Why Are Gratitude and Self-Control the Only Sleeping Pills You Ever Need
Clean Up
Always tidy up your house before you sleep. Why? This saves you time and allows you to focus on essential morning tasks.
Get rid of unnecessary items on the floors, sweep off dirt, take out the trash, clear out the sink, dispose of dirty clothes, make your bed. Your environment affects the quality of sleep you get at night, so keep it clean.
P.S. This would be an ideal time to brush your teeth. Brushing your teeth at night reduces the number of bacterias you wake up to in the morning.
Reflection and Gratitude
This is a simple, intentional act of reflecting on the outcome of your day. You give thanks for the positives and neglect the negatives. This practice of gratefulness relieves your mind of stress, or angry thoughts, readying your brain for sleep.
Tip: You perform this act by either writing or vocalizing at least three things in your life you’re grateful for.
Set an Alarm
Using an alarm to wake the body up in the morning has been hugely criticized. The popular notion is that your body clock can wake you up early, guaranteed you went to bed before the previous night. This notion may be accurate, but it still doesn’t write off the need for an alarm clock.
As it’s often been said that your environment’s state affects the quality of sleep your body gets. A drop or rise in the ambient temperature of your room may disrupt your body clock, even when you don’t have insomnia.
When your body clock is interrupted, it may delay your wake-up time. When this occurs, your sleep time extends, causing your body and brain to oversleep. Waking up late can disrupt the morning routine and plans for the day.
Oversleeping can cause anxiety and mental stress, as your brain may frantically attempt to make up for time lost by rushing through activities. Oversleeping is detrimental to work; signing in too late and being unproductive during work hours can lead to job loss.
Setting an alarm clock prevents this stress and anxiety. It aids you in maintaining a regular sleep cycle. When an alarm is set, your brain tends to register the wake-up time. You may likely find yourself awake a few minutes before your alarm sets off.
According to the clinical director at Clayton Sleep Institute, Dr. Mark Muehlbach, Ph.D., “Ideally, a person will wake on his or her own each morning. These are the people who set the alarm but wake a few minutes before the alarm sounds as if their brain expects to be awake at a specific time. On the other hand, there is the person who needs two or three alarms to wake them.
Our busy schedules and external influences such as cellphones, TVs, tablets, neighborhood noises, and many other stimuli can interrupt our sleep and require our bodies to rest more. In turn, this leads to us waking feeling exhausted and tired.”
It’s important to set the alarm even if you observe a regular sleep schedule as some external factors could interrupt your sleep cycle.
Tip: Purchase an alarm clock instead of using your smartphone, which could trigger more screen time.
Sleep; Don’t Procrastinate
Sleep procrastination occurs when your brain and body are ready to sleep, and while they slowly drift off to sleep mode, you resist!
Reasons could be very random. Let’s assume you felt you could get some minutes of movie binging or check up on your social media to either reply to a text or follow up on the latest trends for the day, so you decide to turn the electronics back on.
Maybe you felt that moment was perfect for reminiscing over a feeling or a person or even try to paint the future in your mind.
No! Your timing is wrong! Never fight the urge to sleep. According to the Centers for Disease Controls (CDCD), at least 7 hours of sleep is necessary for an adult. After completion of the night routine, it’s normal for you to fall asleep fast. So when the rest comes, embrace it, allow yourself to be immersed in it. Don’t resist!
PS: It might be tempting to engage in other activities during bedtime, especially when you don’t feel sleepy yet. It’s important to note that the descendants into a sleep state are gradual, no matter how fast it appears.
Tip: Lay on your bed once your bedtime alarm rings. This mentally prepares you for sleep, allowing your body and brain to drift off to sleep slowly.
