How to Sleep When Stressed Out
Life is a roller-coaster. Every day you experience whirls of emotions. Emotions can keep you happy, satisfied or stressed. Stress is inevitable! However, there are ways we can manage the kind of stress we should entertain in our everyday lives.
It is important to understand that stress is not merely an emotion or an event. Maybe you are having personal problems, relationship issues or your boss is making life a nightmare for you at work. These are merely causes of stress. How your body responds to those causes, that’s stress!
One of the ways your body responds to stress is sleep deprivation. They call it insomnia. Your mind whirls round and round about the problems you’re going through all day transpiring into the night. You find yourself wide awake at night, with no hope of sleep crowning you soon.
As a result, you’re exhausted from lack of sleep, so the circle of having stressful days continue to repeat themselves. Medics recommend seven to nine hours of sleep, in the absence of which; is unhealthy. Stress robs you of a chance to enjoy at least seven hours of sleep and adds distress to your body.
One of the ways to ensure you sleep peacefully is to make sure that you can deal with stress. So how do you sleep at night when you have so many issues bothering? We are here to help you address that.
How to Cope With Stress
Since all tossing and turning from all the worrying and unstoppable thoughts in your mind, prevent you from logging in the required hours of sleep, how to do you cope with that?
• Live A Day at A Time
Society has instilled the notion that we need to have everything figured out at a go, that you need to plan for the future now. As a result, we have forgotten how to live in the present, enjoy our days, we have forgotten how to do one thing at a time.
Let’s change that! You will feel much better and less stressed if you begin to do a single thing at a time. If its work that’s distracting you, focus on making it better and manageable for you, worry about other things later. Strike one thing from the list at a time instead of going back all the time.
If you are a victim of multitasking, then you need to master the art of doing one thing at a time if you want to start enjoying a long night of sleep again.
• Own a Journal
No! Journals are not for weaklings and girls, that’s just a sad and unworthy notion. Time and again, writing has proven to heal even the deepest wounds. So, write your ideas, tasks, and thoughts down. Writing will help you keep track of your days.
Writing will be a big help when it comes to doing one thing at a time. It will help you free up your mind and help you focus on other things.
• Stop Making A Big Deal Out Of The Small Stuff
We all do that! Make a big deal out of something quite small. Doing that will only create drama in your life, generate ground for overthinking and creating a problem from something that shouldn’t matter in the first place.
Develop a habit of asking yourself if whatever it is that’s stealing your joy will matter weeks, months or years from that? That will help you gain perceptive of what to worry about and what to let go. You will manage to build fewer problems in your life.
• Detach Over the Weekend
Your week is probably packed considering work and household responsibilities. There is a chance that stress can be accumulated following the events that could emerge over the week. Take the weekend, own it, save it for your time.
Go somewhere over the weekend if you can, or stay home and disconnect. Switch off your phone and just spend time alone. Sleep in, drink a hot cup of tea enjoying the environment, do anything that will help you relax and enjoy time off a busy schedule.
• Take Time to Do What You Love
Getting lost in the ‘have-to’ is what dooms to sleepless nights. Learn to do the necessary first, tomorrow or what you think you have to do will cater for itself. Plan your evenings and weekends doing what you love.
Maybe its reading, painting, reading, whatever it is, focus on it because it will give pleasure and restore some of your joy back. It will relieve stress and help you sleep come night.
• Listen To Yourself
Your body always gives you signals. When you start to feel drained, irritable or angry all the time, that’s a sign that your body is under stress. Learn to listen to yourself and learn to take care of yourself a little more.
Take time off and relax. Spend an evening reading your favorite book or watching your favorite movie. Allow your body to recover by taking time off. Breathe in and out until the tension leaves your body. It is important to prioritize your physical and mental health before anything.
• Meditate
Meditation will help release stress and calm your mind and body. It allows your body to reconnect with the present by focusing on your breathing. Meditation is meant to help you focus only on the air around. Breathing without distraction will soothe you into a deep sleep.
Tips to help you sleep at night
Once you figure out how to cope with stress, sleep may or may not come naturally to you. We offer some of the tips to help you sleep.
• Eat Healthy
Stressful situations often result to stress eating. Stress eating is unhealthy, and it causes discomfort that’s deprive you a chance to rest. What you eat in most cases influences how you sleep. Researchers say that those who eat fiber have deep, slow-wave sleep.
Those who eat a lot of fat have a restorative sleep. Sugar has proven to keep people awake. It is okay to have a little snack before bedtime but make sure that you eat lightly and healthy if you instead to have a good night’s sleep.
• Cool Down Your Room
If you keep your room warm, you will feel comfortable. Cooling your room down is more likely to help you sleep much better at night. It’s much easier for your brain to relax in a cooler room. According to researchers, the ideal temperature to help you sleep at night is about 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Dim the Bright Lights
Bright lights disrupt you from sleep. When going to sleep, make sure to either dim the lights or switch them off. It is much easier and soothing to sleep in a dark room. If you must keep the lights on, then consider buying a sleep mask.
• Avoid Napping For Longer Than Half an Hour
We all love our afternoon naps. However, longer naps result to exhaustion and lack of sleep later in the evening. To avoid that, nap for a shorter time. Short naps prevent your body from falling into deep sleep. Keep your naps as short as ten to fifteen minutes.
• Cut off Caffeine in The Afternoon
It is proven that caffeine takes around four to six hours to wear off completely. This could mean that if you indulge in caffeine in the afternoon, it will kick in at night and deprive you of sleep as a result. A cup of coffee might keep you alert, but it will also keep you awake when you need to sleep if you take it the wrong time. Simply avoid drinking caffeine after lunch.
• Exercise
Regular exercise relieves stress. Exercise has proven to use up energy and maintain a healthy weight. Maintaining healthy weight prevents some of the sleep problems like apnoea. It is advisable, however, to exercise at least four hours before your preferred bedtime. Working out before sleep gives your body time to relax and allow you to drift off to sleep.
• Have a Warm Shower
Having a warm bath just before bed allows your body temperature to drop in response to the cool air in your bedroom. The temperature drop automatically signals the brain that it’s time to retire.
• Schedule a Sleep Time
Having a consistent sleeping time has proven to be very effective. Your brain is automated to the fact that at a certain time it should be asleep. Try going to sleep and waking up during the same time every day for you to schedule your body into a constant and helpful routine.
• Unplug
Most people tend to check their emails and follow up on their social media while in bed. In most cases, that is not a good idea because you often find yourself glued to your phone for more hours than you would expect. To allow yourself to sleep, switch off all your gadgets thirty minutes before sleep time.
Adapting some of these changes into your life will make a difference. Your mood and energy will improve, you will be able to handle stress and as a result, sleep calmly at night.