“I only crawl into bed when I feel really sleepy’

I have read some interesting information about The different stages of sleep during the sleep cycleAnd the light therapy The positive effect of sunlight on your biorhythm and sleep pattern.

Whether you are concerned about your sleep problems is important. Worrying thoughts help lay the groundwork for erratic sleep behavior. I am also prone to it. During the first months of my sleep trouble in particular, I would sometimes panic. what’s happening here? Why am I awake? How do I live the next day (work)?

Basic, clear information about sleep conflicts with some of those troubling ideas. For example, initiating sleep shows that the quality of your sleep is more important than length. In addition, waking up several times at night is completely normal. The good sleeper hardly notices those moments, the bad sleeper even more so.

Another buffer against panic is knowing that your body is automatically trying to make up for the damage after a bad night. Your sleep regimen ensures that you get a deeper sleep the next day, and thus recover more efficiently.

Resetting your mind works like a red thread with information and tips. A bad sleeper trains his brain to wake up awake: by worrying in bed, going to bed too early, or getting up wide, and not waking up if you’ve been awake for more than 20 or 30 minutes, by lying in bed too, you’re sleeping soundly light. .

Over time, your bedroom loses its relevance to sleep. Your bed will then feel like a strong cup of coffee: it puts your senses, thoughts, and emotions into high gear. This logic wants to reverse the initiation of sleep.

The sleep-wake schedule I’ve been following since Monday sets 7:30 a.m. as bedtime. Until recently, I was in bed for at least 9 hours. Staying in bed longer because the strategy doesn’t work. On the contrary: it prolongs your sleep resilient, so that you sleep less well and compensate more.

Your bed is for sleeping only. A strict wake-up and sleep schedule and comprehensive alarm control keep you always up to date with this lesson. Only when you feel really sleepy can you go to bed. If you lie awake for more than 20 minutes, get up and do something relaxing in another room. The fixed hour when you wake up holy. You have to follow this very carefully.

According to Annelies Smolders, founder of Start to sleep, the important trick is to make no effort to sleep. Whoever counts sheep frantically will fail. I remember an exercise from my previous sleep training where we tried to stay awake as long as possible. Ironically, this made most of the participants very sleepy.

In a way, sleep restriction and stimuli control work this way as well. It keeps you awake long enough outside the bedroom that you sink into the bedroom like a log in a comfortable sleep bottom. Hence, consciously “making an effort” to sleep is no longer a problem. You are simply too sleepy for that.

I look forward to it!