In the last couple years, I have been waking up in the middle of the night gripped by some unnamed fear. Things that don’t seem like a big deal in the daytime loom larger than life as a lay awake in bed with my heart pounding. This never used to be a problem, but as life gets increasingly hectic, I’ve lost touch with the feeling that all is fundamentally well. How can I reconnect?

Sincerely,

No Sleep in Brooklyn

Dear No Sleep in Brooklyn,

Thank you for writing in about your experience. I think we all can remember a time where we were caught in this kind of tremendous fear and anxiety that wakes us at night. Our natural knee-jerk reaction to this kind of worry is to want to get rid of it, or turn away from it, and this reaction makes total sense because the fear hurts tremendously.

In this article, I will offer you a mindfulness practice that you can eventually apply to this fear. I say eventually because, as I will advise you below, it will be beneficial for you to start with a less challenging emotion. The teaching I will share with you is a version of the RAIN of self-compassion practice taught by the meditation teacher and psychologist, Tara Brach, PhD. RAIN is acronym that will be fleshed out below. I find it best to clear out space in your day to complete this meditation. Perhaps 15 to 30 minutes will be a good amount of time to dedicate. This will leave you time to get settled into a meditation posture (sitting or lying down, so long as you don’t fall asleep if horizontal) and time to journal about your discoveries afterword.

The first step in this process is coming to a true recognition that there is this enormous fear that is coming up and it feels so big that even the body is reacting to it. The heart is pounding. This recognition is taking the first step in shifting your relationship with the fear. There is a catchphrase coined by the author and psychiatrist, Daniel Siegel, MD, that applies here: “Name
it to tame it.” You said that the fear is “unnamed,” so part of the process of recognition will be to put a word or perhaps a few words to the fear. The subsequent steps of RAIN may help with that.

Another description of meditation that I once read somewhere, some years back, was that the process of meditation involves a getting familiar with what is. Therefore, by recognizing and eventually giving a more descriptive name to your fear is to approach it, accept that it is a part of your present-moment experience, and eventually to dispel or dissipate its power. This is a very different way of being than desiring to suppress it or resist it. It may sound counter intuitive, but the path of mindfulness encourages us to move toward what is frightening. The intention is to eventually come to a place where the fear can be, as Brach teaches, attended to and befriended.

Our next move is to open a compassionate and loving inquiry into this fear. This is where you will gain more familiarity with it. However, because this fear feels big, I would advise you to first practice on an emotion that feels less overwhelming. When working with the energy of self-compassion, mindfulness teachers (such as Brach and Sharon Salzberg) suggest it is often best to start with what is the easiest, and then move toward more challenging emotions.

Furthermore, it sounds like you have a sense that this experience of the unnamed fear seems to amplify when life gets increasingly hectic. Therefore, by working on smaller emotions or thoughts, you may start to chip away at this larger fear. When you have identified an easy emotion, thought, or situation, you can apply the full RAIN of self-compassion to it. Once you feel you have achieved mastery over the lesser emotions, then move onto the next steps of RAIN to the most challenging level of your fear.

The third step is to move closer inward to inquire into this fear. The goal is to do your best to uncover as many dimensions of this fear as you can. This is a process of insight. There are many ways in which you can work this inquiry. What comes to mind for me would be to start with describing how the fear feels—its texture, where it lives in the body, as you sit with it, what else comes up. Pay attention to related thoughts, images, emotions, physical sensations, and what is evoked on a more intuitive level.

The best time to practice working with the fear may not be in the middle of the night. It may be advantageous to try to evoke the fear when you are feeling emotionally balanced and rested, during the day. As you get more skilled with practice, you may be able to work the RAIN steps at night more quickly and come to a peaceful resolution of the fear for that night. Please also be patient with yourself, as this will likely be a practice that you have to come back to more than once. It is a process and practice, not a one-time deal.

Sit with the fear an amount of time that feels wholesome and healthy for you. If the practice becomes too difficult, then step out of it and practice some other form of relaxation that works well for you. I recommend identifying go to coping strategies before stepping in to work on the big fears. These may be abdominal breathing, having a sacred space in your mind that you can visualize for calming, or having some other soothing objects or activities that you can engage in to help you self-regulate if your emotional state is challenged. This brings me to the last step in the RAIN: self-nourishment.

You can practice self-nourishment while holding the fear in your heart and offering to yourself comforting words or actions. Come up with a list of self-soothing statements that you can say to yourself. A few traditional phrases that I have learned over the years from various teachers of Lovingkindness meditation are:

May I be safe.
May I be healthy.
May I be healed.
May I be happy.
May I be at peace.
May I be free from worry.
May I be free from fear.
May I be free from suffering.

The idea is for you to use these words or change them to phrases that have more meaning and resonance for you. I find it particularly powerful to put my hands over my heart while I repeat these phrases to myself in times of challenge. I find it helpful to repeat the full cycle of these phrases for at least three or more repetitions.

What is also important is that if you find that it is too difficult to work through these phrases on your own, you can call in a council of friends and helpers to support you. You can do this by visualizing powerful people, such as trusted family members or friends, animals, or power places, real or imagined, that help you feel strong, balanced and centered. While holding these images in your mind, feel the beauty and power they offer you and stand firm in that as you offer these words to yourself. Give yourself enough time to complete all the above steps and come back to them as often as needed to work toward a full befriending and embracing of your fears.

Related: Transform Your Fears into Meaningful Growth

You cannot skip to this integration stage, it takes effort, dedication, and an immensely open heart and courage to get there. I believe in you and that you can do it! Please also consider working with a qualified teacher or licensed therapist to give you additional support along the way. This will be especially crucial if you feel like this practice dysregulates you further. It may be that you need the expertise of an in-person guide. I can only offer you education and suggestions here, not a formal assessment or finely attuned approach.

One more thing: I believe that you are very right in realizing that you (and so many of us) must make a return to remembering our own basic goodness in life. This remembrance of our innate beauty, worthiness, and self-love is always a practice. It does not feel that it is a developmental task that we can check off our list of life accomplishments. In our busy, modern lives, we are all constantly operating under time pressure, deadlines, and the challenges of balancing work and life. It is so easy to forget that we are here together on this earth to be joyous beings of love. We are here to be caretakers of each other and of this beautiful earth. So, I invite you, and all of us, to put down in writing on our daily agenda and calendar some dedicated time to simply love and appreciate this amazing, confusing, and most precious life.

