How to fall asleep faster: tips

Sleep prob­lems hap­pen to every­one from time to time. Over­whelm­ing emo­tions, phys­i­cal or men­tal fatigue, lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and oth­er fac­tors neg­a­tive­ly affect the process of immer­sion in the king­dom of Mor­pheus. What can be done to improve sleep qual­i­ty and come faster?

Prob­lems with falling asleep, when a per­son is spin­ning in bed for sev­er­al hours, is worse than any tor­ture, and awak­en­ing from any rus­tle and sub­se­quent insom­nia also unset­tle for a long time. If this hap­pens reg­u­lar­ly, then the qual­i­ty of human life suf­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly. He becomes irri­ta­ble, moral­ly depressed, his work­ing capac­i­ty decreas­es and his immu­ni­ty is weak­ened. The risk of heart attacks and oth­er dis­eases increas­es.

The surest way to improve sleep is to not wait for it.

No mat­ter how trite it may seem, but you should not esca­late the sit­u­a­tion, think about insom­nia and that now you won’t be able to fall asleep again. Morale is of great impor­tance, so you need to learn not to be ner­vous about this. It is nec­es­sary to agree with your­self and say to your­self some­thing like: “Now I’ll lie down for a bit and if I don’t feel the desire to fall asleep, I won’t suf­fer, but I’ll do some house­work — I’ll wash the dish­es, clean the plumb­ing, etc. “. If you do not focus on the prob­lem, then there are high chances that it will be solved by itself and the person’s sleep will improve.

How to establish a sleep and rest regimen — doctor’s advice

Often, prob­lems with falling asleep occur in those who go to bed at dif­fer­ent times of the day. Here again, we had to sit down for a dis­ser­ta­tion at night, or the author­i­ties urgent­ly called me on duty, and then we are sur­prised that we can’t fall asleep in any way. As for the divi­sion into “larks” and “owls”, this is all the result of many years of habit and fea­tures of the main activ­i­ty, which, if desired, can be changed. In 3–4 weeks, you can learn to get up ear­ly — at 6 o’clock in the morn­ing, and go to bed at 22.00, or rather at 22.30, since dur­ing this time 5 phas­es of a per­son­’s sleep, 1.5 hours each, must pass.

Why does the doc­tor’s advice pro­vide for a restruc­tur­ing from the “owl” mode to the “lark”? If you wake up ear­ly and refuse to take a nap, by 10 pm you will be tired enough for the day and want to sleep. In addi­tion, this is also impor­tant because our ner­vous sys­tem receives a good rest pre­cise­ly from 22.00 to 24.00 hours. This peri­od is also called the “mag­ic dream” and not by chance. It can­not be replaced by hours of “over­sleep­ing” after 6 am and any oth­er rest sched­ule that does not include this peri­od of time.

Being a “lark” is more use­ful than an “owl” in terms of health, because food tak­en at night does not turn into ener­gy, since all bio­chem­i­cal process­es in the body are slowed down, but is stored in reserve, that is, it turns into fat. And this is over­weight, prob­lems with blood ves­sels, etc.

Preparatory activities before bedtime as prevention and treatment of insomnia

Do not lose sight of this moment, because even the small­est detail such as cold feet can make you suf­fer for a long time and wait for immer­sion in the king­dom of Mor­pheus. There­fore, before going to bed, it is rec­om­mend­ed to car­ry out a num­ber of activ­i­ties, choos­ing one of them or com­bin­ing sev­er­al meth­ods with each oth­er at once to quick­ly fall asleep:

• take a warm bath. Hard work, stress and anx­i­ety lead to an increase in mus­cle tone. Warm baths will help to relax them and relieve spasm. You can add sooth­ing essen­tial oils to the water — lemon balm, laven­der, cypress, juniper, cedar. You can com­bine tak­ing a bath with aro­mather­a­py if you light an aro­ma lamp;
• get a relax­ing mas­sage. Of course, one can­not do with­out the help of one of the fam­i­ly mem­bers, but if no one is around, you can inde­pen­dent­ly stretch the mus­cles of the arms and legs, neck. And if you expe­ri­ence dis­com­fort in the back area, get a Kuznetsov appli­ca­tor and lie on it for a while;
• turn on soft music. On sale you can find spe­cial discs for med­i­ta­tion and relax­ation with the sounds of nature — birds singing, the sound of the sea, etc. You can include clas­si­cal works or church hymns;
• slow down breath­ing. It is no secret that it nat­u­ral­ly slows down dur­ing sleep, so you can help your­self by accel­er­at­ing its onset if you start doing spe­cial breath­ing exer­cis­es: take a breath and men­tal­ly slow­ly count from 1 to 6. As you exhale, men­tal­ly say 7, 8, 9, 10;
• put on a dark blind­fold before going to bed so that the body starts pro­duc­ing mela­tonin, the sleep hor­mone;
• ven­ti­late the room, and if it is not too cold out­side, you can leave the win­dow ajar. Experts say that a per­son­’s sleep is high­ly depen­dent on the air tem­per­a­ture in the bed­room. The most com­fort­able indi­ca­tors vary with­in + 18–20 ᵒС;
• turn off the lights. If you don’t feel com­fort­able in total dark­ness, then at least turn it down and make sure it does­n’t hit you in the face. If you decide to pur­chase a night light, then choose a device that emits red light;
• stop men­tal and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty at least an hour before bed­time, oth­er­wise you will need more time for the body to rebuild and active process­es to be replaced in it by process­es of inhi­bi­tion and falling asleep;
• do not eat 3–4 hours before bed­time. You should not go to bed either on an emp­ty stom­ach or on a full stom­ach. If you feel the urge to eat, drink a glass of kefir.

Calming drinks are a great way to improve a person’s sleep

As you know, tea with hon­ey is an excel­lent tool for rest­ful sleep, but you need to put this bee­keep­ing prod­uct not in boil­ing water, but in hot water, oth­er­wise all its ben­e­fi­cial prop­er­ties will be neu­tral­ized. Instead of tea, herbal­ists rec­om­mend brew­ing med­i­c­i­nal herbs, but the main thing here is not to over­do it and not to turn off the infu­sions before going to bed with mugs, oth­er­wise there will sim­ply be no time to rest — an over­flow­ing blad­der will tor­ment you. Here are the recipes for mak­ing the most effec­tive drinks:

• mix the crushed roots of valer­ian and angel­i­ca in equal pro­por­tions. Pour the mix­ture in a vol­ume of 20 g with 200 ml of plain clean water and boil in a water bath for 20 min­utes. Infuse for 45 min­utes, then fil­ter, add water to the orig­i­nal vol­ume and drink ¼‑1/3 cup twice or thrice a day;
• mix in equal pro­por­tions chamomile flow­ers, pep­per­mint, fen­nel, cumin and valer­ian. A mix­ture of 2 tbsp. l. pour 1 glass of plain clean water and pre­pare a decoc­tion accord­ing to the pre­vi­ous recipe. Take 1/3 cup three times a day.

Accord­ing to the same recipe, you can pre­pare a decoc­tion of moth­er­wort, St. John’s wort, Ivan tea, worm­wood, lemon balm, laven­der. All of them will help set the body for a healthy and sound sleep.