Tips for Overcoming Insomnia

Here are few tips for overcoming insomnia and other sleep problems in adults:

1. Starting the process of getting to sleep starts before you even get to bed. Let's think first about your bedroom. In these busy times, what can often get in the way of sleep is that other factors can start to intrude into the bedroom. This is particularly true of people who work from home, where work materials can slowly, but surely find themselves into the sleeping space. Your first rule then is the bedroom should be for sleep and sex only.
2. Also in relation to your bedroom, you should be aware that it is important to exclude as much noise and light as possibly. This seems obvious, but there is a good reason for this in that darkness and a lack of noise act as a signal to the brain that it is time to sleep. For those people who live in built up areas this can be difficult to achieve, but a good starting point is to install thick curtains.
3. Many people who suffer with insomnia do so as a result of a poor routine. They will go to bed at a range of times, sometimes they will read and others they do not. If you have significant sleep problems and want to learn how to get to sleep fast, then it is important to develop a good sleep routine - think of it as something of a ritual that you should keep to every night. It does not matter too much what your routine is provided that you avoid drinking caffeine in the evening and doing strenuous activity just before you go to bed. You may want to include having a relaxing bath, having a milky drink and reading a chapter of a book (nothing too stimulating though, so avoid thrillers). Above all, make sure that you keep to a regular bedtime.
4. Turn your alarm clock where you cannot easily see it. Why would you want to do this? Well simply because there is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night, looking at the clock and then worrying about how late it is and how little sleep you are getting. This in turn raises stress levels and inhibits sleep.
5. Try relaxation techniques. There are a range of options here. One technique involves the subject focusing on their extremities (i.e. fingers and toes) and imagining them slowly relaxing. You then move your way up the body imagining each part becoming more relaxed. Another technique involves imagining being in a particularly relaxing location (a desert island perhaps) and then think about how each of your sense would experience that situation - the wind on your face, the sound of waves crashing on the shore and the smell of tropical flowers.

Using Relaxation Techniques to Help Get to Sleep

One of the main persistent barriers to sleep is stress. In order for us to achieve good quality sleep then we need to be in a truly relaxed state, and obviously stress prevents us from achieving this. There are a couple of possible solutions to this. First of all, you could just remove whatever is causing you stress. However, this is clearly considerably easier to say than to achieve. If your main source of stress relates to your relationship or your job then you cannot just remove yourself from this situation.

An alternative then is to find ways to deal with this stress more effectively. Here a couple of relaxation techniques that I have often found useful:

Visualization

Lie in your bed with your eyes closed, making sure that you will not have any interruptions. Think about somewhere relaxing that you would like to be. It doesn't matter whether it is somewhere that you have been to before, or even whether it actually exists, as long as you can actually visualize the place you are imagining.
Now, you need to visualize the place you are imagining in detail, thinking through each of your sense. So, imagine how the breeze feels on your face, imagine the sounds you would hear in your chosen place, what you would smell and, of course, what you would see. You can return to this place frequently and develop in your mind all the different things that you would experience.

Progressive Relaxation

Lie in your bed with your eyes closed. Start with your toes and tell yourself that they are relaxing and that this relaxation is going to spread slowly over your body. Move next to your feet. Again, you should tell yourself that they are becoming gradually more relaxed and feel their weight sink slowly into the bed. Repeat this process working your way up your body. It is important to take this very slowly and not to rush it. Imagine each part of your body become progressively relaxed and sinking into the bed. When you feel that you have worked your way all over your body then you should consider the whole of your body and if you feel that any part of you is still tense then repeat the process for that part of your body.

Download this Guide to Find Out More About How to Use Relaxation Techniques to Help You Sleep