Fixing Insomnia – How to sleep faster and longer

What stops you from sleeping?

One thing that sleep really hates is clutter: Mind clutter, Body clutter and Space clutter etc.

It is the first step towards good sleep is clearing the clutter. In your bedroom if you have a lot of things spread here and there, on your bed, at table near your bed, things are spread here and there. While sleeping your mind remembers all those mess and it don’t let you sleep because of the chaos that clutter crate in your mind.

What wakes you up from sleep?

In sleep generally our senses go for rest too. Any disturbance which can bring back the senses from the resting state, wakes us up from sleep. More insights will be added in this section.

What will make you sleep immediately?

Pre-requisites

1. Have a clean and clear space, clear bed, clean utensils, clean room, no dust etc. Don’t have any baggage of unfinished personal things and work with you in mind before sleeping.
2. Bedroom is basically for chilling, making love and sleeping. If you are doing anything else in your bedroom like watching TV, scrolling social media on laptop or phone, doing work etc. then that introduce another level of energy in your body which create a situation like fight, flight, freeze or don’t sleep (avoid this). The content watched through social media or television make your brain work and involve into many emotions. For example, if you watch a scary horror movie before bedtime, it will introduce a level of fear which don’t let your mind relax and stop you from sleeping.
3. There is a one hour rule. Turn off all the electronics, one hour before the time you decide to sleep. If you stick to this you will really sleep better. If there is a lot of information coming to your mind, there is some light coming on your face, there is no way your body can relax and you mind get shutdown, because mind thinks you are in danger.
4. Put the worktable outside of bedroom or in the space, which is also cleaned and cleared, so that you can put your work off from your sleep time.
5. Have a notepad and pen near your bed, as if you get an idea which is very necessary to be noted down, or you will lose it, then the notepad is handy to take notes. You don’t need to jump to your work desk or open your phone to note it down because that will distract your mood of sleep.
6. You need to create a beautiful setting in which you want to sleep in. Is the mattress really comfortable, do you like the pillows, blankets the sheets that are in the bedroom. Is the room having a good smell.
7. Is the lightening in your room is too harsh, you need to look for a good dim light in the room when sleeping, so that it doesn’t disturb your night sleep.
8. A sleep mask or a moderate curtain can help your eyes not get shocked when sunlight hit your room in the morning, but make sure that you look for sunlight after waking up when sunlight hits your eyes it triggers your brain to wake you up.
9. Having some earplug or ear covering is good to have while sleeping to avoid noise.
10. Prepare for sleep and next day in advance. Just before going to bed to be completely free from stress ensure that LPG is closed from cylinder, Main door is locked in such a way that it can only be opened from inside of home, no electronics devices are up and near the bedroom, the night light in the room is adequate, the room is not badly smelling, and all unrequired lights and electrical electronic devices are off. You may try to have the unclean utensils cleaned before going to bed so that you don’t have that baggage with you. Moreover, you can plan a little for the next day, like ironing the cloths in advanced and soak the sprouts in water so that you can have an easy morning breakfast. That all will make you stress free for the next morning. These all things are not necessary but my help if that bothers you while sleeping.

So, make space for your room, and make the sleep and wake up environment pleasant because until you get rid of something (stress) you can’t grab the other thing (relaxed sleep).

Creating a Sleep Ritual

When you have a clean and clear area with good surroundings to sleep in, it is the time to create a night ritual which will prepare you for the sound sleep. Many people thing you should just go to bed, but like anything else like yoga you have to get yoga mat, comfortable clothes etc. all that is a ritual, similarly before sleeping you should also have a ritual. You have to transition yourself from the busy day to complete rest and relaxation and that like yoga practice take some period of time. That’s why take 1 hour of time before bed for sleep ritual. No electronics, no work, but you can encourage you to sleep the best you can. The sleeping ritual can contain something like below:

• Stretching to relax the body or some relaxing yoga exercises to perform. Avoid the exercises which heat up the body and make it active, instead involve in lightweight exercises which cool down the body.
• You might need to take a bath, try not to think too much and clear your mind and feel sensation of water on your body. Water helps clear your body and negative energy you have collected throughout the day.
• After bath you can go through bed stretch. We will talk about bed stretch practice later.
• Perform the sleeping breath and sleep meditation while lying down which calms down the body into sleep.
• Go to sleep early, because your body goes into cleaning mode or detox from 10:00 PM to like 4:00 AM. So, if you are not going to sleep till midnight and have a midnight snack etc., you are placing your digestive system into work again and body don’t get time to clean up. The digestive system really needs the sleep to clean the system best.
• As you put an alarm to wake up, have an alarm to remind that you need to prepare of sleep at particular time and sleep at certain time and follow your sleeping ritual or steps towards sleeping from a busy day.

It is not really required to follow each, and everything written here but have your own ritual to sleep. I you like to read a book before sleeping and it helps you calm down you can add it into your sleep ritual, for certain time and try to end the activity in such a way that your mind doesn’t get into active mode of thinking a lot. We need a sleep ritual because our mind and body do the things best which goes into consistent practice. When the sleep ritual comes into practice, you will find even if you skip some of the steps your body will get relaxed and you will start getting sleep at defined time, that is all magic of the routine to follow.

What will let you sleep longer?

Less disturbance and calmer and sound sleep help in sleeping longer. More insights will be added in this section.