Can’t get no sleep

Written By Harry James Pointon on .

You can’t sleep, Every morning you wake up feeling groggy, unenergised, unmotivated basically just pissed off, your tired all the time but when it comes to bed time you can’t sleep, your confused why you can’t sleep, your frustrated that’s it’s happening night after night and your desperate to change it and you know it’s having a negative effective on your health and your life. (I really hope this article can be of some help and maybe even life changing.)

Here are some reasons why you may not be sleeping well.

  1. You have an overstimulated mind caused by excessive stress. Going to bed thinking a lot can make it very hard for your body and mind to relax and will keep you awake. If you were driving and purposely trying to stay awake you could think excessively and this would wake you up. If you are doing this at bedtime, You are actually choosing to stay awake when really your wanting to sleep. I know that in reality although your thinking in bed, you don’t want to be, you just can’t control it. We have 1000’s of thoughts a day and it can be hard to turn off. To address this issue, you must separate work from home, you must separate day from night and you must take time out to just relax prior to bed, doing something that allows you to relax whether that’s a bath, doing some enjoyable reading or something like stretching.
  2. Your body thinks it’s daytime when it’s nighttime and it thinks it’s nighttime when it’s daytime due to your eyes being stimulated by artificial light at night and not by real light during the day, your natural sleep / wake cycle (circadian rhythm) has been flipped upside down but you can’t sleep when your at work so you stay awake when your body thinks it should be sleeping and you can’t sleep when you think you should sleep as without realising it you’ve told your body it’s daytime. To address this issue start every morning with a vitamin d3 supplement and a 20 minute walk outside, also avoid artificial light like laptops And phones in the two hours before bed.
  3. You have no proper sleeping routine. If you don’t constantly tell the body when bed time should be and when wake time should be how’s it supposed to know. Set times and stick to them.
  4. Your addicted to drugs like alcohol, caffeine and sugar. All of these distrupt sleep. Alcohol stops you sleeping deeply, caffeine keeps you alert when you should be relaxed and sugar causes unnecessary changes in blood sugar and appetite that can wake you up felling Hungry even if it doesn’t feel like it. So cut all sugar, caffeine and alcohol out for a month and see if that helps. You’ll survive having a month of No partying and you’ll probably survive a whole lot longer if you sort this issue out.
  5. Your bedroom is not set up correctly for optimal sleeping. If your bedroom is not dark and cool it will make sleeping harder. Remove all electronic devises from your bedroom, get black out curtains or a blind so its pitch black like a cave and keep the room cool for best sleep.

Once you have addressed any specific issues you have from above, here are some additional tips that can have a positive effect on sleeping well.

  1. Take a magnesium supplement this is the relaxation mineral and if your a stress head your probably all out of magnesium, take 400mg 90 mins before bed.
  2. Drink a cup of nighttime tea, there is a few different brands at the supermarket. If you fall to sleep fine but wake up during the night add 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg to your tea it may help you sleep deeper.
  3. Have a hot bath or shower an hour before bed this will temporarily heat up your body, afterwards it will naturally start cooling it self down. This reducing body temperature can help promote sleep.
  4. Stretch your body out before bed this can help you relax and make sleeping easier.
  5. When your alarm goes off in the morning, immediately jump out of bed and drink a large glass of water and then eat an apple before your vitamin d and morning walk, this will help you wake up well and start establishing a proper wake up time.
  6. Go to bed with the “so what if I don’t sleep” attitude. If your going to bed thinking I won’t sleep again tonight you won’t. The body tends to do what your thinking. Thinking on the worst possible situation and telling yourself you’ll be ok if that happens can have a relieving effect.

Hope this helps, this is not a complete list but should help massively. For more help I offer consultations for those wanting to improve sleep.