At any rate, focusing on an enjoyable, calming activity is also just a more pleasant way to spend your twilight time rather than agonizing over the clock. The goal is to stay calm and allow your sleep drive-the body’s natural “pressure” to sleep-to kick in again, which will help you drift off, Dr. Barwick suggests gauging how you feel: Are you awake, alert, and starting to feel anxious? That’s a good signal to get up.) (Twenty minutes is a recommendation, by the way-not a rule. Skip screen-based activities, like completing a work project or turning on the TV to finish that thriller-you want to distract yourself, not stress yourself out or blast your eyes with sleep-sabotaging blue light. Barwick suggests getting up and doing something distracting but enjoyable that keeps you calm and relaxed-like reading, knitting, or journaling. If you don’t fall back asleep after what feels like 20 minutes, Dr. If you’re awake for less than three minutes, you probably won’t remember, she says, which is why you don’t realize you’re experiencing most of these interruptions. “On average, adults wake up 10 to 12 times per night,” according to Dr. Recognize that your brain is overreacting.Īs SELF previously reported, there are a lot of reasons why you might wake up at night: You’re anxious, you drank alcohol before bed, you have to pee, your partner (or dog) is snoring, you heard a loud noise outside-any manner of disruptions can pop your eyes open. Barwick for her best advice on dealing with middle-of-the-night wake-ups so you can (hopefully) get back to sleep peacefully-without crying into or punching your pillow. So what should you do instead of freaking out that you’re not sleeping? We asked Dr. Also not surprisingly, that’s the exact wrong thing to do, Fiona Barwick, PhD, director of the Sleep & Circadian Health Program at Stanford University School of Medicine, tells SELF. I was doing what you might expect someone who woke up way before their alarm does: Get really stressed about the fact that they’re awake when they shouldn’t be.
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