Hello and welcome to my blog! Today I will show you a very important topic. I will show you how you can fall asleep very fast. We all know the feeling that we are tired, but when we go to bed, we just can't seem to fall asleep. Sometimes you can lay a full night without sleeping, even though you are really tired. Why is this? How can we fall asleep faster? How can we get a better night's sleep? And why is it important to get a good night's sleep? These are some of the questions I will answer in this blog post. As always I will tell you a little story about my life, to show you guys what I'm talking about. When I was younger I would go to sleep pretty early, and then it would take me like 2-4 hours to fall asleep. Sometimes I did not sleep at all. I have many nights where I had so many thourds rising in my head, so I just couldn't catch a break. This was my daily routine: I would get up with no energy at all. Then I would take a cup of coffee to survive, and after this I would eat some breakfast. I would then go to school, where I would drink 2-3 energy drinks to get through the day. After I was done with school I would go home even more tired, watching netflix, eating chips and drinking more energy drinks. I would watch Netflix until I was going to sleep. So do you see the problem here? There are a few mistakes that make sure I stay up the whole night. I was blaming my head for the lack of sleep and actually got really angry sometimes. Then when i couldn't fall asleep i would watch some more Netflix to try and fall asleep. As I said , there are a few problems with this daily routine. Let's begin with the first things first. Caffeine One of the mistakes I made was drinking too much caffeine. Did you know that if you drink one cup of coffee it takes 8 hours for your body to get rid of all the caffeine? So if you drink too much coffee too late, this might be the cause of your sleep problems. I made a rule for myself that I will only drink 1 cup of coffee at the start of the day. Another thing that will happen to you if you drink too much caffeine is that you actually can be depressed. That's right. If your brain is used to getting a lot of caffeine and you dont drink it as much on the weekends, your brain will suffer and you will have a rough weekend, where you are tired and don't feel like doing anything. Screen Time Okay this one you might have already heard a lot from your parents. BUT, they were right.. If you're watching too much television or another screen, this can cause your brain to stay awake. Your brain will send signals to your body that it's not time for you to sleep quiet yet, because you have to process the information that the tv/screen light gives you. A good rule to set for yourself is to give your brain 1 hour at the end of the day to release some melatonin (The chemical that makes you tired) The bright light from a digital source will send some Acetylcholine into your body. (This is the chemical that will make you awake) Studies also show that even if you fall asleep in front of the tv, your sleep quality will be drastically worse. Why reading is a good thing Instead of watching tv or watching youtube on your phone before sleeping, you can read a book! I know this sounds boring and maybe even stupid for some people, but trust me it will help on your sleep. When you read you tell your brain that it can relax and don't need to do anything right now. This will not make you tired, but simply make you feel how tired you actually are. When I go to bed I read for 1 hour or until I have a hard time keeping my eyes open. Then when I lay down it usually only takes like 2-4 minutes to fall asleep. Another good thing about reading is that when you are getting used to it, you will actually be looking forward to seeing what will happen in your book next. Naps If you are anything like me, you like to sleep. When you don't get a lot of sleep at night, you may feel like napping is a good idea to help you get through the day. Studies show that if you take a nap for any time more than 20 minutes your sleep at night will be affected. If you want to sleep to get more energy this one technique could maybe help you. Take your keys in your hand and then sit on a chair and close your eyes. When you fall asleep you will drop the key and your brain will go into defence mode. Your brain will release a lot of adrenaline, and now you are wide awake. This will only take 5 minutes and will not affect your night sleep, but will help you stay awake the whole day. If you still feel like taking a nap, take a nap for 20 minutes and then afterward do something active to stimulate your brain and get yourself going again. Meditation Meditation is good for many reasons. This can give your brain a break from overthinking during the day and you will feel a change in your behavior and how you overall feel. There are a lot of tutorials on youtube and google on how to do this, so I won't get into that too much. Meditation can also help you to fall asleep faster. Here is how. When you lay down, start your meditation by taking a deep breath. After this take some deep breaths and try not to think about anything else than your breaths. If it helps you, you can try to count your breaths. IF you find it hard to let go of your thoughts, dont be hard on yourself, just acknowledge they are there, and move on counting your breaths. Signing off The last technique I will share with you is called “Signing the day off” almost like you sign off at work, you can do this for the whole day. Simply find a good spot to sit, and find a piece of paper and a pen. Now you will write a few keywords on what your day has been like. You will also write what you have to do tomorrow. If you have any thoughts in your head buggin you, write them down now. This will help you empty your brain before sleep. Now everything that was inside your brain that could keep you awake is now on a piece of paper, and you can let it go knowing that you want to forget it the next day. It's important that you write it on paper and not on your phone or tablet. I don't know why this only works on paper, but i also tried to write it down on my phone and i did not have the same effect as on paper. Do what works for you
So the very last thing I will tell you is: Do what works for you. Maybe one of the techniques that I wrote about will help you enough, and then that's fantastic! Maybe you have to do 2 or 3 or even all of them, and that's also okay. You will have to find out which of these works for you, and maybe even tweak them to your personality. I myself am using all of these because I have so hard of a time falling asleep if I don't. Doing all of these takes an hour and a half. This may sound like a lot of time, but remember the alternative is to maybe lay for 3-4 hours restless, and then get a poor quality sleep. So again, do what works for you. Try them all, until you find your master plan, and then stick to it. Thank you very much for reading this blog today. I really appreciate you being here! If you want to hear this as a podcast you can Click Here. If something on this blog/podcast helps you, I will be very happy to hear from you in the comments below! Have a very nice day, and a good rest tonight!
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