How To Get A Better Night's Sleep

If you’re among the one in three of us who suffers with insomnia, you’ll know how incredibly frustrating and lonely it can be. Whether you tend to wake during the night or early first thing in the morning, it can leave you feeling drained, stressed and exhausted. Lack of sleep can affect your concentration, focus, resilience, energy levels and happiness. It can affect how you respond to situations, how you manage relationships and how you perform at work or school. 

Goog Night's Sleep

Insomnia is very often caused by stress, but it can also be affected by mental health issues such as anxiety and depression as well as medical conditions such as hormone imbalances. 

In modern culture, busyness and lack of sleep has become a badge of honour, endorsed by high profile figures such as Margaret Thatcher. Research suggests that we’re sleeping up to 2 hours less a night than in 1960, with 1 in 5 of us surviving on 5 hours a night or less. Some people find that their days are so busy that they procrastinate about going to bed, often becoming over-tired in the process.

So, what can we do?

Our brains like to pattern match, so routine is key and implementing sleep hygiene can also really help to prepare the brain and body for rest. Here are some tips:

• Firstly, technology – most of us are aware that blue light which is emitted from phones and computers disrupts our natural sleep patterns, but it’s also to do with the amount of information our brain is processing when we use electronic devices. Do you find that you will pick up your phone to do one thing such as text a friend, and then you get distracted by social media notifications, emails coming in and other apps reminding you to do things? If possible, try to switch off electronic devices an hour before you go to sleep, to allow your mind to quieten and prepare for sleep. Try charging your phone in the kitchen instead of the bedroom at night time to see if this helps. 

• Light is also an important factor which influences our sleep pattern too. Exposure to natural daylight in the morning helps to set our internal body clock, or circadian rhythm. Similarly, we should be mimicking a natural sunset effect in our homes in the evening, particularly during winter when we’re more likely to spend time indoors. 

• Exercise is a crucial part of our wellbeing, not only for physical health but for optimum mental health too. Exercising tires the body so you’ll be more likely to be ready to go to sleep in the evening, but it also is great at releasing stress. Don’t exercise right before bed though, it’s important to give your body time to wind down. 

• Journalling. Keeping a positive diary of things that have gone well during your day can significantly improve your mindset before bed. You could also jot down any urgent things that need to be done the next day so these don’t play on your mind.

• Take a warm bath or shower 90 minutes before going to bed has shown to affect the body temperature and promote relaxation.

• Choose a relaxing activity before bed. Reading can really help to promote relaxation as your mind can only effectively focus on one thing at the time (despite us thinking that we can multi-task!) We’re unable to focus on the story we’re reading and feel stressed at the same time, and people often say that reading before bed has a hypnotic effect. If you don’t enjoy reading, try some gentle stretching, or listening to something relaxing. 

• Choose evening food and drink carefully. Avoiding caffeine in the evening and eating our evening meal at least a couple of hours before bed can help ensure our body has time to finish digestion before preparing for sleep. A warm non-caffeine drink such as herbal tea is the ideal relaxation aid. 

How can hypnotherapy help?

Hypnotherapy is fantastic at promoting a good night’s sleep as it’s deeply relaxing. It can not only help you to drop off to sleep, it can also help to tackle the route cause of insomnia, whether that’s stress, anxiety, pain or substance addiction. Hypnotherapy replicates REM sleep (rapid eye movement) which is the portion of our sleep which we need for stress reduction. Repetition is key and hypnotherapists will often give their clients an audio to listen to at nighttime on a regular basis to promote a better night’s sleep and set this new pattern in the brain. 

Contact me if you’d like to try my free relaxation audio.