Few things are as awful as waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall asleep again. As the minutes and hours go by, you can not help but think about how exhausted you will feel the next day, which then stresses you out and makes it even. harder to get more shuteye. If this sounds very familiar – and if you live in fear of the hours between one and five in the evening – you may want to try a refreshingly simple but still medically approved method of falling asleep again.
Paradoxical intent is a sleep strategy has been a pillar in cognitive behavioral therapies for insomnia and related sleep problems for decades. Simply put, the strategy works like this: rather than stressful To fall asleep again, try to stay awake as long as possible.
Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out.
Just like a rabbit chasing a carrot on a string, sleep is most difficult to catch when we fix it. After all, we do not actually control our sleep – it happens involuntarily. “If the focus of your life is so much on doing things to fall asleep, you can actually increase sleep anxiety and, paradoxically, stop yourself from sleeping,” says experienced sleep psychologist Katherine Hall, a sleep therapist at Somnus therapy. “Just like when you try to force a quiet mind, thoughts seem to get louder.”
Paradoxical intent plays a subtle trick on your body and works to let sleep come back naturally. “It encourages you to lie in bed without doing anything to try to fall asleep,” says Hall. “The idea is to deal with worry which comes with lying in bed awake and normalizing it in your mind. Once you have encountered this fear, anxiety decreases and you will soon find that you go away and sleep. “
So do not try to sleep and be cool with it. Just stay aware and embrace boredom. Consider writing in your diary or reading a boring book. If you used to fall asleep during boring lectures, imagine that you are in the boring classroom. Science has proven that it works.
A study published in the scientific journal Nature communication, even discovered the neurons in the “pleasure center” (nucleus accumbens) of the human brain that induce sleep in response to boredom. According to another study, published in the scientific journal Behavioral and cognitive psychotherapy, paradoxically, a group of people struggling to fall asleep helped reduce their anxiety about sleep performance, sleep exertion, and subjective sleep deprivation (perception of how long it takes to fall asleep).
“Saying to yourself before going to bed, ‘I’m going to lie here awake and I’m fine,’ will help relax an overly anxious brain and, paradoxically, make it easier to fall asleep. ‘ says Dr. Sujay Kansagra, director of Duke University’s pediatric neurological sleep medicine program and a sleep health expert for mattress company.
Of course, there is still the question of Why you wake up all the time all night. If you continue to wake up at two o’clock and can not fall asleep again, read on, because we have listed just some of the things that can affect your own sleep here. And for better advice on catching more Zs, learn why this simple “5 minute sleep” trick goes viral.
Insomnia can be a slippery slope. The moment you start thinking, “I have trouble sleeping,” the chances are that things will start to get worse, not better. The more pressure you put on yourself to get a good night’s sleep every night, the worse your chances are to actually achieve that achievement. Instead, enter each new night without expectations. Sleep is a vital necessity, not a daily test to be passed.
It has always been beneficial to unwind today’s worries and stressors before going to bed, but it is especially important nowadays. We are all “plugged in” to our phones all the time, and that’s a big reason why sleep problems are so prevalent. If you check emails at work and depressing news headlines just before bedtime, you are not giving yourself a fair chance of seven to eight hours of sleep in a row. And for healthier lifestyle advice, see why this crazy-popular walking workout totally works, say fitness experts.
A nap or afternoon can sound very appealing right now, but extra sleep during the day can stop robbing you of deep, transforming sleep in the evening. Too much sleep can be as harmful as too little. If you have trouble sleeping all night, do your best to keep your snoozing when the sun is down.
Whether your midnight drink is tea, hot milk or whiskey – drinking too much before going to bed basically guarantees a few extra trips to the bathroom at night. If your early morning awakenings usually coincide with a sprint to the toilet, consider turning off all fluid intake for an hour or two before turning on the bag.
While too much of any drink will do the trick, alcohol is a particularly bad choice before bedtime. Lots of research, which this study published in Alcoholism: Clinical and experimental research, have discovered that although alcohol can help you fall asleep initially, it will almost certainly harm the quality of your sleep. And for more ways to get restful sleep, make sure you never do this if you want good sleep, say health experts.
