How to sleep better. Tips for optimal rest.

We fall asleep when we are distracted from trying to fall asleep. 

When was the last time you woke up feeling rested and refreshed? If the thought of a good night's rest is foreign to you, first of all, I'm so sorry. Suffering from sleep issues is no joke. Not getting restful sleep can negatively affect one's mental, emotional and physical health. And ... you are not alone, research shows that over 2/3 of Americans struggle with some kind of sleep issue (e.g. Insomnia, Sleep Apnea, difficulty falling or staying asleep, chronic pain that keeps you awake, etc.). Personally, I think this might be underreported based on how often this topic is brought up with clients, friends and family. 

Sleepiness can affect one's vigilance, reaction times, learning abilities, alertness, mood, hand-eye coordination, and memory. Sleepiness has been identified as the cause of a growing number of on-the-job accidents, automobile crashes and multi-model transportation tragedies.

The truth is, unfortunately, there is not a one-size-fits-all model to fix sleep issues. There are many reasons people can’t sleep at night and everyone's experience is unique to them.

Whether the reasons for your sleep issues are medical, physical, mental, emotional, environmental or situational, there are; however, tools and practices that can help improve your sleep.

The good news is there are some things that can help support a healthier sleeping environment (both internal and external), which can help reduce the suffering around our sleep issues. I often compare these tools to when we are ill; we tend to, hopefully, nurture ourselves more when we don't feel well. We hopefully allow more time for rest, dress in more comfortable clothing, eat nourishing foods and lay with our favorite blankets and pillows. These things don't necessarily take away the illness, but they help comfort us during times of difficulty helping to reduce our overall suffering. When we provide ourselves an environment during times of suffering, we're offering self-compassion, which inherently is on the path to healing.

Here are 10 tips to help improve your sleep:

• reduce screen time 1-2 hours before bed

• reduce caffeine intake 4 hours before bed

• exercise a few times per week, but make sure to take several days off to rest (over-exercising can affect one’s quality of sleep)

• declutter the space that you sleep in - a clean space helps reduce the external stimuli, which can help soothe your nervous system

• create an evening routine that includes signals to your mind and body that it's time to rest (e.g. warm tea, dimming the lights, warm bath, comfy clothing, lighting a candle, reading, etc.)

• listening to white noise or bilateral music - when it’s dark, our other senses compensate for the loss of sight and they can become enhanced. So, if you’re sensitive to sounds, you might be in a vigilant state attuning to sounds in your environment, which could be keeping you up at night. Listening to white noise or soothing sounds or music (e.g. bilateral music - avoid songs with lyrics so that your brain is not being stimulated by the music) can help reduce your level of vigilance allowing you your mind and body to relax.

• journal before bed to help clear your mind

• relax your jaw; we hold a lot of stress in our face, especially our jaws. Give yourself a gentle jaw massage and consciously unclench your jaw and allow your tongue to be heavy resting behind your lower teeth, allow a little space between your upper and lower lips.

• deep breaths; try focusing on extending your exhale inviting it to be longer and slower than your inhale

• try a guided meditation - we fall asleep when we are distracted from trying to fall asleep. By being guided through a meditation, it allows your mind to move into a more passive and relaxed state.

• Bonus Tip: Be compassionate with yourself. Stressing out and/or judging yourself for not being able to sleep will not help you sleep better and will instead release stress hormones that will leave you feeling wired. Try to go easy on yourself - while it’s not necessarily normal to have sleep issues it is definitely common; you are not alone.

And this is where I can come with some help as a trauma-informed mediation teacher.

I have recorded several meditations that are specifically designed to help you reach optimal rest. Both my Yoga Nidra Meditation and the Meditation Bundle for Better Sleep support deep rest and use evidenced-based approaches that help improve the state of your nervous system to help you reach optimal rest.

Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) is the powerful practice of conscious rest that systematically relaxes and unwinds our physical, emotional, and mental tension. Yoga Nidra helps to break down these patterns through a guided bilateral body scan, breath awareness and visualizations to reach resting states usually only experienced in the deepest levels of sleep. True healing begins with deep rest.

While there’s no substitute for a great night’s sleep, experts believe that this particular combination of meditation and yoga for 30-minutes equals approximately two hours of deep sleep. You can find my free guided yoga nidra mediation at Insight Timer or access my Better Sleep Meditation Bundle here.