Photo Credit: Alexandra Gorn
Don’t try, “because sleep is, to a significant degree, a by-product of the ability to let go mentally, the trick is to relax,” says Dr Stephen Amira, a clinical psychologist at Harvard medical school.
If you’re the type who wakes up in the middle of the night and immediately starts worrying about being awake in the middle of the night, Amira recommends closing your eyes and focusing on an image or a memory you find soothing, like a hike in a forest or swimming in the ocean.
The more detailed your mental picture, the more likely it will be to distract and relax you.
Still staring at the ceiling? Grab a scrapbook and write down whatever thoughts might be making you anxious. Look at what you just wrote, then ask yourself,
“Can this wait until morning?” Yes?
Then close the scrapbook – and the source of your anxiety – and go back to bed.
Amira says your best strategy is to do this pre-emptively, before you go to sleep. Pretty much journaling before you go to bed as a source of memory dumping to clear your mind.
Yoga and meditation before bed also helps to relax the mind and body
This will clear your mind, so when you stir at 2am, you’ll be less likely to start worrying.
Give it a go and let me know in the comment below how it went or you could just get out of bed and start the day already.
