6 Ways to Sleep Better Even When Stressed

Unfortunately, stress is an unavoidable part of life. Everyone suffers stress at some point in their lives. Physical, mental, and other forms of stress all impact our minds and bodies. That is why sleep is so vital. Sleep is a powerful antidote to stress.

Sleep is used by our bodies and mind to heal and recuperate. Our bodies perform crucial restorative tasks when we sleep. It’s surprising how busy our minds and bodies are even while sleeping.

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

— Charlotte Brontë

Effects of stress on mind, body, mood, and relationships. 

Stress affects both our minds and bodies. Stress causes the release of cortisol, a potent hormone that activates our bodies fight or flight response. This hormone can generate overpowering feelings in the body, elevate blood pressure and cause anxiety. Sleeping well helps lower cortisol levels and regulate the chemistry in the brain and body. As a result, chronic stress combined with little sleep might increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.

Our mood is also affected by stress. When we are anxious, we tend to overreact or underreact. This can result in a slew of problems. Living with a high level of stress or anxiety can lead to overeating or undereating, emotional outbursts or withdrawal, and various other behaviors. A good night’s sleep after a stressful day is the most excellent way to manage mood swings.

Stress alters how we interact with others. Being worried, apprehensive, or overwhelmed makes it challenging to be present and engage in positive interactions with others. Stress may cause relationships to break down, from coworkers to family. Being able to disconnect from people and spend some time for oneself might be beneficial. Sleeping allows you to restore your batteries and prepare to face the world again. Even the act of resting in bed before going to sleep might help you regain energy and make it easier to get along with people.

Sleep is an excellent antidote to a stressful day. Relaxing in the comfort of your own bed and letting go of the stresses of the world may provide you with a fresh perspective and refresh your spirit and vitality. Sleep may provide a getaway from the day’s stresses and quiet time to heal. Making sleep a priority, including naps when needed, may assist your mind and body recover from stress and coping with stressful situations.

1. Journaling can help your sleep time stress.

Journaling is effective because it

• Centers your thoughts
• Is an outlet for your creativity
• Removes ideas from your head by putting them on paper
• This opens up the possibility of problem-solving.

Let us look at these points in detail:

Journaling allows you to get a rein on your thoughts.

Journaling allows you to focus your thoughts and get them down on paper. Instead of obsessing and fretting about problems, journaling allows you to organize and analyze your ideas. It will enable you to better comprehend the source of your stress and focus your thoughts rather than constantly running them through your head.

Journaling activates a different area of the brain.

Writing and journaling engage the creative part of your brain. This can help us relieve tension. Depending on the sort of journaling you perform, it may assist increase dopamine levels in your brain, lowering stress. Journaling need not be confined to writing. Coloring, doodling, poetry, or any other form of expression are all acceptable.

Journaling helps you clear your head.

When you write anything down, your brain is tricked into emptying it and leaving it on paper. Journaling can help get thoughts out of your head so that your mind can drift to something else. Cognitively, your brain feels that the thoughts are organized on paper and no longer require as much focused attention, allowing your mind to rest.

Journaling encourages and inspires problem-solving.

Journaling can help you solve problems in the same way that clearing your mind in the shower does. Worrying about stress clogs your head with unpleasant ideas and worry. Journaling activates our innate problem-solving abilities and makes it simpler to identify answers. Journaling before bed might help relieve tension and leave your mind feeling tranquil. This allows your mind to shut down and drift into REM sleep, where the mind and body can mend and recover. Journaling before bedtime can help your mind release the stresses of the day and prepare for a good night’s sleep.

2. Use your smartphone to relieve stress and sleep better.

Our smartphones are never far from us. While most of the time, they are a culprit in preventing us from sleeping, they can also be helpful in stress reduction and aid sleep aid. There are apps for iPhone and Android that help us better understand our sleep cycle, calm our brains, and sleep better. Here are three apps worth checking out.

Headspace

Be Kind to Your Mind is the tagline for the Headspace app. This mantra is perfect when stress is interfering with your sleep. This app contains several features that might help you determine why you aren’t sleeping, as well as tools for power napping and mindfulness. The app is free for basic functionality but requires a monthly fee for enhanced features.

Calm

The Calm app is one of the most highly-rated apps for anxiety and stress management. This app offers a broad range of meditations, from beginner to expert, and customers may select how long and what sort of meditation they like. This app also has a nature sound option, which might be useful as white noise for stress relief. This app is free with some in-app purchases.

Dare

The Dare app is unusual in that it focuses on assisting you in confronting your anxieties and stressors rather than distracting you from them. This one-of-a-kind app uses guided imagery to help you move through anxiety, while the audio element lets you sit comfortably with your tension. This can help you conquer and move past stress, resulting in better sleep and less recurring worry. This app is free, but there are in-app purchases available.

It makes sense to use your smartphone to help you manage stress and sleep better. Having resources to help you relax and let go of problems is helpful before going to bed. Test out various apps to find which ones best suit your requirements. When one app becomes too familiar, switch it up and try a new one; the diversity will help. Be prepared to pay small amounts to upgrade and access advanced features.

3. Try meditation to overcome stress and sleep better.

Meditation helps in relieving stress by improving focus and self-awareness. In addition, preparing your mind and body for sleep by meditating before bedtime might help you gain control of stressful thoughts.

