Brooding at night?
3 habits that help you fall asleep
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Do you find it difficult to switch off and your sleep suffers as a result? Then these three tips can help so that your head and body can relax in the evening.
Tired as hell but still can’t fall asleep? Your head is rattling away and your thoughts are already on all the small and large to-dos that are waiting for you tomorrow? Or is it easy to fall asleep, but you keep waking up in the middle of the night and are then wide awake? Every one of us has problems falling asleep and staying asleep at times. Happened. However, it can become a long-term problem if we don’t do exactly that during the time when we should actually be recovering. Studies show that one in three people suffer from sleep problems and this can have serious consequences: from concentration problems, memory loss and mood swings to a weakened immune system, weight gain and high blood pressure. To sleep better, the following tips that you may not know can help.
1. A realistic daily plan
Everyone knows this: in front of us there is a long to-do list of the things we have planned for today, but we only ever manage half of them. If any. End of song: We are stressed and frustrated in the evening and take all of that with us into the night. Here it can help to plan the day backwards to make us aware of how much time we really have available and how much we actually CAN accomplish. Here’s how you do it:
1. Gross working time: From when to when are you at work? How many hours are there between opening the laptop and the planned end of the day?
2. Net working time: Now you deduct all planned appointments, breaks and buffers. What’s left is the time you actually have to work on your to-dos.
3. Priorities: Now you write down all the tasks, including a rough estimate of how long it will take you to complete them, and use this to create a plan, sorted according to the importance of your tasks and taking into account your net working time. In the best case scenario, your list should be empty at the end of the day without you having to work overtime. Good for the head and the feeling.
2. Micro-routines help you switch off and let go
So that you don’t lie in bed at night with your job and go over problems or that everyday life doesn’t keep you from sleeping while pondering at night, it can help to end the day with small rituals. This can be something different for everyone, for example a walk, a meditation, a short yoga session. If you don’t feel like it or don’t have the time for it, you can also try out these little rituals and review the day and then check it off.
1. What did I do well today? Write down three things you accomplished today and be proud of even the little things. Not every day is made for great things. On the contrary, become aware of all the things that are so often taken for granted. You will see that little by little you will get better and better at it.
2. What are you grateful for? Same game. Write down three things you are grateful for. No matter how tiny they are, you will see that over time there will be more and more of them.
3. What’s coming up tomorrow? Taking a few minutes in the evening to look ahead to tomorrow reassures your brain and reduces the likelihood that you’ll dwell on it later.
3. Brooding time, but over
Heartache and problems are part of life. Feelings have their place and so do stupid thoughts. But they often catch up with us at night. A simple and effective trick to avoid this is to plan a fixed time to worry during the day in which these worries have space. 15 minutes is enough to sleep better in the evening.