A wonderful and overlooked way to cure panic attacks is to focus on your sleep and to improve the quantity and quality of the sleep you’re getting. Try these 3 tips to do just that:
The first method to get better sleep is to stop all negative thoughts while you’re in bed.
A significant 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 troubles 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.
To stop these situations, you need to prevent as much of your “worrying in bed” time as you can. The simplest one to solve is the one where you’re lying in bed in the morning after you’ve woken up. All you need to do is get up as soon as you wake up!
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 right away. Staying in bed won’t solve anything, and will probably double your anxiety.
Another good thing to do is to have a warm shower, or simply to splash your face with warm water. Or perhaps just wander around your home for a few minutes, possibly tidying a few things away. Then just go back to bed. This approach works because it recreates a completely natural way of going to bed.
By getting up when you’re awake, and going back to bed in this way after you’ve been doing something for a while, it’s much more like you’re going to bed for the first time. This is much more natural for your body, and you’re going to be able to get back to sleep much quicker than if you’d just stayed in bed the whole time.
***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.
Your personal inner clock will almost immediately reset itself to the natural and healthy default if you just start going to bed and getting up at similar times each day. This will also normalise things like hormone secretion, which often depends on your sleeping cycles.
You know that feeling of being constantly “burnt-out?” That’s often because your adrenal glands are working even when they should be resting. One of the common causes of this is an irregular sleeping schedule. Getting back into a regular routine will fix this and many other problems too.
Starting from right now, then, begin going to bed every night as close to the same time as possible. And, of course, get up at the same time each morning too. Just don’t undo all your hard work by sleeping in late on the weekends and losing your hard-earned new routine!
***Method #3. No More Stimulants Before Bedtime***
In my own case, a lot of the problems I had with my sleep were due to what I was exposing myself to in the time leading up to bedtime. I admit that I often watched fast-paced TV, listened to loud music, and played action-packed video games right up until I turned my lights off. Clearly this is a terrible idea.
So something you should try to do right now is to completely stop anything that stimulates you in the last hours before bed time. Make this a part of a new routine you adhere to before bed, where you try to slow things down.
Go out of your way to slow everything down for the last 60 minutes before heading off to bed. If you have a favourite bedtime drink, this is the time for it. If it’s hot outside, maybe drink it in the fresh air. If it’s cold outside, curl up and drink it inside. But the bottom line is, relax.
It may sound a bit obvious to give this kind of advice, but how many of us really give ourselves time like this? Even those of us who do don’t do it 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 build 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