What your Body Needs to Rest Properly

When you do not treat your body right, it lets you know. Thus, you must learn to listen to your body's needs in order to conquer insomnia or other health problems.

Your body is a temple. When you do not treat your body right, it lets you know. Thus, you must learn to listen to your body's needs in order to conquer insomnia or other health problems. The human body requires proper rest, diet, exercise and annual physicals. When you do not give your body what it requires it alerts you. You lose sleep. When you lack adequate rest, it is possible to go insane, or even die as a result. The body needs your care, so if you want to master insomnia, it is time to start living healthily.

Some people cut back on their sleep. Some people stay up all night and sleep all day. Some people switch job roles from working during daylight hours to night hours. Others suffer from sleep disorders simply because of their environment. Depriving yourself of sleep is a decision you never want to make.

Some people find it hard to fall asleep during night hours, even if they feel exhausted. If you have a sleeping disorder, we recommend that you follow the steps in this guide. Make it a habit to carrying out the techniques offered to you in the worksheets and practices.

Exercising to Rest

Most people that exercise gets a proper night's rest. Exercise promotes healthy living and rest: you may be one of those people that hates the thought of exercise, or one that finds it difficult to start up a workout routine. Keep in mind - if you want help with insomnia, then you must set up an exercise routine that works for you. Therefore, your goal is to find an exercise routine that promotes healthy living. However, exercising within 6 hours of bedtime can contribute to insomnia.

Your environment affects your sleeping habits. Keeping your room cool during sleep time will help you get a good night's rest. If a room is too hot or too cold, it will interrupt sleeping habits. Before you go to bed at night, make it a habit to take a warm bath, not a shower. If you need peace, quiet and darkness in order to sleep, keep your bedroom like that. These days, many people eat, drink, read, watch TV and countless other things in bed. All of them are detrimental to a good night's sleep. If your body gets used to other activities going on in your bed, sleep will become harder. So, reduce the activities you do in bed to sleep and sexual intercourse.

Then there are the conditions within your bed: how firm is the mattress, how soft? If your body needs a soft bed, get rid of a hard mattress, and vice versa. If there's a television or computer in your bedroom, it's a good idea to remove them and just use that room and your bed for sleeping.

Do you suffer skin or sinus allergies? Check on the detergents you use, and the type of sheets on your bed; any of them can lead to irritation that then leads to insomnia.

Make a list of changes to make to your bedroom environment and check each off as you make it. Tell yourself you are doing this to get a good night's sleep.

Bedtime Routine

Next, your bedtime routine is very important. When you are ready for bed, make it a habit to practice relaxation techniques. For example, you may use meditation, reading, or other relaxation techniques that help you rest. Avoid drinking coffee, tea, cola, or other drinks with caffeine in the late afternoon because that can keep you from falling asleep. If you smoke, your insomnia is another good reason to quit, since nicotine is a stimulant that causes insomnia. Big meals right before bed can make it hard to sleep. Finding a way to relax before bed is important. Create a nightly ritual like a warm bath, breathing exercises, reading or listening to quiet music. Put your clock where you can't see it so you don't keep checking the time and worrying about whether you'll ever get to sleep.

Refer to the steps below to learn how to guide yourself into deep guided meditation.

Take some time - record messages that your body sends. For example, if during the night, you feel tension, take notes. Use your decision-making and critical thinking skills to find solutions. Look for answers in your notes and write out what you learn.

Learning how much sleep your body needs can help you figure out what your body needs. Your body tells you when it is tired. Learn to listen to what your body is saying to you. Consider if you have depression or other emotional problems that interfere with your sleep.

When you don't get enough sleep, it causes you to have problems. You may lose your memory's capacity to recall important information. When you lack sleep, it affects your concentration, making it difficult for you to focus on what needs to be done.

When you lack sleep, it makes it difficult to manage your life. School or work may seem overwhelming to you. The solution for these problems is to get a good night's rest every single night.

Tips

Night workers - try to set a schedule to rest at the same time each day. When you come home from work, take about one hour to regroup yourself. Go to bed immediately after that hour. Follow the advice in this guide if you have trouble falling asleep. Also, try to sleep in a dark area in the same place when you rest.