It may appear overwhelming, strange, or even boring if you have never meditated before. Starting a meditation practice may feel odd at first, but learning to meditate is similar to strengthening a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

Here are some simple steps to help you meditate at bedtime, decrease stress, and sleep better.

Step 1: Commit to the practice.

The first and most crucial step is to decide to meditate. Because meditation becomes easier with practice, it is critical to commit to utilizing it. It may seem odd at first but persevere.

Step 2: Determine which form of meditation is best for you.

Meditation is divided into three types: mindfulness, concentration, and guided meditation.

Mindfulness meditation entails focusing on your breath and body, as well as being acutely aware of how you feel within your body and how it functions in the present now. The purpose of mindful meditation is to replace wandering thoughts with awareness of what your body is doing. 

Concentration meditation centers on a single word, idea, or phrase. This meditation may entail concentrating on an item or reciting a mantra aloud or mentally.

Guided meditation involves listening to an audio that guides you towards stress alleviation and sleep. The guide may concentrate on various parts of your body, or they may tell you a metaphor to guide you through the meditation.

Step 3: Increase the time of your meditation until you get relief

At first, you may not be able to concentrate for very long. That is usual. Thoughts wander, and stress has a way of taking precedence over intentions. Don’t berate yourself or worry if you’re not doing it correctly. Over time, you can train your mind to focus on your meditation practice and obtain comfort and calm as you sleep.

Meditation is an excellent strategy for reducing stress throughout the day. It is especially beneficial before bed if stress interferes with your sleep. Find a meditation approach that works for you and commit to practicing it for a month, and you’ll discover an incredible capacity to control your emotions.

4. Bedtime routines to overcome stress and sleep better

A bedtime routine can help reduce stress and prepare our thoughts and bodies for sleep. However, the hour before bedtime is just as critical as the moment your head touches the pillow. This is why:

The things you do before going to bed have an impact on your sleep.

What you do before bedtime can make or break your ability to sleep. Screen time, coffee consumption, watching emotionally charged content, talking about sensitive topics, and other things might cause you to become more active when you should be slowing down. 

It is best to do activities that support and activate your natural sleep pattern before going to bed. For example, reading, having a hot bath or shower and drinking decaffeinated hot tea. Listening to meditative material, dressing comfortably, and preparing for bed all contribute to good sleep.

Your circadian rhythm influences your sleep cycle.

Our bodies are equipped with a built-in sleep cycle. The circadian rhythm is a natural biological mechanism in our bodies that allows us to distinguish between night and day. We have an inbuilt wind-down phase when our bodies move towards tiredness and prepare to sleep. Staying up late or overstimulation can generate severe stress and make it much more difficult to fall asleep and wake up refreshed.

Setting a regular bedtime and sticking to it will help keep your rhythm in sync. Because your body will be used to going to sleep on a schedule, sleep training your body to sleep and wake at specified times can help manage and override stressful thoughts at bedtime. Once your body is habituated to sleeping and waking regularly, you won’t need an alarm clock or have trouble falling asleep…even when stressed.

Make a schedule that works for you.

Developing a bedtime routine that works for you will help you regularly prepare for bed and fall asleep with minimal effort. Everyone is unique, and what one person requires to unwind may not be the same as what other needs. Develop bedtime routines that help you calm, relax, and destress before bed, and you’ll find it easier to fall asleep and have more peaceful evenings.

5. More tips to destress and sleep better

Take action.

Failure to act on important issues causes a lot of stress. Likewise, failure to deal with life’s challenges, whether via procrastination, avoidance, or plain laziness, can lead to stress. Learn to take action and cross items off your to-do list to lessen stress in your life.

Let it go.

Disney struck a chord with the song “Let it go” in the 2013 movie Frozen. Stress can be reduced by learning to let go of what you can’t control. Giving up the impulse to control and refraining from worrying about things you can’t manage can significantly lessen stress.

Take each day as it comes.

There are only so many hours in the day. Accept and be proud of your accomplishments at the end of the day. Set aside your worries, trusting that tomorrow will take care of itself. Learning to compartmentalize your fears, anxieties, and worries on a daily basis will help you tackle each day as it comes and rest at the end of the day.

Make your bedroom a refuge.

Your room should feel like a refuge from the outside world. Make an environment that makes you feel comfortable and refreshed. Your bed should be comfy, your bedding nice, and the temperature should be agreeable. Make your surroundings pleasant and relaxing, and you’ll fall and remain asleep easier.

Use sound to aid sleep.

Some folks like to sleep with music. White noise might help you attain deeper sleep if you are a light sleeper. A fan or white noise machine can be effective. Other apps can generate ambient noises such as the jungle, winter storms, or coffee shop sounds to assist lull you to sleep and keep you sleeping.

Consider using weighted blankets.

Weighted blankets can help those who suffer from anxiety and stress. These blankets provide comfort and better sleep by giving an at-home version of deep pressure treatment. Blankets are available in many sizes and weights and are suitable for children and adults.

6. Get professional help – Consider Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi)

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) is a brief, systematic, and evidence-based treatment for the vexing problems of sleeplessness. CBT-I focuses on the relationship between how we think, what we do, and how we sleep. CBTi is now considered the first line of treatment in cases of chronic insomnia.

Treatment can take up to 12 sessions, but an abridged version that can work for many consists of just 2 sessions. Want to talk more about your sleep problems? Have a virtual coffee with me.