Change The Way You Sleep

Some days getting out of bed can be the equivalent of climbing Everest. Way too hard. Often there’s an excuse for the “get out of bed struggle syndrome.” A late night in front of the tv. A few too many drinks. A baby that just won’t sleep. A new puppy that won’t stop crying. A snoring partner. A change in your life. The excuses just keep on coming.

Sometimes there is no obvious explanation. You just wake up feeling as tired as you did when you hit the sack. As you get older you figure it’s because you need less sleep. Somewhere, hidden away, in back blocks of your memory you remember your Mum or Dad sleeping less and less and then telling you, “It’s just an age thing.”

They were pretty close to right. As you age your body produces lower levels of growth hormone, so you are likely to experience a decrease in deep sleep. When this happens you produce less melatonin, meaning you’ll often experience more fragmented sleep (more rapid sleep cycles) and wake up more often during the night. As your circadian rhythm (the internal clock that tells you when to sleep and when to wake up) changes, you may also find yourself wanting to go to sleep earlier in the evening and waking up earlier in the morning.

Then they’re the emotional issues such as stress, anxiety, and depression. All of which can be set off by a change in your life. This could be the end of a relationship, a traumatic accident or injury, a job loss, the death of a family member or a friend, illness or simply a change of address. Change happens to all of us every day. You’d think that we would be immune to it, but we’re not and it remains one of the major causes of stress and subsequently insomnia.

The fact remains that life is all about change. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes not. No matter why your life is changing, you need to be able to let go and move forward. Clinging onto grief and resentment will only hold you back, make you ill and as we’re discovering keep you awake.

The problem is that many of us see a life change as a negative. Something to fret about. Maybe we should stop looking back at the bad things that have happened, and instead, look at the fantastic opportunities that lay ahead.

Want to start sleeping better at night? Stop looking back, everyone makes mistakes. It’s a fact of life. The trick is not to keep repeating the same one. To learn from the past you need to learn from your blunders and value those lessons, but not dwell on them. Accept that life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; it only creates sorrow. Let reality be the reality. Let things flow naturally forward and stop trying to change the world, just worry about yourself.

In the words of the Buddha, “In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”

So, take a deep breath, step up to the door, walk through and start a shiny new chapter of your life. You’ll sleep so much better.