Stress Management - Nine Strategies You Can Use to Break the Sleep-Stress Cycle
By Ilenya Marrin
Do you know how to make sound sleep a part of your stress-reduction program?
Stress plays havoc with sleep patterns, and lack of sleep only seems to worsen stress levels. What can you do to break the cycle?
Nine Strategies for More Sleep and Less Stress
The following nine strategies are used by sleep psychologists to help clients increase their sleep quotient and decrease their stress symptoms.
Rule out problems such as heavy snoring, sleep apnea (stopping breathing for several seconds at a time), restless legs, tooth grinding, or medical problems such as heartburn or frequent bathroom urges which waken you. Check in with your local sleep clinic for a thorough assessment. If you know you have one of these conditions, get treatment!
Set a regular bedtime and don’t go to bed any earlier. Get up at a regular time. Figure out the minimum amount of shut-eye time you must have to be minimally functional the next day and aim to have that much time in bed. Force yourself to stay up until your designated bed time and get up early no matter how tired you are. After a few days, you will likely be sleeping better during those hours in bed.
Make bed for sleep or sex only. No bill paying, mystery reading, tv-watching, or worrying. If you can’t sleep after, say, twenty minutes, get up and do a quiet activity like reading a boring book until you are sleepy.
Keep pets out of your bed. Especially big ones! If you are a light sleeper anyway, why add to your sleep-time stress factors?
Keep your bedroom dark. If you can eliminate all sources of light including glow-in-the-dark clocks, research indicates you have a better chance of sleeping soundly. Blackout curtains will help.
Try a fan or “white-noise machine” to even out any background sounds. A steady or rhythmical noise often helps to lull you into sleep and help you stay asleep.
Do regular free form writing or journaling. Develop a routine of writing for perhaps half an hour shortly before your bedtime, to get your worries and concerns out of your head onto the paper. If you write “free-form” — quickly and without regard to punctuation, spelling or grammar — you are still getting those stressful thoughts out of your conscious and sometimes your unconscious mind. Do not re-read what you wrote. Rip the pages and safely burn them to signify you are releasing them. If you write in a journal, your process might be more thoughtful. You can work through various stress-related concerns, sometimes coming up with insights or solutions as you write. Look back over your journal entries after a few weeks and surprise yourself with even more new awareness to reduce stress.
Create a ritual for unwinding before bedtime. For some people it’s a hot bath, or a cup of herbal tea or warm milk. For others, reading a few pages of a quiet, even dull book is helpful. An unwinding routine can also be directly helpful as a consistent antidote to stress.
Keep track of your sleep patterns and stress levels in your journal or on a tracking matrix such as an Excel spreadsheet. Each morning, before you get busy in your day, note your time to bed and time getting up, and your hours of sleep. Note what you did the evening before to unwind, and anything especially stressful or worrisome during the day. Describe the quality of your sleep and any particular disturbances. You’ll have a more objective way to measure progress. You’ll be able to notice patterns of what strategies worked best for you to increase sleep and decrease stress.
And now, if you would like more practical stress reduction tips, I invite you to sign up for my free newsletter, 17 Simple Stress Solutions, at http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com/optin.htm
Dr. Ilenya Marrin is a spiritual counselor, inspirational speaker and author of ebooks The Power of Personal Peace: Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out and 77 Loving Steps for Success.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ilenya_Marrin
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