If your night-time wakefulness has now turned into insomnia – whether temporary, intermittent, or chronic, you may want to find a way to deal with it using any of these methods.
In most cases, if nothing major is wrong with your health, you should be able to clear up insomnia within a few days of paying attention to your sleep routines and patterns.
If it lasts longer, you may need to seek medical attention because insomnia is one symptom of several types of illnesses such as allergies, GERD, or chronic pain. Even endocrine issues like undiagnosed hyperthyroidism can cause insomnia.
Find a Good Sleep Position
If you’ve slept the same way your entire life and are now having issues getting to sleep, there could be a reason. If you have arthritis (which can happen with aging) or other health issues, you may find that your old sleep position isn’t working for you any longer. Experiment with different ways to sleep, ensuring proper spine alignment to avoid body pain.
Get More Sunlight during the Day
Anytime you are having issues falling asleep at night, the first thing to look at is how much sunlight you are getting each day. The more sunlight you can get during the day before about 2 pm, the better for your internal clock. However, getting too much sunlight before bed can have the opposite effect and keep you up at the wrong hours.
Exercise Regularly
Even though you work hard, if your job is mental in nature, you still need a good workout every single day. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be as hard as you may initially think, and it should not be at night. Try doing your workout as early in the day as you can so that you can be sleepy at night. Work out for at least 30 to 40 minutes at moderate intensity.
Avoid Blue Light Exposure at Night
If you are looking at computers, smartphones, and other electronic screens, you may be exposing yourself to too much blue light. The blue light can mess up your rhythm and cause you to suffer from insomnia. You can buy glasses that filter the light, or you can install an app to help. The best thing to do is to avoid it at night.
Stop Using Caffeine after 2 PM
This tip is worth repeating. If you like to use caffeine, try to avoid it after 2 pm, especially when you are having issues falling and staying asleep at night. If you limit it and you’re still having problems after a few days, try eliminating it altogether to get the best results.
Avoid Taking Naps
When you are trying to stop insomnia, you’ll need to stop taking any naps until you can fall asleep within about 20 minutes without issues every night. You can get into a lousy wake-and-nap cycle that is not therapeutic at all and instead cuts down on your productivity and ruins your schedules.
Go to Bed and Get Up at the Same Time
Try to go to bed at the same time each evening and get up at the same time every morning. You can adjust this to fit your lifestyle by an hour or so, but you really will do better if you go to bed and get up at consistent times almost all the time.
Try a Supplement
If making your room colder isn’t helping, try taking melatonin supplements to help the process improve. Find a high-quality melatonin supplement that has been third party tested, and take it according to package directions.
Seek Medical Attention
If you have tried all these tips and you’re still experiencing insomnia, you may want to seek medical attention. You could have a significant health problem that you aren’t dealing with properly. Conditions like sleep apnea, asthma, GERD, and others can contribute to and even cause insomnia.
In addition to regular blood tests and a physical exam, your doctor may want to order a sleep study to find out if you have other health issues affecting your sleep. If that happens, you’ll go to a sleep center and get hooked up to a bunch of wires; then you’ll need to sleep while they monitor you.
This is relatively painless but it is not easy; some people cannot sleep at all in these conditions and may require other methods to diagnose the problem. Your healthcare professional can help you with this.