5 WAYS HOW OUR THOUGHTS AFFECT OUR SLEEP
5 Ways How Our Thoughts Affect Our Sleep:- Fifty to seventy million American adults chronically suffer from sleep or wakefulness disorders. About 85% of U.S. employees report sleep loss due to work-related stress. Lack of rest undermines well being, productivity, and longevity and increases the risk of depression, anxiety disorders, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and even a heart attack. And this is what we corporates get from the accumulation of fatigue and poor patchy sleep. It’s quite comprehensible that sleep is a natural process that depends on the body as well as mind and not just a switch that can be turned on or off at our will. But hey! just like how we tend to fix other issues in our lives, we can try to find ways that help to put us into a calm sleep. Like they say, it’s all in your head, we should know the ways in which our thought process affects our time in bed.
Over-Planning Sleep:- Certain people emphasize too much on planning their sleep duration. Thoughts like “Tonight I’ll sleep for 8–9 hours” keep running in their heads. Unfortunately, this process of overthinking and pondering upon the same thought all day long gives birth to anxiety, resulting in becoming another issue that keeps them from getting a sound sleep.
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Contemplating the Goals Before Getting In Bed:- While it’s just great to lead a purposeful life and have goals to fuel it. However, getting too attached to a goal and thinking about it when you have to fall asleep can be harmful rather than beneficial. Considering how well such thoughts can occupy your mind in bed, our mind works very actively and keeps us from dozing off.
Every Night Should Be A Sound Night:- Nobody sleeps perfectly every night and it is totally normal to have issues with the sleep cycle. But what’s not normal is to worry too much about the nights when you don’t sleep well. It just steals some more time when you can actually take off your thinking cap and sleep.
Read More:- Looking to Steal Some More Sleep
Guilt Trips:- “Shouldn’t have eaten that burger. Shouldn’t have missed my run today.” It’s quite common to have such guilt trips while you are waiting to fall asleep. Dedicating so much time to the past doesn’t do much in your favour. It keeps your body and mind in a restless state, keeping you from sleeping well.
Counting Negatives Instead of Positives:- When we get into bed at night, we usually think about how our day was. We have a tendency to rectifying things. Thinking about what went wrong and then giving your mind opportunities to think about how to make those things okay, it acts just like a fuel to your mind which keeps you up at night.
Good News is that it’s actually possible to get rid of these thinking patterns and win that priceless sound sleep of yours. Paying just a little more attention and talking yourself out of it is one of the strategies that can work in your favour. Keep asking yourself simple questions about the thoughts you get before sleeping. Like “Is it a very important thought? Should I be focusing too much on it? Does it have a solution at all?” And when you finally understand the gist of it, overpowering the habit of over-thinking would look like just a matter of a few days.