Thank you so much for writing in. I am sending you my best heartfelt wishes as you work to bring this practice into your life.

Many blessings,

John

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By now, you’ve hopefully gotten accustomed to preparing your body and mind for sleep by using breathing and counting exercises to clear your head. If you haven’t, check out the first 10-minute meditation in our spring Better Sleep Series here. Next up, we’re focusing on improving the quality of your shuteye to help you feel more rested.

Have you ever gotten seven to eight hours a night and woken up feeling like you haven’t slept a wink? Most likely it’s because you didn’t spend much time in a deep sleep state—the third phase of sleep. The first two phases, preceding deep sleep, are waking and dreaming. Reaching deep sleep is optimal for feeling recharged. This meditation’s mission is to maximize your duration in this state.

To go into deep sleep, a few things need to happen. First, your body needs to be at total rest. Second, your mind also needs to be free of thoughts, which naturally happens when you’re asleep. Third, your mind needs to be relaxed. That means when you’re falling asleep, and in the hours before bedtime, you’re not having any stressful, worrying, or negative thoughts. These types of thoughts encourage your mind to stay at a surface level during sleep because they’re keeping you in a stimulated, agitated state rather than a calm one.

In this meditation, we’ll achieve these three requirements together. You’ll learn to run through a mental checklist to assess whether you’re really truly relaxed and ready to go to bed. You’ll start by checking your body: Where are you holding tension? Where can that tension be released? Then, you’ll check your mind: What is your state of mind? Are you carrying any mental burdens at this given moment? Next, you’ll check your breath: Is it in your throat, chest, or belly?

Lastly, it’s important to always have some happy thoughts or memories before you doze off to help counterbalance anything stressful that happened during the day. Since people normally wake up in the morning with the same thoughts they had when they fell sleep, this is even more crucial. Positive thoughts not only impact your ability to reach deep sleep, but also the entire following day. Though I won’t prompt you to think positive thoughts during the actual meditation, I will encourage you to turn your attention to something you’re grateful for or happy about should you find your mind wandering in the moments before you fall asleep.

WANT MORE SLEEP? Sign up here for weekly reminders featuring smart sleeping tips and guided, 10-minute meditations to help ensure a better night’s rest.

Related: This Is Where Positive Thinking Begins

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According to the CDC’s latest statistics, more than a third of the U.S. population is sleeping less than seven hours per night. That means that a good amount of Americans are sleep-deprived. Why is this such a big deal? When you’re sleeping, your brain is recalibrating itself, which means it’s working even more than when you’re awake. In order to start each day feeling fresh, focused, and ready for what lies ahead, good sleep is crucial.

But even when someone makes a conscious decision to get more sleep, they still sometimes fail. What you may not realize is that how you prepare for sleep—not just when you’re getting ready for bed, but also throughout the day—makes a huge difference in getting the quality and quantity of rest you need.

As for how to lay the groundwork for good sleep throughout the day, all the things you’ve commonly heard before—no caffeine in the afternoon, avoiding stressful news programs right before bed, powering down electronics a couple of hours before you sleep—will help you achieve a better night’s rest. What and when you eat, how you stimulate or relax your mind, and how much stressful interaction you have can also make an impact. Ideally, the two hours before you hit the hay are spent doing things like reading, meditating, and enjoying quality time with your family. These are all activities that can help you drift off in a positive, relaxed mood, which will only improve the caliber of your sleep.

This introductory meditation, the first of three in our spring Sleep Better Series, will help you prepare your mind for rest through breathing and relaxation techniques. Each month, I’ll be introducing a new meditation to be practiced right before bedtime as often as possible over the next 30 days, all with the aim of helping you sleep better.

In this 10-minute meditation, and the ones that follow, there are going to be some common instructions: Get in a relaxed body position, lay down in bed with your feet about a foot apart and your palms facing up and away from your body. When you have crossed legs, for example, you’re not allowing your muscles to be fully at rest. Once you’ve gotten yourself into this position, turned off the lights, and take a couple of deep breaths. Now, press play.

WANT MORE SLEEP? Sign up here for weekly reminders featuring smart sleeping tips and guided, 10-minute meditations to help ensure a better night’s rest.

Related:  A 90-Second Solution to Sleep Better Tonight

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Sleep is your best chance to naturally detoxify the nervous and digestive systems and restore balance. Yet many of us wind up staring at the ceiling wide awake when we crawl into bed.

There are a number of reasons why you may be losing sleep, including asthma, allergies, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and more. While you should seek medical assistance to get to the root of the problem of insomnia, you can also apply three simple approaches, based on Ayurvedic medicine, to help you transition into that very necessary state of body relaxation and rejuvenation. Try one or all of the below and see how they help you optimize your sleep.

1. Clean the Scene

Eat light, not spicy before bedtime. A glass of warm milk and honey with a pinch of nutmeg and turmeric could help ease your body into relaxation mode. One hour before turning in, start dimming the lights in your environment and turn off electronics. Use your bed for sleeping not watching TV or checking e-mails. Take a whiff of lavender oil or use a diffuser in your bedroom to signal your brain that it’s time to shut down.

2. Give Yourself a Foot Massage

Use your fingers to trace a line down from between your second and third toes, one foot at a time, until you are about a third of the way down the foot. Gently rub this point for a minute or two while breathing deeply. Do both soles. For an even richer massage, warm some sesame oil and rub it into the feet, then slip on cotton socks to prevent staining your sheets.

3. Practice “So Hum” breathing.

So hum is a simple relaxing breathing technique that you can do anywhere, anytime for any duration. Don’t think of it as a phrase, but rather a pleasing sound—an easy way to slip into a rhythmic, meditative state. You might say the words “So” on the inhale and “Hum” on the exhale out loud, or silently in your own head in conjunction with your breathing pattern. After some practice you will want to inhale for a long, deep count of six and exhale for a long, deep count of six pausing ever so slightly at the top and bottom of each inhale and exhale.

