Ever since I can remember I have always struggled with falling / staying asleep. As a child I was always the one almost falling asleep in classes because I would of been awake most of the night before. I can never remember having a 'proper' sleeping pattern and I have spent most of my life saying "I'm tired" which i'm sure you have too if you're reading this post!
However, recently I have been taking my health a lot more seriously. As I explained in my last post (which you can read here) I have been delving into spirituality and along with that it seemed only natural that I started to look after my body aswell as my mind. I felt like to be in the correct place mentally and physically I needed to start changing the way I prepare my body for sleep.
In the past I would stay on my phone until the last second before I tried to fall asleep, I would get angry at myself for not falling asleep which in turn made falling asleep a lot harder, I often suffer from nightmares which cause me to wake up numerous times during the night & if I didn't have school or work the next day I would always stay up late and then sleep in the day after which would then totally mess up my sleeping pattern.
So, what have I been doing to try to change this?
1. Leave the phone alone!
I try to make sure that I'm off my phone atleast half an hour before I want to be asleep; now this is hard i'm not going to lie because sometimes i'll be watching YouTube or something will catch my eye and then time just seems to go so fast and before I know it it's 3am! To help with this I've started to have a little routine before I go to sleep. I make sure that I watch whatever I want to a little earlier and that way I find it easier to finish what I'm watching / doing and still manage to get to bed on time! Also, putting on your phone on air plane mode is never a bad idea to stop from getting distracted by texts or notifications, etc!
2. Meditate before bed!
One of the main reasons I've never been good at sleeping early is because my mind is always racing. As soon as I would turn off my phone my mind would try to occupy itself by thinking of everything and anything. Now every single night I try to meditate before I lie down for bed; I find this clears my mind and helps me to relax! It's also really helpful because it allows you to train your mind to be comfortable being unoccupied and I've found that really stops me over thinking before I sleep. I will either use the calm app for meditation or I will use a guided sleep meditation which are easily accessible on YouTube.
3. Think of a happy place!
Whenever I find that my mind is over thinking I will often take my mind to my 'happy place'. My happy place would be somewhere I find peaceful like the sea or near a waterfall. I imagine myself on the most comfortable bed right where my happy place is. I imagine all of my muscles relaxing and I think about how amazing my sleep is going to be. I find this so helpful when I'm finding it difficult to relax and shut my mind off. I promise if you try this you will probably be asleep within minutes - or I always am anyway! Lol!
I hope these little tips helped and I'll be sure to post some more tips in the future as I carry on trying to improve my sleep!
Hope you have a beautiful day,
Katie Ellen, x
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