The night is our time to rest, a good atmosphere to relax and forget about the worries we have accumulated over the last few hours, at least that’s what the theory says. However, many times we can’t help but think about everything that happened during the day, what was left at work and what we’ll have for the next day, is a kind of review of all the to-do.
We’ve certainly heard thousands of tips on how best to get a good night’s sleep, clear our minds of worries, and build habits that make it easier to sleep before going to bed. At times when everything is going well, the night is one of the most pleasant. and moments of relaxation of the day, a moment of ours, however, in difficult stages of life, achieving it can become a challenge.
- The lights go out.
- Everything is silent and we are left alone with our thoughts.
- That does not seem like a bad plan.
- Unless the worries overwhelm us.
- We are not prepared and we can no longer do anything to silence this inner voice that reminds us of our problems.
- When you can’t silence that voice.
- You know it’s a very long night in front of you.
Imagine the following situation: you watch TV, a very interesting movie, but you fall asleep after working hard all day, then you will take the next ad to bed. You brush your teeth and fall asleep, because tomorrow will be a new day, however, as soon as you close your eyes, all your worries seem to keep you awake.
This situation is very common. When our minds are occupied by a film or book that fascinates us, we focus all our attention on what we do at the time, but when we are alone with our conscience, everything we bury during the day resurfaces.
Occasionally what concerns us is not concerns but ideas. We’re in bed and all of a sudden several shots start to come up. We started thinking about the best way to develop a project, including many ideas for this book that we always wanted to write Goodbye to Sleep. We spend hours talking about ideas that look fantastic and that tomorrow will be completely forgotten.
The biggest problem is not the concerns that assault us at night, but the illusion of seeming bigger than they really are, besides they seem to have no solution, we see these problems as something very negative and you don’t know how to deal with them. After three hours of sleep, during the day we realized it wasn’t so bad. The shifts we took and the anxiety played us a bad trick.
We can spend more than two hours reflecting on this unpleasant conversation we had with a colleague, analyzing every silence and every word, all the nuances and tones that have been used, interpreting freely and believing that we have come to sometimes unrealistic conclusions. day, everything will probably return to normal, but we will continue to do the same.
A problem we don’t consider important during the day can seem huge at night. Perhaps this feeling of helplessness and irremediability is linked to the “solitude” that accompanies us at the end of the day. We are alone in dealing with our problems, nothing can calm us down or help us, and that increases anxiety.
There are countless techniques that aim to end insomnia. Sleep hygiene is one of the secrets, it is about getting ideal conditions, both environmental (temperature, noise, light) and physiological (relax) thanks to good habits, but when what prevents you from sleeping at night are your thoughts, there are specific techniques.
Here are some cognitive-behavioral techniques that target cognitive downtime:
It is proven that trying to control thoughts simply with the intention of severing about them leads to an increase in the frequency of those same thoughts, simply proposing to stop thinking about something is not effective, applying some of these techniques can be more useful to clear the mind and relax to fall asleep.