How to Fall and Stay Asleep
Have you ever brushed your teeth, put on your pajamas, and pulled yourself under the covers — only to be held off from the bliss of sleep by your own racing mind?
This is one of the most common obstacles to getting a good night’s sleep. When daytime stress follows you under the covers, traditional advice like counting sheep is too monotonous to keep intrusive thoughts away.
Instead, sleep experts and behavioral psychologists recommend simple, active mental techniques designed to gently shift your brain out of problem-solving mode so you can drift off naturally.
Psychologist Nina Kaiser, founder of Practice San Francisco, a regional mental health and wellness service, explains that an individual’s job is simply to “change the channel” and focus on something boring rather than stimulating.
According to scientist Luc Beaudoin, PhD, an adjunct professor at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, one highly effective method to do this is “cognitive shuffling,” a mental exercise designed to distract the brain with neutral, non-stimulating information.
To perform his method, select a neutral word that is five to twelve letters long, ideally with no repeating letters (such as “garden,” “blanket,” or “planet”). Avoid any words that might trigger stress, like “employ” or “money.”
Work through the chosen word, letter by letter, and think of as many unrelated items as you can for each. For example, if your word starts with the letter G, you might think of “goat,” “guitar,” and “galaxy.” Take a few seconds to visualize each item before moving on to the next, and continue this process for each letter until you drift off to sleep.
“The key is keeping them unrelated,” advises a Duke University Medical Center health psychologist Patricia Pedreira. “If your brain starts making connections or building a story, it defeats the purpose… You don’t have to worry too much about creating an elaborate mental picture with perfect detail. Just a mental snapshot is OK.”
Sarah Gray, a Harvard Medical School psychologist, notes that this exercise uses the perfect amount of brainpower — enough to keep stress away, but not enough to keep you awake.
For middle-of-the-night awakenings or sudden spikes in bedtime anxiety, Kuljeet K. Gill, MD, a Northwestern Medicine sleep medicine specialist, recommends deep breaths while counting down from eight. This helps pull your nervous system out of fight-or-flight mode.
Ultimately, the key to making these mental sleep-inducing exercises workm is keeping them effortless. Sleep experts state that cognitive shuffling should never feel arduous; if you lose track of your spot or drift off mid-letter, the technique has done its job.
Also, if you wake up during the night, whatever you do, simply do not look at a clock!
Calculating your remaining sleep time engages your brain on a conscious level.
Second, thinking about how few hours you have left to snooze can cause stress, which also wakes the body. Finally, blue light emitted from digital screens suppresses melatonin, the hormone that signals our body to rest.
Beyond getting back to sleep, reducing the likelihood you wake up in the first place is just as vital.
The Mayo Clinic advises keeping environmental sleep disruptors such as elevated light, sound, and temperature in check and avoiding meals and physical activity too close to bedtime.
While these strategies are great for occasional bedtime rumination, chronic sleep issues like insomnia should be discussed with a medical professional.
Comments