Sleep. Insomnia

Sleep is vital for our health and mental wellbeing. We spend a third of our life in bed but sometimes there are some slumbering problems, which do not let us to have an everyday need sleep. Insomnia is one of sleep disturbances, which almost all of us had. It is the inability to sleep when it is the time to sleep. Insomnia could be due to a particular situations, such as the breakup of the relationships, worry about the test, the loss of a job, an exciting drama on TV just before bed time, or doing something violent for others, what may make us to feel guilty and worry about it during the bed time.

If we want to fall asleep on the time to sleep, we have to treat insomnia and the best way is to begin from stress reduction and good sleep hygiene. Psychologists studying sleep problems have a number of suggestions for overcoming insomnia.

The first one would be exercising during the day. It reduces the effects of stress, improves mood and deepens sleep. However, we should know that exercising early in the day helps us sleep, but exercising too close to bed causes wakefulness.

The second one could be relaxing before bedtime. It is helpful to stop all work-related tasks 90 minutes before going to sleep or to include taped relaxation exercises.

The third suggestion is to choose a regular bedtime and stick to it. That means that we have to go to bed and wake up at the same times each day, including on the weekend.

A good way is not to use your bed for all things doing: studying, reading, eating, watching TV or others activities. It should be used only for sleeping.

The next one is to reduce stimulants such as tea, coffee, cola, chocolate, cigarettes but a glass of warm milk at bedtime will help to fall asleep.

Eating a large meal within two hours is not a good decision although a little bit of food before bed can help to sleep. If we want to fall asleep in short time we should not nap during the day but a having a bedtime ritual, for example, at first we might read for a while, then have a shower, then change into pyjamas and go to bed, or reducing factors, which we may feel disturbing. It could be uncomfortable bed, extremes of temperature or external noise.

As we see, there are a lot of ways how to avoid insomnia and to prepare ourselves for sleep, which is very requirement for normal human functioning.