What advice is best not to give a person who has trouble sleeping?

The lack of prop­er sleep for sev­er­al weeks, or even months, is a dif­fi­cult test for a per­son. Espe­cial­ly when there are so many around who want to give advice on how to deal with this prob­lem. Today we will give exam­ples of expres­sions that should not be said to peo­ple suf­fer­ing from insom­nia.

Sleep time should be fixed: go to bed and get up at certain hours

The advice, of course, is cor­rect, but not always fea­si­ble. It is hard­ly worth dis­cussing sit­u­a­tions when you need to make an urgent pre­sen­ta­tion, fin­ish some house­hold chores, or sit with a sick child. And even if we assume that noth­ing pre­vent­ed a per­son from get­ting into bed at eleven in the evening, it is not a fact that the desired dream will come right away. After all, if some “lucky ones” are cap­tured by Mor­pheus, as soon as the head touch­es the pil­low, then oth­ers have to roll over from side to side for more than one hour. And it only adds to their suf­fer­ing.

Isn’t it bet­ter to do some­thing pleas­ant when you can’t fall asleep at the right time? You can look through mag­a­zines, lis­ten to music, take a relax­ing bath. And go to bed when the eyes begin to stick togeth­er.

Good habits: go to bed no later than ten o’clock

We are con­stant­ly told to go to bed no lat­er than ten in the evening, because one hour before mid­night is equal to two after twelve. How­ev­er, use­ful sleep time varies from per­son to per­son. Is it any won­der that you didn’t man­age to get enough sleep if, due to habit, you went to bed after twelve? In some cas­es, the time when sleep comes does not real­ly mat­ter. You need to go to bed when you feel tired.

The opin­ion that until mid­night every hour counts as two has no sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence. And this is not such a prob­lem when a person’s sleep does not fall on the set hours. What mat­ters is how much he sleeps. Nor­mal sleep time is at least sev­en to eight hours. For exam­ple, some peo­ple find it more com­fort­able to get six hours of sleep at night and then a cou­ple more hours at lunchtime. If there is such an oppor­tu­ni­ty, then why not take advan­tage of it?

Do not use gadgets two hours before bedtime

Can any­one imag­ine this? And what do you do in the evening? Of course, there are many enjoy­able activ­i­ties, such as embroi­dery, knit­ting, chat­ting with fam­i­ly mem­bers or doing yoga. How­ev­er, let’s be hon­est — it is unlike­ly that many of us have the courage to give up gad­gets every evening. More­over, to a greater extent, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with oth­er peo­ple these days takes place on social net­works.

There­fore, if some­one real­ly wants to save a person’s sleep from the harm­ful effects of a blue screen of a com­put­er, which neg­a­tive­ly affects the qual­i­ty of sleep, it is bet­ter to give him more real advice. For exam­ple, down­load an appli­ca­tion that illu­mi­nates the screen with a less harm­ful yel­low light at night or get spe­cial glass­es with a pro­tec­tive coat­ing.

Mandatory walks before bed

Walk­ing in the fresh air before going to bed is, of course, a use­ful thing. Espe­cial­ly if some­one keeps you com­pa­ny or you live in a safe and well-lit area. Only it is unlike­ly that such a walk will bring a lot of pos­i­tive emo­tions to a lone­ly girl who lives in a remote res­i­den­tial area and goes to bed clos­er to mid­night.

Getting up early will help you sleep better

There is an opin­ion that if you get up every day no lat­er than six in the morn­ing, a person’s sleep will nor­mal­ize. And in gen­er­al, being an owl is unnat­ur­al, because it vio­lates nat­ur­al rhythms.

Indeed, it is not quite nor­mal for a lark to go to bed late and wake up late. How­ev­er, for an owl, this is very nat­ur­al. If a per­son is com­fort­able going to bed after mid­night and wak­ing up no ear­li­er than ten, and at the same time he gets enough sleep and feels fine, then why not?

Owls won’t be able to find a good job

Indeed, owls do not real­ly like to get out of bed in the ear­ly morn­ing. And in almost any office at work, you must be no lat­er than ten in the morn­ing. It’s true, our lifestyle and soci­ety is more adapt­ed to larks. Of course, you can break your bio­log­i­cal rhythm and rearrange your sleep and wake pat­terns. Only this is a dif­fi­cult and lengthy process that requires dis­ci­pline. In addi­tion, it is not entire­ly ben­e­fi­cial for either phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal health. So is it worth it to hurt your­self? Maybe it’s bet­ter to look for anoth­er job with a more flex­i­ble sched­ule?

Too much sleep is bad

What does it mean to sleep a lot? Each per­son has their own sleep time. Indeed, six hours of sleep is enough for some­one to get enough sleep and feel nor­mal (although this can be called an excep­tion, because doc­tors rec­om­mend sleep­ing at least sev­en hours). And for some­one, in order to have a nor­mal rest, nine may not be enough. There­fore, if a per­son con­stant­ly sleeps more than eight hours, then this is his indi­vid­ual norm.

Anoth­er sit­u­a­tion is when about sev­en hours were enough for a full sleep, and now a per­son sleeps for nine, or even ten, and still feels tired. This can already be called an alarm­ing symp­tom. Per­haps the cause of such changes was depres­sion or some oth­er ill­ness. There­fore, instead of reproach­ing the “sleepy­head”, it is bet­ter to con­vince him to see a spe­cial­ist.

You will sleep on a well-deserved rest

If you do not con­stant­ly get enough sleep, then you may not live to reach a well-deserved rest. Reg­u­lar sleep dis­tur­bances increase the like­li­hood of devel­op­ing a num­ber of dis­eases — from car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease to can­cer. In addi­tion, con­stant lack of sleep has an extreme­ly neg­a­tive impact on the qual­i­ty of human life. The lack of a good night’s rest makes him more quick-tem­pered, unbal­anced, irri­tat­ed. A sleep deprived per­son may have cer­tain prob­lems with mem­o­ry and think­ing. There are cas­es when peo­ple who do not sleep well at night are too fond of eat­ing fat­ty and sweet foods, as a result of which they quick­ly gain weight.

And the most annoy­ing thing is that on a well-deserved rest, when you can go to bed at any time, sleep dis­tur­bances are like­ly to become more reg­u­lar. There­fore, “for­get about lack of sleep” is bad advice, it’s bet­ter to pro­tect your own sleep from a young age.