[ 2011-06-23 ]

Three natural ways to fall asleep faster
Huffington Post – 23 June 2011 - Have you
noticed that some of your busiest thinking happens
when you lie down at night and your head hits the
pillow? Actually, it's no wonder you can get a lot
of thinking done -- you finally have a moment to
yourself. It's just you and your thoughts without
interruption.

The problem is this: Bedtime is not the time for
intense mental processing, worrying or problem
solving. The mind is powerful and you can actually
think yourself awake.

The truth is if you jam up your day with constant
activity, you will have trouble mentally slowing
down for bed. Your body may be dead tired and
ready to collapse, but your mind may be ready to
go a few more rounds.

What can interfere with your brain's ability to
wind down for bed? Stress is a big contributor.
But even if your days don't feel stressful, you
can overstimulate your brain with too many
activities. When this happens your mind is
over-activated and sleep becomes a battle to
accomplish instead of a welcome invitation to the
day's end.

For those who like to grill burgers on the
backyard patio, here's an analogy. If you grill
with charcoal, you know the coals are ready for
cooking when they turn white. But it takes time
for the smoldering coals to cool after you've
cooked your meal.

Many have a super compressed day that begins with
a long commute to work and ends with work on the
computer in the evening after finishing a number
of routine, home-based chores (e.g., helping the
children with their homework, cleaning up the
kitchen, giving the kids a bath and reading them a
bed-time story, etc.).

Crashing into bed with the lights turned off and
expecting to fall asleep quickly is analogous to
taking your burgers off the grill and expecting
the hot, white coals to cool immediately. It's
just not going to happen.

So what's the solution for the quintessentially
busy, working American?

When it comes to sleep, daytime activities are
critical impacting events. Just as you may need to
reboot your computer after hours of intense
processing, similarly, you need to reboot your
brain by taking a break from the constant stream
of information that's generated in and out of your
brain throughout the day.

Tips for decompressing your day

Negative effects of technology
True, technology makes life easier and more
efficient in certain areas. However, the trade-off
here is that technology also makes it easy to
become information overloaded. Between emails,
cell phone texts, social media and web site
surfing, you can require your brain to process
information at an intense and constant level
throughout the day. This constant mental
processing not only leads to "mental overload,"
but also leads to poor attentiveness when it comes
to focusing on an individual task.

Smart phones (ironically) make it harder to
intelligently focus on a certain task, for
example, because this medium of technology
constitutes a mental distraction. Inattentiveness
and distraction also create impatience which can
lead to relationship challenges.

A generation ago, for example, a call to a friend
or associate would often not get answered until he
got home and checked his voicemail. But today if
this were to happen, we would consider this person
unresponsive for not texting or emailing back
within the hour.

The technological ability to receive and respond
to messages quickly has heightened our sense of
urgency and, accordingly, modified expectations
concerning how and when we should respond to
messages. The result is a more complicated and
stressful life.

At the end of the day, this constant mental
stimulation has a cumulative effect of leaving
your mind wound-up to the point where even if
you're physically tired and ready for bed, your
mind may still be activated and not ready to shut
off. To help with this, consider taking these
three steps:

1. Set Limits with emails/texts
Check your emails/texts in batches at certain
times during the day rather than letting them
stream in endlessly. This affords you control over
how you handle the input your receive and gives
you a chance to have mental breaks to prevent
information overload.

A sample schedule for someone who works 9 to 5 may
be: 9am, 11:30am, 4pm and 8pm. There's no magic
formula in choosing the precise intervals here;
the idea is to check your email and text boxes
twice in the morning (early and late) and twice
towards the tail end of the day (mid-afternoon and
early evening).

2. Take a break in the middle of the day to
reboot

Spend 15 minutes each day to meditate. Meditation
lessens anxiety, decreases blood pressure and
slows your mind. Not only does meditation improve
your mood but studies show that mindfulness
mediation works as well as antidepressants in
preventing depression.

Mindfulness involves disconnecting from your
activity-laden environment (which is often
comprised of facing a mountain of emails and texts
and earnestly making attempts to comply with
work-related deadlines) and focusing only on the
task with which you're currently faced.

This can be undertaken at your desk and doesn't
have to be complicated. It can take the form of
listening to peaceful music, breathing exercises
(e.g., taking five belly breaths in and out while
you listen to your breaths) or practicing
progressive muscle relaxation. (If you listen to
music, you should try to focus on the rhythm and
not run through your grocery list.)

Click here for a download of a breathing
meditation, if you'd like to see how this can work
in practice. Download it to your IPod or simply
listen to it online at your desk (but obviously
not if this will cause problems at work).

3. Carve out an hour before bedtime to wind down.
Turn the lights down in the house one hour before
bedtime.
Studies show that bright lights at bedtime may
reduce melatonin production and therefore decrease
the quality of sleep.

Stop using electronics one hour before bed.
This is to decrease your mental stimulation and
light exposure.

Put on your pajamas to prepare for bed (which can
be your birthday suit).
This is to send yourself the message that it's
getting close to bedtime.

Take a warm bath or foot bath.
Warming the skin results in a later drop in core
body temperature, which triggers sleep.

Spend 30 minutes of quiet time just before your
bedtime.
This can be meditation that includes visual
imagery, breathing exercises, listening to music
or reading.

Doubtless, some will still manage to quickly fall
asleep despite being very busy during the day. Be
thankful if you fall into this category.


But if you find yourself to be like those who
regularly face the challenge of slowing down your
mind at night in order to fall asleep, these are a
few suggestions to help cool down your mental
coals well before you're ready to turn off the
lights.

Source - Huffington Post

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