Ways to End Insomnia and Sleep Problems Tonight
Insomnia is a persistent sleep problem associated with difficulty in falling and staying asleep during the night.
It is the most common sleep disorder among narcolepsy, apnea and hypersomnia categorized under primary and secondary insomnia.
While primary insomnia is not linked with any health-related conditions, secondary insomnia is associated with health challenges like heartburn, depression, asthma, arthritis, cough and medications or substances used to control them.
You ought to know things that can cause insomnia. Also, the associated symptoms before you can properly manage or treat it.
Health issues, environmental discomfort, traumatic experience, daytime habits, emotional problems like depression, anxiety and stress can instigate insomnia.
Which the resulting symptoms are difficulty in falling asleep, staying awake at night, daytime drowsiness and difficulty getting back to sleep when awakened.
Others could be lack of concentration during the day and depending on sleeping pills or alcohol to make you fall asleep.
Are you struggling with either primary or secondary insomnia? Do you find it difficult to sleep or wake up in the middle of the night to stay awake for some hour?
You can put an end to insomnia and sleep problems using the steps listed below.
Comfortable sleeping environment matters a lot
A quiet and comfortable bedroom is a very strong weapon used to fight insomnia. Let your environment maintain good temperature; not too hot or too cold to enable you to sleep very well.
Turn down all electronics that produce sound as well as the lightings to make your bedroom conducive.
By maintaining a conducive and comfortable environment, you will be able to fall asleep and sleep very well all night long.
Also, ensure that your mattress and pillow are comfortable enough to offer you the support you need to sleep very well.
Limit nap
Although taking a nap during the day time is a way of catching up on missed sleep, napping at late hours can keep you awake at night. You might sleep as a response to drowsiness during waking hours, but do not do that for long.
A nap can be very helpful but avoid it in the late hours of the day. It can make it difficult for you to fall asleep at night.
A long nap during the day or even a short nap in the early evening can interfere with your bedtime sleep.
Maintain a regular sleep schedule
If you have been struggling with insomnia or related sleep problems for a long time, help yourself to avoid activities that will make you go to bed at late hours.
Sleep early at night and maintain the same sleep schedule daily. Maintaining a regular sleep pattern within the week and during weekends helps a lot. Go to bed and wake up daily at the same time.
Go to bed at exactly one particular time and wake up and your usual time in the morning. Notably, ensure to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night.
Maintaining a regular sleep pattern will activate the sleep-wake cycle, which sends signals that it’s time to sleep and wake up. When this pattern is interrupted, your sleeping pattern is likely to be affected.
Cut down on alcohol
Most people who suffer from sleep problems such as insomnia normally take alcohol before going to bed.
Actually, this is to enable them to fall asleep. However, studies have revealed that drinking alcohol to fall asleep can be counterproductive.
Alcoholism contents interfere with sleep homeostasis, which is the body’s sleep-regulating mechanism.
Therefore avoid taking alcohol or related stimulants to aid sleep because it will increase sleep disturbance effects.
Reduce activities in bed
Some of the activities you do at night during bedtime can become a hindrance to your night sleep. It can as well lead to sleep problems like insomnia.
Avoid checking your phone at night while you are in bed, watching TV, reading books and others alike.
The bed is meant for sleeping, therefore, limit activities that can cause you a sleepless night or rather sleep problems.
If your phone normally disturbs you at night, switch it off or put it on silent mode once you want to retire to bed at night.
Put off everything that can cause a distraction to your night rest. Most importantly, make the environment tranquil to get quality sleep.
Exercise frequently
If you read articles online, you must have noticed that all health, lifestyle and general wellbeing articles always have a reference point to physical exercises.
This is to tell you that exercise contributes wonderfully to the health and lifestyle of every individual.
In this case, exercise provides an increase in body temperature and after-exercise drop in body temperature tends to promote falling asleep. Similarly, exercise helps to rid insomnia by reducing depressive symptoms and anxiety.
Exercise can also interact with the circadian rhythm which is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle thereby effectively improving the negative effects of disrupted sleep patterns.
Relax before bedtime
Insomnia results from different kinds of situations such as anxiety, difficulty or frets over personal or family problems.
The majority of insomnia sufferers are under the influence of anxiety and other problems including mental stress. Getting your mind to a quiet state before going to bed can help you to sleep better than ever.
It may seem difficult but a trial will get you convinced. Free your mind from worries, distraction, and negative thoughts and establish a winding down before bedtime.
You can make a list of what you need tomorrow, listen to music or read an interesting novel to get your mind relaxed before sleeping.
In addition to this, you can use relaxation therapies like meditation, deep breath and others to reduce stress and relax both mind and body before going to bed.
Diet well
Mind what you eat during the day because your diet can sabotage your sleep. Eat a healthy meal and drink enough water during the day so as to sleep well at night.
Foods enriched with magnesium content such as spring greens, spinach, cabbage kale, and others is a nice diet plan to get rid of insomnia.
The kind of diet plan for insomnia is the one that enhances your hormones and neurotransmitter. Foods rich in tryptophan and amino acid provides the body with serotonin and forms the basis of brain chemicals that make people sleep.
Tryptophan which occurs naturally in certain foods such as nuts, cheese, tofu tuna, milk, eggs, seeds, and chicken provides extra doses of sleep-inducing amino acids that help counter sleep disorders.
Taking tryptophan supplements is an alternative way of getting these amino acids.
Eat light meals for dinner
If you eat right at night you will be likely to sleep like a baby without getting distracted. Eating heavy meals at night can make you temporary drowsy but lengthen digestion thereby frustrating your night sleep.
You can eat a heavy meal before mid-afternoon but try to eat a light meal with calorie content not more than 500 late in the day or before going to bed as it can help to make your sleep comfortable without any digestion problem.
Get help
Get help from a psychotherapist or therapist, if the case is getting severe that none of the methods mentioned above can help your situation, you are advised to consider participating in cognitive therapy.
Cognitive therapy has helped a lot of adults and children with sleep issues, depression, panic, fears, anxiety, personality problems, and others to identify and correct things that contribute to their problems.
This kind of therapy corrects improper thoughts and beliefs that contribute to sleep problems and offer appropriate information about sleep norms, age-related sleep variation and sleep goals among other related info.
Summary
Finally, taking appropriate care to change your lifestyle and habit can inhibit those causes of insomnia. And following all the tips mentioned in this post will go a long way to help you end insomnia tonight.