While this is a simple technique, what it’s doing internally is very complex. It is activating a sophisticated set of impulses, soothing your autonomic nervous system, which controls the fight or flight response. It also engages the parasympathetic nervous system to give you a relaxed sense of well-being, perfect for entry into slumberland.

Related: A Natural Guide to Overcoming Sleep Issues

The short guided meditation below will help you learn so hum breathing so you can relax and slip into dreamland.

The post 3 Ayurvedic Approaches to Curing Sleeplessness appeared first on Sonima.

Larissa Hall Carlson, a Kripalu Yoga teacher and Ayurvedic Life Counselor, knows sleep deprivation firsthand. Managing an active schedule that brings her from a Yoga Journal conference to a photo shoot, to Wanderlust Festival, and then to direct a 500-hour yoga teacher training course—all within one week—can leave anyone feeling a bit bleary-eyed. “After a restless night, it’s easy to overlook healthier options in favor of indulgent treats and movie marathons. But knowing that sleep deprivation compromises the strength of the immune system, choosing wholesome food and proper exercise is essential for staying strong,” says Carlson. It is counter intuitive because many of us seek comfort foods—sugar, excessive caffeine, and other stimulants—but maintaining the discipline of self-care can lead to far better results.

Here are some tips on how to practice mindful awareness to overcome exhaustion and stay charged, even when you’re feeling drained.

Gently face the day. “Despite grogginess, let the sunrise mark a new day to empower yourself with healthy choices and set yourself up for a good night’s sleep ahead. Avoid ‘treating’ yourself to a large, sugary, whipped-cream-covered latte, which will only provide temporary satisfaction as a pick-me-up, but will leave you with calorie overload and revved-up nerves. Instead, pamper yourself with something cleaner and more gratifying: freshly brewed organic black coffee with a splash of maple syrup, a rich cup of loose-leaf black tea, or a caffeine-free cup of tulsi tea (holy basil),” says Carlson. “Rushing, multi-tasking, or commuting during your morning cup will leave you agitated. Start the day as peacefully as possible,” she advises. Allow yourself the time to have your breakfast in a calm state, and perhaps more importantly these days, device-free. Morning serenity will set the pace for a sustainable day.

Related: Why Sleep Is So Important for Overall Health

Move your body. A sleepless night is a great excuse for skipping the gym, but you’ll feel better if you engage in light movement. “It’s best to avoid intense or vigorous workouts when tired, as pushing yourself when worn out can leave you more run-down and exhausted, and thereby more vulnerable to injury,” says Carlson. “Instead, opt for a brisk walk, gentle Pilates, or a slow yoga flow. Enhancing circulation, boosting metabolism, and engaging in mild cardio are excellent for strengthening immunity, reducing physical tension, and improving mood. A little exercise will leave you feeling stronger and more positive, helping you to embrace the day and prepare for a good night’s sleep.”

Practice mindful eating. “Avoid the greasy spoon, even though comfort food might appeal,” Carlson recommends. “A light, simple, nourishing breakfast will help you recharge quickly, and sets you up for a day of healthy choices.” Fresh juices can provide a natural energy lift, or if you prefer cooked foods, steamed vegetables with miso soup or whole grains offer balanced nutrition for the day. It can take an extra push to seek nutritious options but they’ll provide the lasting energy you need to navigate the day with ease. “Overindulging, overeating, especially rich comfort foods, is also likely to interfere with your sleep,” says Annie B. Kay, R.D.N., the Lead Nutritionist at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. “It’s helpful to avoid eating right before bed. Often our busy days leave us eating dinner later in the evening, but this is not beneficial for our digestive systems. Try not to eat after 8:00 p.m.” Giving our bodies time to digest and rest is key.

Related: A Meditation for Mindful Eating

Nurture yourself, night and day. Insomnia can often be caused by anxiety, so try creating routines at bedtime that will calm you down and help “put away” the day. “As part of a soothing ritual, I am a fan of a small cup of warm milk with sweet spices like cinnamon and nutmeg,” says Kay. “There is also botanical support you can try for occasional insomnia, including melatonin, 5-HTP, valerian, and skullcap. Lavender is a relaxing scent that helps us to rest deeply, so a drop of lavender essential oil may be nice on your pillow or in a diffuser nearby,” she adds. You can use lavender or other uplifting essential oils, such as sandalwood, throughout the day, if you’re having trouble finding ease.

Whatever the cause of sleep deprivation, dealing with the root of the issue is always best over the long term. We can make shifts that help us release anxiety and stress, and provide restorative time—central to beneficial sleep patterns. Wishing you sweet dreams.

Sign-up for Sonima’s free 12-week meditation plan to better sleep. Receive weekly reminders featuring smart sleeping tips and guided, 10-minute meditations to help ensure a better night’s rest. Learn more here.

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A new public service announcement released today by the Huffington Post, in collaboration with Uber, sheds light on what’s at stake when someone gets behind the wheel on too little sleep: “I was driving back from Columbia, South Carolina. I fell asleep at the wheel for three to five seconds. Within those three to five seconds my whole entire life changed,” says Adam Gorlitzky, who is now bound to a wheelchair. “You have that macho mentality where you say, ‘I’m almost home.’ But if I were to talk to my 19-year-old self, I would say that you’re not invincible.”

According to a 2014 report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 21% of fatal crashes involve a drowsy driver. That’s not far behind drunk driving: Alcohol accounts for 31% of traffic-related deaths, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Just like alcohol, drowsiness diminishes your ability to drive in many ways: It slows down reaction time, impairs decision-making ability, limits awareness of what’s going on around you, creates lapses in attention, and can even cause bouts of “microsleep”—dozing off for a few seconds without realizing it.

“In that instant, you could miss a critical event, like somebody braking or somebody crossing lanes, and that’s when you get into an accident,” explains Hans P.A. Van Dongen, Ph.D., director of the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University—Spokane.

The scariest part: “The sleeper’s eyes may remain open during a microsleep,” says Nathaniel F. Watson, M.D., M.S.C., president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “Microsleeps often are unnoticed by the sleeper.”

