Stop The Stress Physically
Bad stress feels threatening, producing adrenaline as part of the flight and fight response and this keeps us awake. You can stop the physical effects of the stress response, by contracting and relaxing the muscles throughout your body, and by breathing out slowly. This relaxes your muscles and slows you down, reducing blood flow to your heart and lowering your pulse and blood pressure. These are the opposite physical effects of the stress response. It is a little like the front wheel of a bicycle. if you turn the handlebars, the wheel turns, but if you turn the wheel in the opposite direction, the handlebars turn back. Similiarly, if you relax your body physically, you reverse the stress response.
Stop The Stress Mentally
You can stop the stress mentally, by changing how you feel emotionally, in particular by feeling safe. This may sound a little daunting at first but we can go to the movies, or read a book, and experience a whole range of emotions, like excitement and fear and happiness and sadness, and many more, all without getting out of a chair. With a little practice, you can feel safety and other positive emotions, at will. This switches off the stress response and sets the scene for normal, healthy, relaxing, refreshing sleep.
Dreaming To Sleep
Now you know how to switch off the stress response you can learn how to dream yourself to sleep. When you are dreaming, the brain produces the naturally occurring chemicals which take you into deep, refreshing sleep. If you mimic dreaming sleep, the brain produces the same chemicals, and guides you naturally into deep sleep. It can be difficult to do this for yourself, because you lose your train of thought as you start drifting into sleep. These audios of enjoyable pastimes, for example a beach walk or a massage or a lazy day, guide you into sleep. Simply turn down the volume to the lowest level that you can still hear the track and go to sleep as you normally would.
The Body Clock is very important to regular healthy sleep as anyone who has experienced Jet Lag can attest to.
Going to bed at the same time is important to setting the body clock as is rising at a regular time and getting morning sunlight. This helps to stimulate the Pineal gland and regulate the Body Clock.
However the body clock is not just a sleep/wake cycle. It is comprised of numerous oscillations of different sizes which all contribute to our health. Many biochemical processes oscillate at a cellular level. Hormones are released in pulses, sometimes twice daily. Heartbeat and breathing are oscillations and we have, traditionally, behaviour patterns that depend on regular rhythms throughout the day. Breakfast, mid morning break, lunch, mid afternoon break and dinner have often been observed as regular daytime patterns, usually following a 90 minute pattern. It is increasingly normal to ignore these natural rhythms and work non stop. It then becomes difficult to simply switch off at will and go to sleep normally. Interestingly the pattern of normal sleep involves several cycles of around 90 minutes of deep sleep alternating with lighter sleep.
So be aware of your daytime activities and if it is impossible to take breaks through the day try some mini stress breaks to break up the Stress response.
Body Clock
Everyone is aware that caffeine keeps you awake and should be avoided close to bedtime, but most people think that alcohol relaxes you and makes you sleepy.
However, alcohol stops you getting into deep sleep which is the part of sleep that gives you the most recovery and healing.
Alcohol is a late stimulant so wakes you up after 2 -3 hours of sleep and stops you getting back to sleep.
So avoid alcohol if sleeping is a problem