Stress causes us to lack sleep or over to over-sleep. Some people can sleep up to twelve hours and wake up feeling tired. Often, this is due to stress build-up. Work or school often creates a stressful environment, so it is important to learn how to relax and let go of this stress. Next we are going to show you how to relax your body and mind to aid restful sleep.

Guide to deep relaxation meditation

Deep guided meditation often helps us to balance our thoughts and become friends with our discomforts. It is useful for reducing anxiety.

Meditation - start by finding a quiet area in your home. Recline in a relaxing position. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing and body sensations. If you notice yourself tensing, let it go without fighting it. Notice your discomforts and focus on your breathing. Breathe in, exhale, and continue until the discomfort eases. Next, take a mental journey into a peaceful garden. Notice smells, listen to birds chirping as the warm summer breeze blows your hair. Picture yourself walking toward a beautiful waterfall and experience the smell, feel, touch, tastes, as you move closer. If you feel uneasy, breathe in and exhale again repeatedly until you find some relaxation.

In order to fall asleep, you brain must go from a beta brainwave into an alpha brainwave - which is exactly what self-hypnosis helps you to do. The alpha state is where everything is dreamy, where visualizations are clear and that sleep switch in your brain is ready to let you go into delta and theta brainwaves, and so be asleep. When the conscious mind is busy with worry, anxiety, fears, anger, emotional conflicts, etc. the brain has a hard time letting go of its conscious processing. If you have insomnia, you know that problem all too well.

Self-hypnosis and relaxation are very effective in curing chronic insomnia. It is easy. It works. Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between an imagined and a real event; this is why hypnosis works so well. Hypnosis changes the way the subconscious mind works. It creates the belief that something is possible, acts on it as if it is real, and creates a new outcome. In this case, sleep. The good news for insomnia sufferers is that the relaxation and journey into the safe, secure place you go to get into your alpha brainwave pattern will already be helping you drift off to sleep. Try to visualize every small part of your body from the tips of your toes upwards relaxing and drifting of to sleep. By the time you've reached the top of your head- you should be safely in dreamland.

Here are a couple of self-hypnosis/relaxation exercises to help you do that:

The Total Void Technique

This technique is good for anxiety and insomnia. You can use it in any position but of course if you are using it in an attempt to overcome insomnia, lying down would be best. Once comfortable, close your eyes and think of a particular place you are familiar with and comfortable in, such as your bedroom. Tell yourself that nothing else exists. Visualize this place in great detail such as the walls, floor, ceiling, furniture etc). One by one, erase these elements from the image you have in your mind. Do this until all the elements are gone and you are left with nothing. See the emptiness. Remain in this empty void for a while, experiencing the calm and relaxation it brings. You can the drift off to sleep.

The Black Fish Technique

Close your eyes and tell yourself you are going to get over your tiredness and have more energy. See in your mind's a body of water like a lake, river or even a swimming pool. See how inviting the water looks and dive in and imagine your tiredness just swimming away from you like a shoal of tiny black fish. As these fish disappear, breathe deeply and imagine yourself floating in the water, completely relaxed. Imagine being catapulted to the surface of the water and floating there, stretching out your limbs. As you imagine yourself stretching, do it physically too.

Feel the water surround you and support you and slowly bring yourself back to reality. Take a few deep breaths and enjoy the relaxed feeling, focusing on your breathing and the air going in and out of your lungs. Slowly open your eyes when you are ready.

If you try the steps to meditate and find that it does not work, do not give up. Instead, wait until the next day to try the technique again. Keep trying, since it opens the door to relaxing.

If you find that you cannot sleep after 30 minutes, get out of bed. Read some pages of a book. Do something that makes you feel tired. Never force yourself to sleep. If you find that none of the suggestions work for you, see your doctor. There may be a medical condition preventing you from sleeping.

In the meantime, sleep in the same area each night. By sleeping in the same area every night, your body understands that this is the place where you rest and it is time to go to sleep.

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