It's Too Late And I Can't Sleep, What Should I Do?

[WilsonFitbit]

Hello. 😊

Imagine that it's too late and you can't sleep, here we go again, 😅 often go to the sofa and attempt drowsing off to go back to bed, time goes and the it's already 5 am. Your eyes are tired and yet, you still can't sleep. Finally, an hour later you head back to bed and finally fell asleep. 

Okay, let's try to fix this and make sure you get a good night's sleep. Here are some tips: 

1. First, prepare your bedroom so it becomes the perfect place to sleep. Your bed needs to be at a good quality, good enough that when you lay on it you feel very comfortable, a good pillow is important too, to properly support you. In addition to this, there are different pillows, Thick, Thin, Firm, soft and find out what's best for you. 

2. Lighting is important, but if your room is too light even at midnight, might be one of the reasons you can't sleep well. If there are windows, you can use some thick black curtains and put those and that will do the trick. 

3. Also, the best you can do is to choose a bed time, set an alarm 1 or 2 hours before going to bed and when it goes off, it's your time to turn off all those electronic devices. Well, you don't have to turn them off, but at least stop using them. The Blue light coming out of the screens can affect your sleep, instead pick up a book and there will be a chance you're going to fall asleep with it on your face 😂 and you might even dream about it. 

4. Exercise, it has been mentioned before and it really helps your Sleep and Night. One of the exercises to improve your sleep is Cardio, so go out to the park and run for a while. Exercise will help you to stay awake in the day and no more feeling that you want to take a nap at the middle of the day 😬. 

5. For naps, please be careful with those and avoid them after 3:00 PM. If you really want to take a nap, do it earlier in the afternoon, use an alarm and only sleep for 15 o 20 minutes. 

6. It happens that when you go to bed, you're looking at the celling, trying to fall as sleep, you might sometimes feel dizzy and that something is nor right. So, if you're feeling this way, there is currently an easy solution to this and place one of your feet on the ground and you'll fee better after some deep breaths. 

5. Finally, eat some meals with carbs, at least 4 hours before bed. It might help with your sleep. 

Can you share which other tips have you been practicing to get a good night's Sleep? Have you found any helpful tip in the Sleep Well board or in different threads? 

Looking forward to reading your comments! 

[SunsetRunner]

All good advice, @WilsonFitbit . I find the Fitbit Relax app can be very helpful at times like this. That, and meditation. Both help to clear the mind. My Tai Chi instructor told us to let the thought wander in but pay them no attention. It gets easier to do over time. It takes practice. 

[emili]

I think as we age we become more susceptible to insomnia. I remember my parents sitting at breakfast comparing how many hours each laid awake till they finally fell asleep, got up to start the day at the crack of dawn or took a sleeping pill. The sleeping pill always consisted of mad math skills because if you wait too long, your next day is ruined. I have fought insomnia for years. I finally have given up and just embrace it. I don't get out of bed, I don't turn anything on ( I don't have a TV in my bedroom and my phone is always downstairs at night). I just lie there and I let the thoughts come. I pet the dog. I go through my next day. Eventually my brain gets tired and I fall asleep for whatever is left of the night. I think those who fight the insomnia maybe make it worse.. giving in sometimes helps to put you to sleep faster. 

[WilsonFitbit]

Hello @SunsetRunner, @emili. It's nice to see you around! 

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your own experiences. @SunsetRunner I agree with you, the Fitbit Relax App is a great tool. For more information about how to manage stress, I recommend visiting this link: How do I track and manage stress with my Fitbit device?

@emili I believe that meditation can also help you with the insomnia situation that you've experienced. If you would like to see some tips about how to use meditation, please check here. 

See you around. 

[Heather-S]

I have no problem falling asleep.  I usually fall asleep easily around 9pm.  However, if my dog wakes me up to be let out to potty, I often can't go back to sleep.  Last night, my pup woke me up at 2am and I couldn't fall back asleep!  I laid awake in bed, trying to force myself to sleep.  I tried reading and counting sheep.  I finally gave up at 4:30am and pulled out my phone to start scrolling (my alarm goes off at 5:15, so there was no hope I'd get any sleep).  Needless to say, I've been up since 2am today.  😞

I have no idea how to turn off my brain once my body wakes up in the middle of the night.  It's very frustrating when you have an active mind at night!

And of course, my Fitbit thinks I still got 8 hours of sleep when I really got around 5 hours.  

[WilsonFitbit]

Hello @Heather-S. It's very nice to see you around. 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience and thank you so much for taking the time to write it down here. I think I'll share a new topic about this in the next days, but for now, I think it is great to get comfortable and relax.

Also, try progressive muscle relaxation, work your way through the different muscle groups in your body (e.g. arms, legs, torso, face) tensing the muscles in each group at about three-quarters strength for approximately five seconds before releasing the tension all at once. Skip any muscles that hurt and try to isolate the muscles as you contract them instead of, for example, tensing your chest muscles when you’re focusing on your arms. Take slow, deep breaths in between muscle groups.

I think these tips can work for you, @Heather-S 😊

See you around.