Let’s face it. Stress is a major part of life for all of us today, but most people just “deal with it.”
The reality is that even though your mind might ignore the pressure you’re feeling, your body tattles on you through various physical signs, like the tossing and turning you deal with at night.
You need to sleep, but your mind won’t stop racing. Sleep would help you feel better and relax, so it’s a Catch-22. What’s a stressed-out person to do?
The good news is that there is hope. Try these three tried-and-true tips, and you could be on your way to catching some z’s and improving your ability to tolerate stress!
1. Control Your Breathing
Did you know that you can trick your brain into relaxing by adjusting your breathing pace? It’s similar to the techniques used by women in childbirth for thousands of years, and it’s so effective that Navy Seals are trained to use controlled breathing to help them on the front lines.
There are various breathing techniques you can learn, but they all have the same premise: slowing your breathing and convincing your fight-or-flight system to take a rest. Feel free to try different ones out until you find the one that works best for you. The Seals use box breathing, which works like this:
- Inhale through your nose for a four-count, focusing on adding air to your lungs and abdomen. Consider visualizing drawing the sides of a box for each count.
- Hold the breath you drew for another four-count, tracing each side of the box as you go.
- Exhale through your mouth for a four-count. You got it — draw another set of lines around your box in your mind.
Repeat these steps as many times as necessary. Because you’re counting and, in some cases, visualizing the box, your mind is distracted from its worries, and you may find yourself asleep before you can finish your last box.
2. Relax Your Muscles
Progressive relaxation techniques are part of the foundation of many sleep apps. You can do this on your own every night. It has the double benefit of soothing your muscles and controlling your breathing, as we discussed in the first tip.
To get started, lay down on your bed in your preferred sleep position. Make sure the room is dark, quiet, and comfortable, and close your eyes.
Beginning with either the top or bottom of your body, tense each group of muscles as you breathe slowly in through your nose and out through your mouth.
You may walk yourself through with a mantra like this:
- Relax your toes (flex your toes, breathe in and out for a count of four).
- Relax your ankles (flex your ankles, breathe in and out for a count of four).
- Relax your shins (flex the legs below the knee, breathe in and out for a count of four).
Continue this progress throughout the rest of the body until you reach your head, then repeat as necessary.
3. Use a Night Guard
Maybe falling asleep isn’t the issue, and you’re out like a light shortly after your head hits the pillow, but you can’t stay asleep. In the middle of the night, you find yourself waking up for seemingly no reason.
It’s possible that you, like millions of others around the world, have bruxism. This is a sleep disorder that’s linked with stress, and it causes you to clench your jaw and grind your teeth subconsciously. Because these actions cause jaw muscle and enamel pain, they wake you up, and you don’t even know that you were grinding.
Symptoms of bruxism include fatigue, morning headaches, neck, shoulder, and jaw muscle pain, and teeth sensitivity. If you think you might be a bruxer, a quick way to get some sleep and reduce the damage to your body is to invest in a custom-made night guard.
This article by JS Dental Lab explains more about the benefits of these oral appliances and why they could be the only thing you need to get better sleep while you work out your stresses.
Conclusion
You’re stressed enough during the day; you don’t want to add “insomnia” to your list of things to worry about! The 6-8 hours of sleep you get each night is your body and mind’s chance to recover from a hard day, and you deserve it.
Instead of tossing and turning, try these three simple and effective tips to start sleeping through the night, no matter how much you have on your plate.
