What is the solution to not being able to sleep from thinking?
If you've been tossing and turning in bed at night and your thoughts aren't keeping you up, you might want to try these methods.
Sometimes stressful situations seem so overwhelming that it seems impossible to stop thinking. In fact, once you start to worry, the rest usually comes by itself. Especially at night, before falling asleep to rest the body and mind, the result is almost always sleepless nights when the rush of thoughts brings constant attention and subject here and there, often to places that are darker and more complex than anything else.
Psychologist, neuroscientist, and author specializing in emotion regulation, Dr. Ethan Kross, in his best-selling book "The Chatter: The Nagging Voice in Our Heads and Ways to Restrain It," describes this incessant, sleep-inducing, and stress-inducing voice as 'chatter', or more accurately, 'clacking'. naming it. The endless fanfare in our heads can negatively affect our general health, mostly by causing insomnia. Dr. Of course, the suggestions in Kross's book are not only for insomnia, but it is useful to try these two very useful and simple methods in order to soften the mind a little.
Talk like you're talking to someone else
Dr. Kross points out that we can be a lot more rude when talking to ourselves than to others. When giving compassionate advice to someone else, a friend, we often speak in other, much softer terms, and these conversations are never like those harsh conversations with our inner voice. We become more cruel to ourselves. According to Kross's suggestion, it may be helpful to try talking to yourself as if you were talking to someone else. Take a step back in your inner dialogue and use gentle expressions to yourself. Saying "Darling, you did your best today, get some rest now and continue doing your best tomorrow" can sometimes turn your sleepless nights.
Mental time travel
Dr. Kross' other suggestion involves doing a short time travel in your mind. This method, called "temporal distancing" or "mental time travel," is also quite simple. Ask yourself: "Will this issue occupy this much space in my mind a week from now? What about a year from now?"
By changing your temporal perspective, reevaluating the issue can help you break out of the complex cycles of thoughts and gain a new perspective that this stressful event is probably not the end of the world.
"Worry time" app
Some research has proven that setting aside a specific time each day to worry yourself can be a very useful method.
Involuntary thoughts come to your mind during the day, directly raising stress and anxiety, not only affecting your cognitive functions, but also making you feel more tired and unhappy physically. In the study, a group of subjects who were treated for anxiety was studied. Subjects were asked to perform a four-step exercise:
Identify and understand when you are worried.
Designate a time—anxiety hour—and a place to reflect on these concerns.
When you feel anxious, postpone these feelings until your designated anxiety time and focus on the task at hand instead of worrying.
When the time of anxiety you have set comes, sit down and think about these issues that worry you, try to solve your problems.
In the research results, even patients who only took the first step showed much better improvement compared to people who were only treated for anxiety disorder. There was, of course, a greater change in those who completed all four steps of therapy. This anxiety clock application, called the "Stimulus Control Program", has been proven to work better than stress management programs and conventional treatments.
Care about your sleep
Not being able to sleep because of thinking is boring, but it is worse if your mental balance is disturbed due to insomnia. When your anxiety increases, your sleep patterns are disrupted; When you don't get enough sleep, your nervous system has a harder time dealing with anxiety. To avoid this kind of cycle, you need to prioritize your sleep and make an effort to sleep better. There are some more simple measures you can take according to the recommendations of the experts:
1- Plan your pre-sleep time
Getting lost on Instagram before falling asleep, falling asleep while watching something, or playing games until your eyes are tired will seriously affect your sleep quality in the long run. An hour before you go to sleep, stay away from all your electronic gadgets, unwind in dim light, drink a soothing herbal tea and incorporate whatever else relaxes you into your pre-sleep routine.
2- Use slow breathing
Breathing slowly and with awareness helps to relax the nervous system by stimulating the vagus nerve. You can try the simple exercise known as the 4-7-8 breathing or slow breathing before going to sleep. Count to 4 as you breathe in, count to 7 while holding your breath, and exhale slowly for a count of 8. You can do this slow breathing exercise 5 or 7 times.
3- Try deep relaxation
From your toes to your head, slowly bring your attention to the muscles in your body in turn and release each one at a time. This deep relaxation exercise you will do before going to sleep will help you focus on your body instead of the thoughts that are in your head, and will allow you to go to sleep more easily by really relaxing.
4- Create a sleep pattern
Going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day will make your body more comfortable with sleep. Whenever your daily routine allows, start your sleep routine at the same time as possible and go to bed at the same time. After a while, your body will become more convinced that it's time to sleep and it needs to relax and let everything go.
