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How to fall asleep and stay asleep

As you can imagine if you’ve read any of my blog posts, the subject of how to fall asleep and stay asleep is of great interest to me…

I have trouble sleeping. I have had trouble sleeping for well over a decade. I can probably count on 2 hands the number of times I’ve gotten a good night’s rest in the last 13 years. I can directly attribute my accelerated aging to my inability to fall asleep and stay asleep at night. So I am doing some research to see what are some of the ideas that are commonly suggested to people trying to find out how to fall asleep and stay asleep.

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I have been doing some experimenting on my own as well and I have found at least one trick that has been helping me to fall asleep whenever I remember to try it. Some nights my mind is so lost in thoughts that impair my ability to sleep that I don’t remember I have this trick I can use to help me fall asleep. I find that the trick works to help me fall asleep pretty much all the time if I hang with it long enough. It does not, however help me stay asleep.

The trick: I close my eyes and try to look deep into the dark until it begins to appear as if I am traveling fast through a tunnel. If I stick with it long enough, it begins to appear as if the tunnel is lit by many streaks of light. The light is not immediate and it’s not constant. It can be hard to stick with the tunnel travel because without the light, there is no target pulling you in towards it. With the light it’s as if you have something to chase. And the longer you hang with it the faster you travel until you are no longer aware of being in the tunnel moving at what seems to be the speed of light. Because you have fallen asleep.

I know you’re thinking I’m insane and you’re frowning trying to make sense of this so-called trick; but it works for me every time. Just that sometimes I’m so deep in my stuff thinking about all the things that are making it hard for me to fall asleep, that I don’t remember to try the trick.

I haven’t come up with a trick for staying asleep yet. But I do believe there are plenty of things that I can do to try to help myself stay asleep. Here’s a list of ideas I’ve already come up with for myself

  1. Keep the room cool. Not too hot. Not too cold.
  2. Keep the room clean and uncluttered
  3. Keep the room free of strong scents and odors
  4. Use a humidifier if necessary to keep the room dust free
  5. Limit noise, including white noise
  6. If you share the room with someone and that person has habits that affect your ability to sleep (they snore, they smell, they turn on the lights at random times) consider not sharing a room with that person
  7. Find a sleep position that is comfortable for you where you can remain long in that position without having to toss and turn
  8. Experiment with pillows until you find one that doesn’t cause you to fight with it all night
  9. Find the right attire. It matters how comfortable you feel in your sleeping clothes
  10. Meditate half hour before bedtime, or otherwise try to clear your mind so that you’re not thinking about all your problems while in bed
  11. Sleep on a comfortable mattress
  12. Go to sleep earlier. This way if you wake up and can’t get back to sleep for an hour or even two hours, once you do fall back asleep, you still have a chance of getting an adequate amount of sleep. This is especially true if you tend to wake up around the same time every day. Getting to bed as many minutes or hours earlier as the amount of time you tend to spend awake when you wake up in the middle of the morning could, at the end of the day, even out your sleeping time so there is not loss of hours.

How to fall asleep and stay asleep – suggestions from around the web

In the article 11 Unconventional Sleep Tips: How to Get to Sleep and Stay Asleep, author Stephanie Burke writes for Spine-Health.com 11 tips for helping you fall asleep and stay asleep. She calls her tips unconventional because at least a few of them are things you will find on lists of things you should not do if you are trying to fall asleep and stay asleep. Burke’s tips include such suggestions as “force your worries”, which she explains thusly:

If worrying kicks in just after you close your eyes or awakes you in the middle of the night, consider scheduling a daily “worry time” during the day. Choose a 15 minute period at the same time every day when you try to think of every possible worry, and then tell them to a trusted confidant or write them out in a journal. Getting your worries out during the day can help keep your mind from perseverating on them during the night.

Her other tips include taking Valerian, napping lightly every day, exercising intensely, trying out a more comfortable mattress, getting sunlight soon after you wake up in the morning, making your room colder, blocking out background noise, avoiding hot baths, matching your pillows to your sleep position and empowering yourself to reduce stress. You can read the full article here.

Here is another list that I found in a Huffington Post article with some of the same suggestions that I have made above for how to fall asleep and stay asleep at night. The article was written by Ellen G. Goldman back in August of 2014. She elaborates on each point in the list so you can read the article to read her points in greater detail.

  1. Get the number of hours of sleep each night you need to function optimally.
  2. Create a calming atmosphere in your bedroom.
  3. Make your bed in the morning.
  4. Reserve your bed for sleep and sex only.
  5. Create a calming nighttime ritual.
  6. Keep your bedroom cool at night.
  7. Avoid caffeine in the later afternoon and evening.
  8. Avoid late night workouts.
  9. Avoid alcohol and spicy foods in the late evenings.
  10. If an evening party or celebration finds you consuming wine or cocktails, drink plenty of water throughout the evening, and keep a water bottle by your bedside.
  11. Spend a few minutes creating your “to do list” and preparing for the next day.
  12. Keep a pad and pen by your bedside.
  13. If you have not fallen asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed and find a relaxing spot to read.
  14. Eliminate or reduce afternoon naps to a maximum of 30 minutes
  15. Go to bed and get up at the same time every day no matter how much sleep you had the night before.
Monica
Monicahttps://adelamonica.com
Singer songwriter Adelamonica AKA Avenue Sixty editor in chief. Writing as Monica for The Monica Archives. Writing has always been one of my passions. In fact, when I was a teenager, I used to tell people they should remember my name, because I was going to become a famous author. I used to live to write and write to live--not in the sense of writing for income but writing to combat depression and to feel a sense of purpose. I've written novels, poems, articles and essays that I tried unsuccessfully to get published over many years starting in my teens. When I discovered blogging several ages ago, I turned to that avenue as a means of doing what I love without having to worry about publishers and their rejection letters. Modeling is also something I have always enjoyed and something I wanted very badly to do as a teenager. So badly that I used to lie and tell people I was a model. I would carry around a large portfolio style photo album and claim it was my modeling portfolio. But, as with my writing, the people with the power to make my modeling dreams come true saw nothing in me that made them stop me in the streets of New York to offer me a modeling contract with their agency. So when I discovered the ability to photograph my own self (before cell phones and selfies) I took up a hobby of pretend modeling at home and that hobby has remained with me throughout my life as a form of self expression and self therapy. I ask that you kindly excuse my lack of worldliness and any instances where I demonstrate lack of tact or lack of knowledge and even lack of basic intelligence in my writing and posing. I'm just here trying to have a little fun doing the things that make me happy. I'm just an average human for whom writing and posing and singing and dancing and the other things I do are ways I express myself and keep myself going on this ever challenging journey of life. I hope you will find something even remotely useful or interesting in the things I share.

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