One of the best ways to cure panic attacks is to improve the quality of your sleep, and here are 3 methods for doing just that.
The first way to have better sleep is to stop all negative thoughts while you’re in bed.
A significant percentage of all your worry takes place when you’re in bed, which is difficult to believe considering it’s probably the place where most people are at their most relaxed.
This problem probably affects you at night when you’re lying awake trying to sleep, during the night when you wake up, and in the morning when you’re awake but not up yet.
So the key here is to eliminate as much of this “worry in bed” time as possible. The easiest one to solve is the worry in the morning, when you’re awake but you haven’t got up yet. The simple solution here is to get up the moment you wake up!
This is a very simple idea, but it’s amazing how much anxiety this will remove from the start of your day. Getting up before your mind has a chance to remember all the things it could be anxious about will give you a better start to the day than you’ve had in a long time.
Okay, now to stop those times when you worry in the middle of the night after waking up. I’ll confess, this one’s slightly tricky to solve, but there are solid methods you can use. Right away I should tell you that if you’re ever awake for more than a few minutes, get up straight away. Staying in bed won’t solve anything, and will probably triple your anxiety.
While you’re up, maybe it would be good to have a shower or a bath – whichever you find more relaxing. Or just spend some time doing something that relaxes you, even if it’s just sitting down in the living room with a hot drink. After your brief relaxation period, go back to bed. By getting up and waiting a while before going back to bed, it’s all much more natural and like the original time you went to bed.
So instead of lying awake for hours you get up for a bit, and then finally when you return to bed you treat it as if you’re going to bed for the first time. This is much more natural for your body to accept than it is to lie there for hours when you can’t sleep. It’s far more likely that you’ll get back to sleep doing this than simply lying there.
The second sleeping mistake to stop to help cure your panic attacks is to allow no more constantly-changing schedules.
Sleeping problems of all kinds, not just those that are related to panic and anxiety problems, can be helped by making sure you stick to the same routine every single day.
By simply going to bed at the same time each night and getting up at the same time each morning, your body’s internal clock will get back to normal. Many of your body’s functions, including the releasing of hormones, are affected by your wake/sleep cycle.
I bet you know that feeling that you’re totally burnt out, right? Well, that is sometimes a result of your adrenal glands being out of whack. One of the few ways to correct a problem like that is to get some good sleeping habits sorted out.
So do your best to go to bed each night at the same time, and get up each morning at the same time too. When you start out doing this, you may go through a couple of tough days while you get back into the correct routine, but it will be worth it. And also beware of sleeping in late on weekends, or days when you don’t have to be up early. All your hard work can be undone with a couple of late lie-ins!
Right, now the 3rd and final way to get better sleep, and this one is all about stopping all stimulants in the lead up to bedtime.
In my own case, a lot of the problems I had with my sleep were due to what I was exposing myself to in the time leading up to bedtime. I confess that I often watched fast-paced TV, listened to loud music, and played action-packed video games right up until I turned my lights out. Clearly this is a bad idea.
What I did, and what I suggest you begin doing too from today onwards, is to stop doing anything stimulating for an hour before your bedtime. Couple this with a brand new routine that you stick to before you retire, full of things that you know will caml you.
Go out of your way to slow everything down for the last 60 minutes before heading off to bed. If you have a favourite bedtime drink, this is the time for it. If it’s hot outside, maybe drink it in the fresh air. If it’s cold outside, curl up and drink it inside. But the bottom line is, relax.
I know that what I’m saying here sounds like it’s too obvious to work, but I can guarantee that this does work. And can you genuinely say that you give yourself quality time like this?
If you enjoy warm baths then incorporate that into your routine. Warm baths are known to promote deep and relaxing sleep, which is just the kind of sleep that cures panic attacks and fights off panic generally. A warm bath will be an excellent addition to your new “calm down” hour before bed.
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