We’ve got your back: Five things to know about your spine
JUN 27, 2022Five interesting facts from St. Joseph Health that you should know about your spine.
Read More Additional information about 5 things to know about your spine | St. Joseph Health
Do your thoughts race at night, preventing sleep? Do you find it difficult to sleep after getting settled in bed? Do you wake up from fitful sleep fatigued and lethargic? You’re not alone—around 70 million people in the U.S. experience chronic sleep problems. Losing out on sleep can cause various health problems, symptoms of mental distress, and a loss of productivity throughout your day.
But how can you better your sleep? We’ve compiled a list of four mental exercises that can aid in reducing your anxiety before bedtime and increase your likelihood of restful sleep:
Having issues with your sleep rhythm is unfortunately common in most adults, even for those without sleep disorders. Sleep is both a necessity for a healthy life and frustratingly hard to get in some instances. Outside of insomnia and other chronic conditions, such as anxiety, asthma, and heart disease, there are quite a few behaviors that can negatively impact your sleep health, cause racing thoughts, or simply keep you up at night.
There can be a lot of frustration around not being able to get the right amount of sleep for your productivity levels. As explained before, that frustration can lead you to an even worse night’s sleep. But fortunately, not all hope is lost. Our list of mental exercises and techniques can help you not only fall asleep but stay asleep.
This exercise is exactly what it sounds like—using your mind to control how you breathe in order to slow your heart and relax your body. Controlled breathing can be used for a variety of different conditions outside of issues with sleep, including reducing anxiety. If you find that your difficulty sleeping might stem from anxiety, controlled breathing could be just the thing you’re looking for.
One thing to keep in mind before deciding whether or not to use a controlled breathing technique is whether or not you have a respiratory condition, such as asthma or COPD. Always talk to your doctor before trying breathing exercises, as it could interfere with your respiratory health.
4-7-8. In the 4-7-8 method, you control your intake and output of air by counting to slow your breathing and your heart, preparing your body for sleep.
- First, breathe in through your nose while counting to four.
- Next, hold your breath while counting to seven.
- Then, release your breath slowly through your mouth while counting to eight.
- Your counting should be slow, each number lasting about a second.
Sometimes counting can do the opposite of what you want and end up stimulating your mind instead of calming it down while you breathe. Some studies have found that some people who engage in “imagery distraction”—visualization—fall asleep faster than those who use other types of distractions.
Contrary to what you may think, tensing your muscles and then releasing the tension will actually aid in relaxing you enough to start falling asleep. This technique will help you sleep by purposefully relaxing your 16 muscle groups—though it may take some preparation to learn the muscle groups before you can progressively relax them. Another muscle relaxation technique you can use is nidra yoga, a common meditative practice that can help you get into a mindset of relaxation between sleeping and waking.
Though it may sound strange, self-hypnosis is actually more of a meditative practice, using self-made suggestions after you’ve slipped into a relaxed state to lull yourself to sleep. This technique inherently calms the mind from racing thoughts.
Mental exercises can aid you in your attempts to sleep, especially if your struggle with sleep is rooted in anxiety or other types of racing thoughts. However, other conditions might make sleep difficulties persist despite the mental exercises you try—such as insomnia or sleep apnea.
It may feel easy to give up hope; however, the physicians at our accredited St. Joseph Health Sleep Center are ready and willing to help you find other options to get the sleep you deserve. Our team of pulmonologists and sleep technologists offer comprehensive and collaborative care—including a sleep study—to get to the bottom of your sleep difficulties and create a personalized treatment just for you.
Five interesting facts from St. Joseph Health that you should know about your spine.
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