We've all been there, you get all settled into bed ready for a nice long sleep then the thoughts of everything embarrassing you've ever done in life starts running through your mind and you spend hours awake riddled with anxiety. It's one of the worst feelings so we've come up with a few tips on how to combat the night time anxiety.
Tire yourself out before bed
Make sure during the day you're staying active and doing things that will make you tired later on in the evening. This can be anything from keeping yourself mentally stimulated through the day with things like work or challenges you need to give yourself or making sure you're doing enough to physically tire yourself out with exercise. Anything thats going to make you fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow.
Avoid anything mentally stimulating before bed
This can be things like really gripping series that make you think a lot or doing life admin like taxes or things that might stress you out. Try and plan your time where you can wind down at the end of the day.
Take Magnesium
Around 60% of adults don't have enough magnesium in their diet which can lead to anxiety and trouble sleeping, taking some magnesium supplements may really benefit your sleep and make you less anxious. Consult your doctor before doing this.
Watch what you eat before bed
Avoid having anything sugary or caffeinated a couple of hours before bed as this will wake you up and make it harder for you to sleep at night.
Distract yourself
This differers person to person on which way is best for you to get to sleep and what ends up keeping you up all night. But if it doesn't keep you up, popping on a comfort show can be great to distract you from those annoying thoughts and drift you off to sleep. If screens keep you up and effect your sleep maybe try reading a book with a dim light on or even (as silly as it sounds) make up your own story in your head.
Belly Breathe
It sounds so simple and yet it’s so effective—belly breathing is an easy and powerful way to tame anxiety. When we focus on breathing into our belly, this stimulates the vagus nerve and causes the body to send a signal to the mind for it to relax. Anxious thoughts cause the stress response in our body to be activated, so the simple belly breath (aka just consciously breathing into your belly, filling it up like a balloon on the inhale and releasing on the exhale) acts as a reversal to this. Try inhaling for 5 and exhaling for 7. Extending the exhales relaxes the mind and body further. I often recommend that people place a book on their belly and focus on breathing the book up and down just using the stomach to help them feel into a deeper breath. This is a clear way to see if you are breathing into the lower part of the belly, while strengthening those muscles and relaxing the mind at the same time!”