Do you find yourself waking up randomly in the middle of night, unable to get back to the land of nod? If so, a sleep expert has suggested you follow these steps.
Getting that much-needed shut-eye should be easy, but like most things in this fickle existence that we call life, it’s not.
If you’re like me, and you happen to live next to some loud-ass neighbours with a penchant for making noise till five-in-the morning, then getting back to your much needed kip, once you’ve awoken is difficult.
However, sleep specialist and author of The Power of When…, Dr Michael Breus, has come up with an easy two-step solution.
According Dr. Breus both steps are down to sheer will power alone, one thing you need to do is avoid going to the bathroom – unless you REALLY HAVE TO GO.
Breus says that you raise your heart rate merely by sitting up, and for you to get back to a state of sleep you need to keep that ticker ticking slowly.
Getting out of bed to go to the bathroom (or for a cheeky midnight snack) will only raise your heart rate, making it more of a task to for you to get back to sleep.
Another thing to avoid is looking at anything to do with time – that mean’s our alarm clocks, watches and – possibly the most difficult of all – our phones.
Breus says that people have an illogical fear of not getting enough sleep, although it may not be the best thing – especially if it’s a regular occurrence – it’s not worst thing in the world.
However, one of the things we tend to do as humans when we unexpectedly wake up is check the time, Breus says we should avoid this at all costs as it makes us ‘agitated’ and ‘anxious’.
By doing the ‘mental math’ in our heads to calculate how many hours of sleep we still have, it makes it practically impossible for us to KO again.
He suggests that we should just all relax, if we clear our mind and just forget about the constraints of time getting back to sleep will be so much easier.
For more sage advice from Dr Michael Breus you can check out his book The Power Of When which is available on Amazon.
