When you want to cure panic attacks, one of the best things you can do is improve the quality of sleep you’re having, and here are 3 good ways to achieve that.
Okay, method number 1 is simply to eliminate negative thoughts that you experience in your bedroom.
A large percentage of all your worry takes place when you’re in bed, which is difficult to believe considering it’s probably the place where most people are at their most relaxed.
I’d feel confident guessing that worrying in bed bothers you most when you’re trying to fall asleep when you first get into bed, in the middle of the night when you wake up, and first thing in the morning before you get up.
So what’s most critical in this situation is quickly stopping as much of your anxiety in the bedroom as possible, and the easiest area to solve this problem is with the worrying you do when you wake up in the morning. The answer? Get up imediately, as soon as you open your eyes.
This may sound like a very simplistic idea}, but it really does work and will beginning to your day.
Okay, now to stop those occasions when you worry in the middle of the night after waking up. I’ll confess, this one’s slightly tricky to solve, but there are solid methods you can use. Right away I should tell you that if you’re ever awake for more than a few minutes, get up straight away. Staying in bed won’t solve anything, and will probably double your anxiety.
Have a warm shower or wash your face with warm water, potter around for 10 minutes doing something that doesn’t need much focus (a bit of tidying, listening to some soft music, skim-reading a magazine etc.), and then go back to bed. The key here is to recreate a “natural” going-to-bed routine.
This entire appraoch has to beat lying in bed for hours on end, with nothing to do but worry. And when you eventually go back to bed, you’re much more likely to drift off to sleep without any problems.
***Method #2. No More Ever-Changing Schedules***
By sticking to the same routines and times, you’re sleeping will improve, whatever the cause of your sleeping problems.
By simply going to bed at the same time each night and getting up at the same time each morning, your body’s internal clock will get back to normal. Many of your body’s functions, including the releasing of hormones, are affected by your wake/sleep cycle.
Do you ever feel burnt out? In many cases, that will be because your adrenal glands are active at times when they shouldn’t be, and this is often caused by irregular sleeping cycles. If you can get your sleeping habits into a predictable routine, problems like this will often disappear all on their own.
So do your best to go to bed each night at the same time, and get up each morning at the same time too. When you start out doing this, you may go through a couple of tough days while you get back into the correct routine, but it will be worth it. And also beware of sleeping in late on weekends, or days when you don’t have to be up early. All your hard work can be undone with a couple of late lie-ins!
Right, now the 3rd and final way to get better sleep, and this one is all about stopping all stimulants in the lead up to bedtime.
A lot of the problems that you currently have with your sleep could be to do with what you do directly before you go to bed. Fast-paced TV, loud music, heavy reading, and playing video games are all really bad ideas in the last hour or two before you try to sleep.
So something you should try to do right now is to totally stop anything that stimulates you in the final hours before bed time. Make this a part of a new routine you stick to before bed, where you try to slow things down.
So go out of your way to take it easy. act like you’re on a vacation without a care in the world. You know what relaxes you, so do that! Have a favourite bed time drink, do some light reading, sit outside in the fresh air if it’s warm. Anything to relax.
These kinds of suggestions might seem basic, but do you ever genuinely give yourself time in this way? Even if you do, you probably don’t do it often enough.
If you’re somebody who likes hot baths, then take one an hour before you go to bed. A warm bath always helps to ease your body into just the right state for deep and relaxed sleep. Incorporate this warm bath with the bedtime drink and use these new habits to construct your own slow-down hour before bed, and see the wonders it can work on your sleep, and your panic attacks.
tips for panic attacks