How to fall asleep right away when your mind is racing at night

How to fall asleep right away when your mind is racing at night: 10 tips

In this article, you will discover how to fall asleep right away when your mind is racing at night.

Getting enough sleep and improving the quality of your sleep is an important step in improving your productivity, health, and well-being.

By adopting one or more of the following strategies, you’ll be able to fall asleep faster and wake up feeling refreshed and fit.

Let’s start with the first tip.

1 – Sleep in the dark

To fall asleep quickly, you need to be in a dark space.

The more you are exposed to light, the longer it will take you to fall asleep.

So avoid bright lights, but also stay away from your phone, tablet, or computer.

According to researchers, when we spend time with a device that emits blue light, we are actually delaying the signal sent to our brain that tells it it’s time to fall asleep.

2 – Use essential oils or prepare some herbal tea

You can use essential oils to facilitate falling asleep. For example, you can put a few drops of lavender or chamomile oil in a diffuser and place it near your bed.

This will create a more relaxing atmosphere in your room and help you fall asleep more easily. You can buy essential oils online or at health food stores.

You can also prepare a cup of holy basil or chamomile tea at least an hour before going to bed. This way you will be able to fall asleep more easily.

3 – Avoid stress

In some cases, wanting to fall asleep quickly can prevent you from doing so, especially if it causes stress.

Specifically, Wegner (1994) shows that people who are under pressure to fall asleep quickly take longer than those who do not.

In practical terms, don’t set yourself a time limit for falling asleep and do what you can to relax.

4 – Try breathing exercises

There are many strategies you can use to better manage your stress.

For example, you can try performing breathing exercises just before you go to sleep.

This will help you fall asleep quickly.

But you can also do these exercises throughout the day to feel more relaxed whenever you feel the need.

5 – Practice gratitude or positive affirmations

You can increase your level of gratitude by focusing on the beautiful people, experiences, and objects you have in your life.

Doing this will help you feel more relaxed. You can write down in a journal all the things you can be grateful for. You can read this list at night before you go to bed. This way you will fall asleep easily.

You can also use positive affirmations that you can repeat over and over again to help you fall asleep.

6 – Try meditation

Another way to relax is by practicing meditation.

Meditation is known to reduce cortisol levels.

You can meditate before bed and focus on your breath or focus on a mantra that you can repeat over and over again.

If you are a beginner or simply want more structure, you can follow a guided meditation.

7 – Read a good book

You can read a good book that will help you fall asleep easily.

Try reading a book that is about a topic that interests you.

For example, you can read a book about personal development.

But avoid stressful topics. Remember that your goal is to increase your relaxation.

I suggest you determine in advance which book you want to read and for how long.

As soon as you feel the need to sleep, simply close your book and get into bed.

8 – Write down solutions to specific problems

Sometimes you can’t fall asleep quickly because you can’t stop thinking about problems in your personal or work life.

To get rid of these thoughts, you can write down your issues in a journal.

Then, for each problem, you can:

write down two or three solutions
choose the one you want to try the next day
explain why you think it will be effective in solving a given problem

Another method is to note a question to solve your problem and let your subconscious do the work for you.

Then in the morning, you will jot down the solutions.

Regarding writing, Scullin et al. (2018) show that people who write a to-do list before bed fall asleep faster than those who write a list of actions they have already completed.

9 – Improve your lifestyle

Many things are important to improve your lifestyle.

Here I will focus on just two: diet and exercise.

The foods you choose to eat affect your sleep.

The general rule of thumb is to look for foods that are easy to digest in less time so that your body can use its energy to focus on sleep.

The best foods for this are proteins, complex carbohydrates, and fiber.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol because they affect sleep. Also, try not to drink water before going to bed.

Playing sports is also very important.

However, the timing of when you choose to exercise is also crucial.

Research shows that more often than not, exercise is beneficial for sleep. For example, Fausino et al. (2012) show that sports can facilitate sleep. On the other hand, high-intensity training is better suited in the morning than in the evening.

10 – Create a personal ritual

To make it easier for you, you can create new habits.

This will make it easier for you to stick to your decision without constantly relying on your motivation.

An effective way to create and stick to a habit is to use implementation intentions.

They are in the form of an if-then sentence.

For example, if it’s 10 p.m., I start getting ready for bed.

As for the ritual, try to keep it simple. For example, listen to relaxing music, read a book you like, and go to bed. The most important thing is to prepare for this ritual in advance.

You may want to try others until you find the one that works best for you.

If you want to improve the quality of your sleep, you can try an app called SleepCoacher.

Creating a custom ritual will also help you get rid of sleep procrastination and get up properly in the morning.

Conclusion on how to sleep faster

In this article, I have outlined 10 practical steps you can apply to your life to fall asleep faster, and improve the quality of your sleep and your life.

If you are interested in the topic of productivity, I invite you to discover all my articles on productivity.

If you are looking for tools to improve your time management skills, I recommend you read my article on the best time management apps.

If you want to learn how to manage your time, I invite you to find out more about our online time management course.

If you want to take advantage of the expertise of a time management coach to further improve your effectiveness, write to us now using our contact form, call us at +33 6 69 46 03 79 or contact us on WhatsApp at +33 6 69 46 03 79.

If you are ready to take action, check out our life coaching packages:

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Français : Comment réussir à s’endormir facilement ? 10 conseils efficaces
Italiano: Come addormentarsi facilmente e velocemente? 10 consigli efficaci