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 thinking while you’re in bed.
A significant percentage of all your worry takes place when you’re in bed, which is hard 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.
To overcome these situations, you need to prevent as much of your “worrying in bed” time as you can. The simplest one to cure is the one where you’re lying in bed in the morning after you’ve awoken. All you need to do is get up as soon as 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 occasions 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 right away. Staying in bed won’t solve anything, and will probably double your anxiety.
Have a warm shower or wash your face with warm water, potter around for 10 minutes doing something that doesn’t need much focus (a bit of tidying, listening to some soft music, skim-reading a magazine etc.), and then go back to bed. The key here is to recreate a “natural” going-to-bed routine.
By getting up when you’re awake, and going back to bed in this way after you’ve been doing something for a while, it’s much more like you’re going to bed for the first time. This is far more natural for your body, and you’re going to be able to get back to sleep much more quickly than if you’d just remained in bed the entire time.
***Method #2. No More Ever-Changing Schedules***
By sticking to the same routines and times, you’re sleeping will improve, whatever the cause of your sleeping problems.
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 try your best to get to sleep every night at the same time, and also get up in the mornings at the same time. Be wary not to undo your good work by sleeping in late on weekends or on days when you don’t need to be up early.
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 off. Obviously this is a terrible idea.
So the first thing to do is eliminate anything stimulating for at least an hour before you go to bed. You should also not do any exercise at all for at least a couple of hours before bed. And try to develop a new pre-bed routine a “slow-down” routine, as I like to call it.
So go out of your way to take it easy. Behave like you’re on a vacation without a worry in the world. You know what relaxes you, so do that! Have a favourite bed time drink, do some light reading, sit outside in the fresh air if it’s warm. Anything to relax.
These types of suggestions might seem basic, but do you ever genuinely give yourself time in this way? Even if you do, you probably don’t do it often enough.
If you enjoy warm baths then incorporate that into your routine. Warm baths are known to promote deep and relaxing sleep, which is exactly 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.