If you don’t have an underlying medical condition or are under medication that causes sleepless nights then the methods discussed below will help you fall asleep much faster than usual. There are a variety of relaxation methods apart from the one which ends with you lying in one of your Furniture row mattresses after successfully practicing the proposed relaxation techniques.
However, not all relaxation techniques work for everyone, you will, therefore, have to find one that is easy for you to practice and can be effective. In the excerpt below we have, therefore, sampled a couple of relaxation techniques to help you sleep faster at night.
Humming-
well this is not a common method to induce sleep but there are people across the globe who use this method to effectively slip into a deep slumber. Humming is believed to affect one on a physical level, as it helps reduce stress, and induce calm while encouraging sleep. Other benefits are such as lowering blood pressure, lowering the heart rate and helps in the production of effective neurochemicals like oxytocin.
Humming also relaxes the muscles in your face, neck, and shoulder; it soothes them thus making it easy for one to fall asleep. Humming can thus be compared to deep breathing which is known to calm the nervous system.
Breathing –
Breathing exercises have been known to provide a sense of relaxation, for example, people are always advised to breathe in and out whenever they become too angry and are in the flight and fight mode. The breathing technique helps one to calm down and think before; they do anything they would later regret.
When it comes to sleep, there is a method you can use to get your mind relaxed and eventually get into sleep mode. This is the 4-7-8 breathing technique, where you will breathe in for 4 seconds, then hold the breath for 7 seconds, and then breathe out for 8 seconds. The above process will not take effect immediately; so you might have to do some practice before it becomes effective. Remember, however, that every time that you do the exercises, you will have to do four repetitions.
Practice mindfulness-
so mindfulness is a combination of varied techniques that when combined can be very effective in releasing tension and inducing sleep. So the first thing that you will do is to practice mindful breathing like what we have discussed above, you should thus pay close attention to your breathing technique, second, you should be conscious of your thoughts, remember negative thoughts will only have your adrenaline pumping and in the process distract any chances of initiating sleep.
And now that your body is finally relaxing, you need to release tension, relax your body and let go off life’s worries at least for now, but also, take note of your body. And lastly, you can practice meditation by walking.
Guided Imagery-
This has to a lot to do with the quality of your thoughts, and what you picture in your head. So as you prepare to sleep, assume a suitable relaxing position and then focus on a story that pleases your mind to the extent of releasing the happy hormones, such as a vacation or a picnic date that you had with your family or partner.
Concentrate on this story and all its details, and if at one point you get distracted, just recollect your thoughts and put them back together in your mind. The guided imagery method doesn’t have to be successful the first time and you might, therefore, have to do some practice before you completely master it, so keep trying until you can achieve relaxation.
Body exercise tips for relaxation –
As a rule of thumb set about 30 to one hour aside before you get into bed, then position yourself comfortably, even it is lying on the bed. In this process, you will hold the muscle tension for the various parts of your body, beginning from your forehead, eyes, mouth, the neck and shoulders; down to the chest, the right arm, your stomach, buttocks, the whole right leg and finally to your feet.
For the forehead you will have to raise your eyebrows as high as you possibly can, you will then clench your eyelids tightly, for the mouth you will have to open it wide enough so that you can stretch the hinges of your jaw. Then you can raise your shoulder to the point of touching your ears, and for your chest inhale deeply.
For the feet, you will have to curl your toes inwards, and as you do each of the above physical exercises, be sure to hold each muscle tension for at least 5 seconds, then pause for ten seconds and take deep breaths between each muscle tension. Remember that all the above-mentioned parts of your body have to go through the muscle tension exercise for it to be effective.
The idea above is to release tension from your body thus ensuring that the nerves are relaxed enough to initiate sleep. Repeat the process until you can master it for effectiveness.
Sound Meditation –
Many people are used to guide sleep meditation, which strives to redirect your attention from the mind to the sensations in your body. But, before you successfully benefit from guided sleep meditation you will have to regularly practice it for it to improve you’re falling and staying asleep. Now on to sound meditation, the latter helps improve sleep quality, because of the low-frequency tones.
Sound meditation has been established to trigger a slow-down to brainwave activity which will consequently help you relax by lowering your anxiety levels thus make you fall into deep sleep quite easily. You will, therefore, have to download the sounds some of which feature a running stream, the waves of the ocean or wind blowing through trees.
To be successful, you will have to assume a comfortable position either sleeping or lying on your bed, put on your earphones or better yet let the sound waves play in our background so that when you are swept off to sleep, you don’t have to get up and switch off the sounds. For the above, you could set it to go off automatically after one or two hours.
While playing the above sounds, your brain categorizes them as soothing or non-threat, it therefore relaxes and in the process, you begin to fall asleep.
