Tricks to Get Better Sleep Birmingham

Tricks to Get Better Sleep

By Mary Desaulniers

Our mind is often the best resource we have for creating and solving problems. This is certainly the case when it comes to insomnia. 

Those who have problems sleeping know far too well the way anxiety about not sleeping perpetuates the problem.

You cannot sleep; you toss and turn; worrying about having to be up by a certain time the next morning exacerbates the situation and you toss and turn even more.

There is, however, something you can do to turn the situation around. You can trick the mind to get better sleep. The mind, after all, can be tricked into compliance, especially if you work at re-programming what it understands to be a time for wakefulness and a time for sleep. Here are a few suggestions you might find helpful to trick the mind into compliance with a sleeping schedule.

a) Maintain good Sleep Hygiene or setting a regular schedule and routine for sleep. Getting habituated to a set routine at bedtime works well because it programs the mind and body to a set of expectations: the same time every night, in the same bed with the same routines.

Nothing convinces the mind more of your seriousness and expectation than repetitive action. You might experience sleeplessness for the first night or two, but if you persist with the routine schedule, chances are within a week, you will have little difficulty falling asleep.

This percentage is significant considering that a control group using relaxation therapy experienced only a 16% reduction while a placebo group had only a 12% reduction.

Maintaining good sleep hygiene is one way of tricking the mind to get better sleep.

b) Lower the temperature of the bedroom before sleep. Cool temperatures make for better sleep because they can trick the body into lowering its temperature, a prerequisite for deep sleep. The body’s temperature is triggered by an internal clock. Although the average body temperature for humans is about 97 degrees F, it fluctuates in a regular pattern on a daily basis. Body temperature hits its low (about 88 degrees F) between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., then climbs steadily through the morning before dipping again at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

c) Wearing socks and mittens to bed can also trick mind and body into better sleep. Socks and mittens widen blood vessels in hands and feet, a necessary step to inducing sleep, according to a Swiss study. In this study, researchers found that as the body prepares for sleep, the blood vessels in hands and feet dilate. This dilation precipitates the cooling of the blood as it flows through the open channels near the surface ...