So you wake up tired, haven’t had a good night’s sleep and you feel pretty lousy. For all our best efforts not every night will involve a great night’s sleep. So what can you do about it?
The ideal element for good sleep is relaxation. Going to sleep tense or stressed can lead to tension upon waking up. So what do you do when you haven’t slept well? A bad night’s sleep doesn’t have to mean the whole day is ruined. The first instinct may be coffee but there are other more effective ways. By taking the time to relax upon waking you can undo some of the effects of a poor night’s sleep.
Here are my top tips:
- Most important: Do not worry about a poor night’s sleep. A day after a bad night’s sleep will not kill you. You can always catch up tonight. Worrying about sleep focuses your mind on feeling sleepy and tired and tends to prolong these feelings.
- Get your mind on your side. Usually, we have a little voice in our head that evaluates how much sleep we have had and whether we feel our best or not. Many people calculate how much sleep they have had and then base that on whether they should or should not feel tired. Stop listening to the little voice in your head when it comes to sleep. Condition your mind to think that anything more than five hours’ sleep is good enough.
- Relax: Spend a couple of minutes taking some really deep breaths. This will oxygenate the body and ease some of the residual tension. You can do some simple stretching exercises to stretch out the areas where you are tense.
- Cold Shower. I’ve only tried this once as I hate cold water, but it works well. It shocks the body into waking up, gets the blood flowing. I use only in extreme circumstances
- Exercise. Do some gentle or rigorous exercise to wake up the body. Yoga or jogging will work.
- Meditate: Meditation helps get you brain and body into coherence meaning it organises it getting you into order.
- I created a specific Energizer meditation which helps you to wake you up by relaxing your body and releasing tension. Getting into a state of relaxation helps you you raise your energy levels. The great thing is it relaxes the parts of your body that are difficult to relax such as your eyes and head.
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.