Not surprisingly, those who work night shifts are at risk for experiencing microsleep. But so is anyone who has accumulated a “sleep debt,” the effect of logging less than seven hours of shut-eye a night. Miss an hour here or there and you can probably pay it back on the weekend, but let it add up and you enter a state of chronic sleep deprivation.

“Week after week after week, you start building up this cumulative effect that you can’t really pay back,” says Van Dongen. “Insufficient sleep becomes your ‘new norm.’” This may explain why one in three drivers admit to drowsy driving at some point in the past month even though, according to AAA’s 2015 Traffic Safety Culture Index, 97% of drivers agree it’s a completely unacceptable behavior.

To keep yourself safe the next time you go to turn that key, follow these tips:

1. Make up for missed hours.

“Anyone who can get extra sleep is by definition sleep-deprived,” says William Dement, Ph.D., founder of the Sleep Research Center at Stanford University, who is considered the father of modern-day sleep studies and was part of the team that discovered REM sleep in the 1950s. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that adults log at least seven hours of sleep each night. If you’ve been falling short, aim for more than seven hours and take brief daytime naps in the early afternoon, if possible, advises Watson. “However, it can take time to pay off your sleep debt,” he warns. “One weekend of extra sleep may not be enough to repay the sleep debt that you accumulate during the workweek.”

2. But more importantly, aim for quality sleep.

“You need to go into REM sleep, the deep sleep that rejuvenates our bodies and minds,” says Leadley, who advises going to bed and waking up at a regular time each day. “Our sleep is regulated by our circadian rhythm and when we disrupt that rhythm, we disrupt our sleep,” she says.

Related: The Surprising Way Your Sleep Patterns Affect Your Weight

3. Think 30 minutes in advance.

We don’t usually realize how exhausted we are until we’re cruising down the highway, struggling to keep our eyes open. “If you get to this point, it’s too late,” says Van Dongen. “Find a parking spot right away because you are heading toward an accident. A smarter approach: Assess your sleepiness a half-hour before you get behind the wheel. If you’re feeling fatigued, take a 20-minute nap.

It may help to remember the life-saving credo that Dement teaches his students at Stanford: “Drowsiness is red alert!” If your eyelids feel heavy do not drive and if you’re already on the road, pull over, he says.

4. Use common-sense questioning.

Lauri Leadley, a clinical sleep educator and president of Valley Sleep Center in Phoenix, Arizona, suggests asking yourself the following: Did you get enough sleep last night? Were you feeling tired as you went about your daily activities? Are you yawning? Are you forgetting things? Do you feel like you need a shot of caffeine to stay awake? “These are all signs that you are too tired to drive,” says Leadley.

5. Get strategic with your coffee intake.

“Although caffeine can give your alertness a short-term boost when used in moderation, its effects can wear off quickly, especially if you’ve built up a tolerance to caffeine by consuming it regularly,” says Watson. So, save it for when you really need it—like when you feel sleepy but must get behind the wheel. And remember: Coffee is a crutch, not a solution.

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Regular Sleep Reduces Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease

Those planning on powering through early adulthood and middle age with little sleep and resting in old age might want to take particular notice. One recent review from Baylor University examining decades of data, suggests that getting good sleep in middle age and young adulthood protects against age-related cognitive decline during senior years.

Deep sleep plays an important role in memory, and research shows that missing out on rest can contribute to a build up of beta-amyloid protein in the brain, associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In middle to older age, continuing to practice good habits is further associated with healthy brain function and reducing risk of dementia.

Deep Sleep Protects Skin Against Damage and Aging

During sleep, our bodies repair and renew at a cellular level. For example, growth hormone peaks during deep sleep, which plays an important role in aging and metabolism. Even a single night of sleep deprivation can affect how attractive and healthy we appear to other people.

A study conducted by Estee Lauder and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, found that middle-aged women with poor sleep habits showed more advanced signs of skin aging, such as fine lines, wrinkles, unevenness, and saggy skin compared to good sleepers. Poor sleepers also showed slower recovery from damage and had less confidence in their own looks.

Restful Sleep Lowers Risk of Obesity

Staying fit is about more than just appearances; maintaining a healthy weight reduces risks of conditions such as diabetes, stroke, and certain cancers. Healthy sleep is believed to affect weight in a couple of different ways: a lack of it affects metabolism mechanisms, increases hunger and overall calorie intake, and increases fatigue. Being well-rested makes it easier to choose healthier foods and stick to workout routines, which can make a big difference over the long term. Studies have found that people with poor sleep habits, including too little rest and irregular schedules, are more prone to gaining weight as they age.

Related: The Surprising Connection Between Meditation and Weight Loss

Good Sleep Protects Your Heart

Heart disease remains the leading cause of mortality both men and women in the United States. Along with an active lifestyle and balanced diet, sleep plays an important role in minimizing risk. Good sleep habits are associated with lower cholesterol, healthier blood pressure, healthier weight, reduced diabetes risk, and other positive lifestyle habits (like exercise and eating well)—all of which encompass the leading risk factors for developing heart disease.

Studies have found that short-term sleep deprivation increases blood pressure and inflammation while affecting hormones and gene expression. When a lack of rest becomes habitual, these changes can affect health. One large study of middle-age female nurses found that both sleeping too little and too much was linked with higher risks of developing heart disease over a 10-year period compared with normal sleepers.

Heart disease does not solely affect the elderly; everyone is at risk, including teenagers. Research shows that teens who don’t get enough rest have higher cholesterol, blood pressure and body weight, which makes them high risk for heart disease later in life.

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One way to help remedy this sleep crisis and catch more zzz’s is to listen to soothing music in bed. That’s what 40 women reported in a study comparing sleep-inducing songs, including artists like Mozart and Coldplay, according to 2011 research from the Mindlab Institute. One track in particular, however, made them all extra drowsy. The eight-minute snooze-fest called “Weightless” by the British band Marconi Union, made in collaboration with sound therapists, was specifically engineered to decrease stress, blood pressure, and resting heart rates using beautifully arranged harmonies featuring the guitar, piano, and the electronic samples of natural soundscapes.

The British Academy of Sound Therapy called “Weightless” the “most relaxing song ever” and Time magazine named it one of the best inventions of the year. Since its release on SoundCloud, more than 6 million have tuned in and probably subsequently passed out. Give it a listen tonight (or watch the video below) and see what happens.

If this is not your jam, try Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” instead. Last year, the free digital music service Spotify went through nearly 3 million user-generated sleep-themed playlists and found that Sheeran’s song dominated the charts worldwide.

Listening to soothing music with slower melodies can have a biological effect on our bodies, explains Jose Colon, M.D., author of The Sleep Diet: A Novel Approach to Insomnia, who did not work on this study. Certain songs can help slow your heart and breath rate, which in turn, can slow down your brain activity, too, confirms a 2010 study published in the Journal of Hypertension. When your heart rate slows, your mind follows suit, which will put you in the state of relaxation that you need for sleep, Colon says.

Related: Can’t Sleep? 12 Doctor-Approved Solutions

As you might suspect, one’s bedtime music is a matter of personal taste. Something to consider as you build your own sleep playlist is that your current music library might not have what you need. What you listen to when you work out or need a pick-me-up is the opposite of sleep music. “If you listen to certain artists or songs when you’re trying to stay alert while driving or when you’re exercising, subconsciously, you’re associating that music with alertness,” Colon says.

Instead, search for songs elsewhere, like Google Play Music, which has over 50 sleep playlists. The site’s most popular sleep playlists include: Sleepytime Indie, Fall Asleep, Classical for Sleeping, Ladies Serenading You to Sleep, and Acoustic Bedtime. Some of the songs have no lyrics, so you can drift off to soothing audio, says Google Play Music curator Brady Hayward. For the “Fall Asleep” playlist, music curators make sure none of the songs feature drums unless they’re brushed drums like in Nora Jones’ “Come Away with Me,” he adds.

While listening to relaxing classical music has proven in research published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing to help people with sleep problems improve their quality of rest, the key component to keep in mind here is relaxing. “What’s tricky with classical music is that it tends to have much wider dynamic range than jazz, pop, electronic, and other types of music, so the difference in volume between the softest and loudest parts of a ‘song’ are much more noticeable,” says Hayward. “Even a classical song that is quiet for 80 percent of the duration but gets loud for two small parts won’t work for a sleep-focused playlist.”

Tonight, start off with our sleep playlist, based on the most popular sleep songs according to Spotify, and then modify it as you see fit. Don’t forget to turn off all notifications (especially social media, emails, and text messages) on your device, and place it facedown so you’re not exposed to the blue light, which has been shown to disrupt sleep, Colon warns. Use your device’s sleep timer so that the music goes off long after you’ve arrived in slumberland.

Sonima’s Sleep Playlist

1. Thinking Out Loud – Ed Sheeran

2. All of Me – John Legend

3. Earned It (from Fifty Shades of Grey) –The Weeknd

4. Let Her Go – Passenger

5. Skinny Love – Birdy

6. Say Something – A Great Big World, Christina Aguilera

7. FourFiveSeconds – Rihanna, Paul McCartney, Kanye West

8. Fix You – Coldplay

9. Photograph – Ed Sheeran

10. Latch (Acoustic) – Sam Smith

Join Sonima’s free 14-day jumpstart to better sleep for a downloadable guide and daily advice from top experts. Learn more here.

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“At one point, scientists started to realize that the obesity epidemic and the trend of people sleeping less were not occurring independently,” says Namni Goel, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry, Pearlman School of Medicine Division of Sleep and Chronobiology at University of Pennsylvania. It appears that when the hours we log at night are too little, hormones, metabolism, insulin sensitivity, decision-making skills, and waistlines pay the price.

How exactly does sleep debt affect the scale? When people don’t catch enough high quality zzz’s, the hormones regulating hunger, leptin and ghrelin, go haywire. Leptin is a hormone produced in fat cells that inhibits hunger and jumpstarts fatty tissue into burning energy. Levels plummet when you get less than seven hours of sleep a night, making your stomach feel empty even when it’s not. The hormone ghrelin is produced primarily in stomach cells, and levels rise with sleeplessness, stimulating hunger, slowing metabolism, and decreasing the body’s ability to burn fat. At the same time, there’s a rise in insulin resistance, a precursor for diabetes, and the stress-hormone cortisol, which can lead to excess abdominal fat. Even one night of sleep deprivation can set these into motion.

Related: Making Sense of the Science on Fat

Neurological research also shows that the sleep-deprived suffer from poor decision-making and higher level functioning, and on top of that, the brain’s reward receptors light up. A combined lack of willpower and a hyperactive reward center leads to an insatiable hunger for everything a person shouldn’t eat—cookies, ice cream, chips—before bedtime.

“There are consistent findings that most sleep-deprived people go for fats and carbs for late-night snacks,” says Goel, adding that there’s no definitive research as to why we crave these two food groups more than any other. “Everything comes together. Hormones that tell you you’re hungry with no satiety shut-off, consuming an extra 400 to 500 calories during a time of night when your energy expenditure is low and your body can’t process the food as well, and eating food high in fats and carbs.”

“There are consistent findings that most sleep-deprived people go for fats and carbs for late-night snacks,” says Goel, adding that there’s no definitive research as to why we crave these two food groups more than any other.

Even sleeping too much comes with its own risks. Epidemiological studies have shown that more than nine hours of sleep each night has been linked to an increased risk of obesity, cancer, and not enough activity. Though sleep extension studies are hard to implement because asking someone who normally sleeps the recommended seven to eight hours a night to add two hours to their sleep schedule isn’t always possible.

It’s equally as difficult to study people who say they don’t need more than four hours of sleep per night. Though Goel says researchers see an increase in slow wave brain activity during the time they sleep, it’s still not equal to the typical eight hours.

Related: The New Sleep Schedule for a Better Night’s Rest

“When we look at the performance of people in sleep-deprivation studies who say they are ‘used to’ four hours of sleep, we can see that they are not,” says Goel. “There’s no correlation between how people say they’re doing and how they’re actually doing. We’ve found those same people usually take a nap during the day or need stimulants like caffeine to substitute the sleep loss. And when we allow them to sleep in the study, they sleep 10 hours.”

If you’re unable to sleep regular hours because of shift work, a new baby, or an overwhelming class load, all is not lost. Goel says there are simple things you can do to keep from gaining weight. First, don’t eat after 7 p.m., even if you don’t go to bed until 11 p.m. or midnight. Feeding your body the amount of calories it needs during the day means your body doesn’t require those extra calories at night. If you’re feeling hungry in the evening, snack on healthy options like carrots or apples. Fruits and vegetables break down easily and won’t add significantly to your calorie intake. And when possible, make up for any sleep loss through naps or getting to bed earlier the next night. The more regular your schedule—sleeping and eating—the more likely your scale’s needle will stay put.

The post The Surprising Way Your Sleep Patterns Affect Your Weight appeared first on Sonima.

“It’s not too long ago that the chronotype was a very vague concept. It basically was how you felt about yourself—whether you felt you were a morning person or an evening person,” says Nick Littlehales, advisor on sleep to several corporations and professional sports teams and founder of SportSleepCoach.com.

“But it’s now proven genetically that there is a certain set of the population that is two to three hours behind the rest.”

One of the leading scientists examining chronotypes is Till Roenneberg, Ph.D., of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. In the mid-2000s, he and his staff examined the sleep-wake times of more than 55,000 people. They found within that group, small sets of people followed pretty extreme schedules—night owls preferred to go to bed as late as 5 a.m., which is about the same time that very early wakers (described as larks) get up. The majority of people went to sleep sometime between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., waking between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Roenneberg and his team used those findings to develop an algorithm that helps people determine their own personal chronotype through an online survey. Try it yourself here if you’d like. More than 250,000 others have, and their results show that, for the most part, humans are very much timed to rise with the sun. Roenneberg says that, within any time zone, there’s a noticeable trend in which people’s preferred sleep schedule becomes slightly later from east to west.

“The mid-point in [respondents’] sleep durations moves with longitudes,” Roenneberg says. “So let’s say the average midpoint on the eastern border of a time zone was a 4 a.m. If you moved one longitude line to the west, it would be 4:04 a.m., and then 4:08 a.m. in the next. Four minutes is how long the sun takes to cross a longitude [line]. “I would have predicted a strong influence of dawn and dusk, but that was astounding,” Roenneberg says.

Related: The Dangers of Accumulating Sleep Debt

Researchers at the Institute of Physiology at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague took this intriguing investigation a step further in 2013. Using elements of the questionnaire created by Roenneberg and his colleagues, the Czech team identified six larks and six owls, then took saliva and mucous membrane samples from every person at four-hour intervals. Those samples showed significant differences between the two groups in their levels of melatonin (a hormone that helps induce rest) and in their activity of RNA proteins Per1 and Per2, which play important roles in maintaining a person’s circadian rhythm. Simply put, the late-nighters and early-risers were distinct at a hormonal and cellular level.

To understand what all of this means to you, consider that our daily lives are ruled by two clocks. One is probably best represented by our alarm clock, which rings each day at a time we choose—or more likely, was chosen for us by outside circumstances like work, kids, or a great yoga instructor who for some reason schedules her classes for 6:00 a.m. Roenneberg calls this our “social clock.”

The second clock—our circadian rhythm—is more subtle but very real. This body clock is primarily controlled by the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) within your hypothalamus, but scientists believe that nearly every cell in your body can influence it. That’s why sleep experts, doctors, and others recommend that in the evening you avoid blue light—the type generated by computer, tablet or smartphone screens like the one you’re probably reading this story on right now. Your cells interpret blue light to mean that it’s daytime, and tell the body to up its serotonin and decrease melatonin so feel more wakeful.

In an ideal world, your social clock would mirror your body clock, ensuring that you get sufficient sleep, wake naturally (without the use of an alarm clock), and feel fully awake as you go about your day. When those clocks don’t align, such as when a person with a late chronotype has to wake up for a job with an early morning start time, the result is what Roenneberg and others describe as “social jetlag.” The jetlag comparison is apt, researchers say, because a person who’s out of sync with his or her chronotype will typically get insufficient sleep throughout the week, then try to make up for it by following their more natural schedule on weekends.

Related: The New Sleep Schedule for a Better Night’s Rest

Social jetlag is minimal to nonexistent in people who follow the same sleep-wake schedule on weekends as they do on weekdays. But it has a pronounced negative effect on others, especially late-nighters trying to muscle their way through a day job. A 2006 study by Roenneberg and his peers found that late chronotypes with higher amounts of social jetlag consumed more caffeinated beverages, were more likely to smoke, and reported feeling more exhausted during the week. More recent research from Roenneberg indicates a possible link between social jetlag and obesity, as people who reported greater differences between their preferred and actual sleep schedule tended to have higher Body Mass Indexes (BMIs).

There is a bright side to this seemingly dark news: You can reduce the negative health effects of social jetlag and, perhaps, eliminate them entirely. Roenneberg and his team have been working with certain employers to adjust work start times, and found encouraging results.

“We recently redistributed shift-workers according to their chronotype, and found that this gives them up to one hour more sleep on workdays and reduced the amount of compensatory sleep on their free days,” Roenneberg says. That’s not just an added bonus employees, but also it boosts productivity. Well-rested workers are more likely to think clearly when they’re on the job.

Another solution is to adjust your light exposure during the day. Ideally this would mean allowing more sun and sky into our workspaces. “If we would achieve more natural light in buildings, the amount of social jet-lag would be greatly reduced,” Roenneberg says. If you can’t convince your boss to move you to the corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows, try escaping for a short walk at lunch. Exercise has been shown to improve sleep quality, and the dose of sunshine will help keep your body on its natural schedule.

To take part in Roenneberg’s survey and learn more about your personal chronotype, visit the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire.

The post The Truth About How to Become a Morning Person appeared first on Sonima.

Renowned sleep coach Nick Littlehales, who has been working in the field of sleep for more than 30 years with top sports teams, including the soccer stars of Manchester United and Real Madrid, recognizes those rigid recommendations leave a lot of people out, especially folks in sleep-deprived professions, like pilots and nurses. Which is why Littlehales has developed a different approach to bedtime. Rather than track hours, he and his athletes focus on cycles. This innovative take on sleep, which is based on what happens within your body when you’re conked out, might just help you feel more well-rested, too.

The Sleep Cycle, Explained

First, a quick biology lesson: When you’re asleep, you progress through five distinct stages, where your body and brain behave differently in each.

Stage 1 is called light sleep. This is when your eye movement and muscle activity slow down. If you’ve ever felt an arm or a leg suddenly jerk or twitch while you were drifting off, that’s called hypnic mylclonia, which also can happen during this stage. People in this stage can wake up easily, and if they do, will often remember visual images. There’s not a whole lot of research on what those dream-like images may be, however,  they can be intense. The book Study Guide for Psychology describes the sensations as “hallucination-like.”

Stage 2 is when your eyes stop moving and brain waves slow.

Stage 3 is when you’ve entered deep sleep. If you were hooked up to an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine, it would reveal large, slow, undulating waves known as delta waves in your brain’s activity. Delta sleep is the farthest from being awake as our brain waves get. If someone were to try and wake you during delta sleep, they’d have a difficult time doing so. If they succeeded, you’d feel disoriented and groggy.

Stage 4 is very similar to Stage 3, except by this point in the cycle, the majority of your brain waves would be delta waves.

Stage 5 is probably the most famous: REM. The name stems from the rapid eye movement that occurs. The rest of the muscles in your body, meanwhile, will be nearly paralyzed. This is the stage when your dreams occur. (Watch the video below for an in-depth explanation of REM by the researcher who discovered this state of deep sleep.)

The total time required to pass through all five of these stages is about 90 minutes. Littlehales notes that they may not always happen in sequential order. He says, “Sometimes humans will go straight into a deep sleep or REM state, pop out into the lighter stages, then drop back in for a little more REM. But within a 90-minute period—not 30 minutes, not 45 minutes—on average, that’s what’s required.”

Littlehales uses that figure to guide the entire evening, with each 90-minute block equal to one cycle. So, two cycles is three hours of sleep, three cycles equals four and a half hours of sleep, and so on.

Related: A Renowned Researcher Explains the Concept of Sleep Debt

Use Sleep Cycles to Your Advantage

Here are three ways to plan your best night’s rest with this sleep cycle approach.

1. Do the math before you go to bed.

This will help you avoid that can’t-get-out-of-bed feeling you sometimes get when your alarm goes off. Remember, it’s difficult to come out of Stage 3 or Stage 4 sleep. Trying to wake up when your body is in the midst of these stages—say, if you were 45 minutes or an hour into a cycle—is a recipe for snooze button showdown. You can steer clear of this fight by simply aiming to get in as many completed cycles (no halfsies!) in a night as possible.

2. Track your cycles per week, not night.

Keeping tabs on your total number of completed cycles per week gives you more flexibility to adjust your schedule when unexpected things come up. For example, if you know that something is going to keep you late and limit you to four or even three cycles (six hours of sleep or less) on a Tuesday, you can add on a cycle or two later on in the week. This could be a full 90-minute cycle added to a night when your schedule is less demanding.

Aim to get 35 cycles (or five cycles per night, on average) in a given week, and try not to achieve any fewer than 30, Littlehales suggests. If the figure seems strikingly close to the eight hours most doctors recommend, it’s intentional—most of us do need about that much sleep per night. But “early to bed, early to rise” isn’t the only way to get there.

3. Sneak in a nap during the day, if needed.

Littlehales identifies two ideal times for napping—between 1 and 3 p.m. (the “siesta” period), or between 5 and 7 p.m. If you can get a full 90-minute cycle during one of those periods, great, however Littlehales says that as little as 20 minutes during those time periods can be beneficial.

You can learn more about Nick Littlehales’s work, including his coaching services, at sportsleepcoach.com.

The post The New Sleep Schedule for a Better Night’s Rest appeared first on Sonima.

While asleep, your body and brain are doing much more than simply resting or powering down. Your body also clears out waste byproducts of waking activity, repairs tissues, and balances hormones. Because the processes taking place during sleep are so complex, there are many potential ways that both resting and not resting can affect brain chemistry and thereby impact emotional regulation, memory, mood, and other factors outlined below.

Emotional Response

When we are in control of our emotions we’re more likely to assess a situation and respond appropriately. Often parents will say that all their screaming grumpy child needs is a nap to recalibrate their emotional response. Science also supports this idea: One study looked at sleep’s effect on cognitive reappraisal, the ability to reframe and reduce the impact of an emotional event. After controlling for confounding factors, researchers found that poor sleep quality was associated with decreased ability to regulate negative emotions.

After a good night’s rest, subjective reactivity to emotional experiences was also reduced. Though the exact relationship between emotions and sleep remains a mystery, researchers suggest that reduced activity of the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, during REM sleep may play a role. Previous research also suggests that sleep plays a protective role in emotional processing and attenuation.

Memory

We rely on our memories as a frame of reference for decision making and for interpreting events. Sleep could affect memory in several ways, including how we process and store new memories, and our ability to accurately retrieve old ones.

Sleep is hypothesized to play a crucial, active role in committing short-term memories of the day to long-term storage. It may also affect memory accuracy. One recent study found that being sleep deprived impaired people’s ability to accurately recall events, and actually made them more susceptible to false memories.

In other research, sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality were found to affect the emotional valence, or tone, of memories. People memorized and rated images on emotional valence, and then they were divided in groups indicating sleep deprivation, poor sleep, and good sleep. The following day, those who were sleep-deprived and poor sleepers were more likely to remember things in a more negative tone.

There’s also evidence that we are more likely to remember things that match our current mood. If you are happy, for example, pleasant memories are more forthcoming, whereas in times of sadness or anger, less pleasant memories emerge more easily.

Temperament

The mood we are in can color how we perceive things that happen to us, how we interact with others, as well as motivation to do things like exercise or work.

Related: A Bedtime Meditation to Prepare for Sleep

A three-week study of teenagers compared a week of baseline sleep, sleep-deprivation, and healthy sleep to determine impact on mood. During sleep deprivation, teens rated themselves as more anxious, angry, and confused, while parents also noted greater irritability and worse emotional regulation.

In another study, a group of researchers measured the effects of one night of sleep deprivation on subjective mood and stress. Sleep-deprived people reported higher levels of stress, anxiety and anger on low-stress tasks compared to well-rested people.

