Waking Up At Night: 4 Tactics To Reacquaint With Your Quilt
If you still don’t know how to get to sleep properly, and you are constantly struggling with this battle, it can be so frustrating when you wake up in the middle of the night after only a couple of hours of sleep. It can be down to insomnia or waking a little bit earlier than normal, but the inability to go back to sleep after waking, typically known as sleep maintenance insomnia, can be experienced by up to 60% of people. When we wake up at night, we need to know how best to fall back asleep. Here are a few simple tips.
Relaxing
We can feel more stressed about the fact that we are awake, which can set our mind racing. Relaxation is unique to the individual. There are a number of ways to fix this, from cooling weighted blankets for summer temperatures to having thick blankets during the winter. But in addition to this, relaxing by performing what is known as a full body scan can help you to slow everything down. A body scan, where you close your eyes, breathe slowly and start to focus on each muscle from top to toe, relaxing each one until you get to the bottom, can help a lot.
Do Not Check Any Screens
If you have a clock at the side of the bed, you could become more anxious if you keep checking it. You can worry about not going back to sleep and getting enough shuteye, and that clock-watching isn’t helping in the slightest. Additionally, you need to not check any screens, such as on your phone. Finding that it’s only 2 in the morning will not help your frame of mind.
Breathing Techniques
There are a huge variety of breathing exercises out there that can help you to relax. With a vast number of mindfulness apps out there and sessions on YouTube, you’ve got to ask yourself if you really need to do this. If you do, make sure that you have a blue light blocker on your phone, but there are a number of techniques you can try without your phone, such as the 4-7-8 technique, where you inhale through your nose for 4 seconds, and then hold your breath for 7, and finally exhale through the mouth for the count of 8. Keep repeating this until you feel more relaxed.
Get Out of Bed and Move Around
If you cannot fall back asleep within 20 minutes, going to a different room and doing something that relaxes you can distract your mind and could make it easier for you to fall back asleep when you go back to bed. But it is so important not to stimulate yourself.
If this occurs regularly, you may want to address if there’s any underlying problem. Going to the doctor is always going to put your mind at ease, and if you are randomly waking up because there is something on your mind, there are many techniques that can hopefully get you back to slumberland.
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- Lisa has been blogging since 2013, and loves sharing resources and ideas for living a simple life. To get free printables, bonus words, and more - sign up for the newsletter.
I have always been an erratic sleeper, an hour here, two hours there, this served me well when my children were newborns but over the years I often found myself tired all through the day. Now my sleep is erratic because of frequent bathroom trips throughout the night…thank you for sharing your advice on how to achieve a longer and more restful sleep
This is great sleep advice, thank you for sharing! I have always had a lot of trouble falling asleep, and if I get woken up it takes hours to fall back into it.