5 Tips When You Can’t Sleep
When you can’t sleep, it’s easy to get caught up in negative thinking, so here are 5 tips to help you when you’re struggling with sleep.
I have always felt lucky that I was a good sleeper. I was able to go to sleep when I went to bed, and I slept straight through, rarely waking up in the middle of the night. But since having a child and going through cancer, things have changed. Now I occasionally have trouble falling asleep, and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep.
As with anything in life, the more we fight it, the more we resist it, the worse a situation can get. So here are 5 tips for getting better sleep:
- Be Kind to Yourself – if you can’t fall asleep or stay asleep, it is not a moral failing. Be nice to yourself, as you would to a friend or child, and comfort yourself rather than beat yourself up.
- Remain Calm – there’s no sense in getting agitated or riled up about your lack of sleep. Try to stay calm and move on to your arsenal of tools for dealing with insomnia.
- Accept the Situation – resisting reality just makes things worse. So accept that you’re awake, you don’t know when or if you’ll fall asleep again, and do your best to adjust to reality.
- Encourage Yourself to Rest – even if you can’t sleep, you can rest. Lying quietly and calmly, in a comfortable position and with your comfy blanket and pillow. Resting is still helpful to the body and mind, so you can feel good that you’re able to do that much.
- Use the Gratitude Alphabet – go through the alphabet and for each letter, think of something you are grateful for. This typically takes me awhile, and usually I’m asleep before I get to Z.
Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash
