What a heading, right? Well, don’t be scared, I don’t mean to sound grotesque. But trust me, you'll get the point as you read on.
Sleep deprivation, for many, is now a way of life and so is a delicate matter, maybe not to many but certainly to me. I have struggled with this for the better part of my adulthood.
It started slowly, nights where I felt it was probably the heat, and then slowly to the ones that turned to day with yours truly slowly carefully waiting with it. I didn’t know it had turned into full-blown insomnia until I was now being tagged a member of the Night’s Watch (all pun intended😅)
I had to start working on solutions, maybe some of them can help you as much as they helped me.
Regulate your exposure to light
This might sound silly but walk with me, let me explain. You wake up to a burst of ‘bright’ sunshine. Light. Go to work. Light. Hang out with friends or go home directly, even more light. Now that’s not the problem.
Here’s where the problem lies, night activities.
The hormone that regulates sleep, Melatonin, is highly controlled by exposure to light and naturally rises at night, light delays its release. Blue lights, bulbs or bright light of any sort. I’m sure you now see how this might make it harder for you to fall asleep. I, for one, can relate to the need to want to wind up a hard day’s work by catching up on your favourite shows or chatting on your phone. Not surprising though, most of these activites, instead of being unwinding, are rousing.
Advice: keep the lights down once it's bedtime. And keep them that way if you get up at midnight.
Monitor Your Body's Circadian Rhythm.
What's that, you ask? Yeah, you guessed right. Your natural sleep-wake cycle.
Are you in any way like me? No matter how late I sleep, no way I sleep past 6am. And if I do somehow get lucky, I’d still awake a couple of times till I eventually give up.
It did stay that way till I stumbled upon the fact that one can get high-quality sleep by keeping their sleep cycle in tune with the rhythms of the universe. Not the most straightforward but true, I assure you.
Circadian rhythms include some of the physical, mental, and behavioural changes that living things experience in and around 24 hours. That’s the dictionary meaning anyway but in the real sense, it basically screams regulation. This means that if you sleep at a certain time everyday, you’ll find that you will continue on that. Also, if you have a 4-hour siesta, you might have made yourself too rested for sleep, and this might cause you to sleep later than you might like.
Here’s a not-so-funny joke, I had to start setting alarms for the singular purpose of sleeping.
So if you start nodding off after a meal, do something, call a friend, dance😁, go make sure again that your house is locked, anything to fight it.
Whether or not we come to terms with it, our body is way more sensitive than we give credit.
Check Your Meals Are Right.
Do you love pre-bedtime chowing? Well, don't feel bad about it. It happens to the best of us. But you probably need to curb it, even a heavy meal.
You need to be able to avoid stomach aches or any form of upset, at that.
Drinking alcohol, coffee, or excessively drinking other fluids may need revisiting too. These fluids (especially alcohol) may help at the time, but almost surely will affect the cycle. Having to run back and forth to the bathroom will do more harm than good.
Reducing your sugar intake also helps a lot. You know how sugar makes you hyper, being 'hyper' is the least of things you need when you wanna hit the sack.
Unwind And Cool Off
Right here is another one of those catchy sentences that don't actually do much.
You need to learn to chill. Treasure your precious body the much you can. It shelters all of 'you', remember?
Most insomniacs may not know, but we need to do anything that won't stimulate our brains. For example, remember how easily one gets distracted by a phone notification? I’m sure you get where I am going with this. Yeah you do.
Now all you need to do is make sure the lights and sounds are as minimal as possible. The temperature of your space needs to be just right.
Also your bed is for crashing. This way, your brain knows it's all business once you get there.
If, after all this, you still aren't there, do something less engaging like reading a book.
So with this, I've been able to sleep so peacefully, like a newborn.
So what's your sleep cycle like? Care to share? Or are there some tips I missed?
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