind you when to go to bed’.
A
useful technique is setting an alarm clock—not to wake up, but to get ready for
bed. Set an alarm for an hour before bedtime. When it goes off, finish up
any work on the computer, turn off the TV, turn off any unnecessary lights, and
start to wind down for the day.
I
wish you great sleep and blissful dreams.
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