If our ability to regulate emotions and moods are affected by too little sleep, it stands to reason that we might be a little more on edge and prone to anger than usual when sleep-deprived.

A literature review looking at studies on sleep and aggression found connections between sleep deprivation and increased anger, expression of aggression, and short-temperedness. Exact causes are difficult to identify, but researchers suggest that this relationship may be a result of impaired prefrontal cortex functioning (responsible for control and regulation of emotions) and for some individuals, variations in neurotransmitter and adrenal systems.

Among couples, one study found that people reported more conflict on days following poor sleep in their normal lives. When studied in a laboratory setting, poor sleep resulted in reduced ability to accurately gauge partners’ emotions. Good sleep for both partners was associated with higher likelihood for conflict resolution.

Decision Making

A few different aspects of cognition are involved in making decisions, and while mood and memory play important roles, there’s even more going on.

According to one study, sleep deprived people are more likely to make unethical decisions at work. Researchers looked at nurses in a hospital setting and students in a lab setting, concluding that sleepier people were more likely to behave “deviantly”, including intentionally reducing productivity, being rude to customers, and demonstrating a higher temptation to steal.

They hypothesize this phenomenon is largely due to reduced capacity for self-control, and other research suggests depleted glucose stores may affect frontal lobe functioning required for complex thought and decision making, increasing unethical actions.

The Importance of a Good Night’s Sleep

Taken together, the research makes a strong case for getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis, but particularly before reacting to emotional events or making difficult decisions. Emotions, moods, interpretation, memory, and our ability to analyze a situation may all suffer with a lack of sleep. On the other hand, getting a good night’s rest boosts your brain and helps balance your mental state in support of wiser decisions and healthier relationships.

Related:  How Poor Sleep Impacts Mental Health in Students

Following good sleep hygiene habits on a daily basis is a wise move for everyone. Sleeping and waking on a regular schedule, getting at least seven hours, getting regular exercise and good nutrition, and taking time to de-stress all help contribute to better rest.

If you find yourself facing an emotionally charged situation, sleep may be even more important. Clear your mind before bed with meditation or yoga, and then take the night to sleep on a tough decision and temper your thoughts. If it’s midday, a quick afternoon nap may also be a useful tool for balancing your mind.

The post How Sleep Balances Your Mind and Emotions appeared first on Sonima.

Research shows that sleep deprivation creates impairment equivalent to intoxication: Our reaction time slows, our memory suffers, and we are prone to mood swings. Over time, lack of sleep can lead to major health dangers, including severe mood disturbances, weight gain, car accidents, and injuries on the job. Frighteningly, an estimated 60 million Americans suffer from insomnia, and driver fatigue is associated with at least 100,000 police-reported car accidents in America each year.

Proper rest is a key factor in overall quality of life, and not just because it helps you feel more energized and alert. Sleep gives our tissues a chance to repair themselves and our brains a chance to organize information and memories. Sufficient and sound slumber improves cognitive performance, reduces inflammation, boosts creativity, and helps athletes perform better.

If you often find yourself tossing and turning at night and then dragging through the day, here are 12 techniques to help you rediscover the joys of a good night’s sleep.

1. Reduce screen time before bed. Many people read on an electronic device, send emails, or watch a favorite television show just before turning in. This may seem normal, but spending time in front of a screen is one of the worst ways to prepare for sleep. The blue light emitted from electronic screens—from computers to phones to television sets—actually prevents the brain from releasing the hormone melatonin, which helps us feel tired and prepares us for deep, restful sleep. If you find you’re having difficulty nodding off, it may be helpful to eliminate (or at least reduce) screen time during the one to two hours before bedtime.

2. Lower the lights in your home. Similar to blue-light emitting electronics, bright lighting can stop the brain from releasing the neurochemicals that help us wind down and get ready for bed. For this reason, it’s wise to turn off all bright lights several hours before bed, replacing these with softer and warmer hues. This will help your brain reset for sleep.

3. Buy an eye mask or blackout shades. Even a tiny amount of light can impair sleep. Therefore, if you have any lights at all—even tiny indications that your electronic devices are on—in your room, it’s best to cover these or block their light by wearing an eye mask. Also, if you intend to sleep past sunrise, blackout shades will help prevent the morning’s light from waking you prematurely.

4. Reserve your bed for sleep and sex. Bedrooms are often multipurpose spaces where you might work on a laptop, watch television, journal, and more. This can end up confusing our brains and bodies so we feel activated, rather than ready to unwind, when we hop into bed. If you have roommates and your only private space is your bedroom, it may be necessary to use this space for purposes other than sleep and sex. If at all possible, though, try to reserve your bed (and the entire bedroom if you can) for these two purposes alone. This will help you create a bedtime ritual, so that your brain will know getting in bed means it’s time to rest.

Related: Try a Guided Meditation for a Restful Night’s Sleep

5. Eliminate caffeine in the afternoon. Caffeine is a major sleep disruptor. This may especially be a challenge for insomniacs who feel they need more caffeine to wake up after a poor night’s sleep. Caffeine consumed in large quantities or too late in the day can keep our bodies abuzz with energy long after we try to tame our minds and head for dreamland. There’s no magic number of cups or Cinderella hour after which we absolutely need to cut out caffeine, but if you have difficulty falling asleep in the evening, you may want to experiment with reducing caffeine intake and/or tapering off after a certain hour.

6. Go easy on alcohol. It may even seem like red wine could serve as an excellent sleep aid. However, although wine may help us fall asleep more quickly, alcohol in any form has been shown to decrease the quality and depth of sleep, including causing “early morning awakenings”—those moments when we wake up in bed pre-dawn or before our alarm goes off without getting enough sleep. If sleep is a challenge, you may consider cutting out alcohol or cutting back the amount and/or frequency of your intake, and seeing if this helps you rest easier.

7. Try a melatonin supplement. Melatonin is a chemical our brains produce that helps us fall asleep and get deep rest. Melatonin supplements can help ease us into a drowsy state and fall asleep with fewer dangers than many sleeping pills. If you’ve never tried melatonin, you can find 3mg pills at a drug store near you. Take them an hour or two before bedtime and see how this affects your ability to fall—and stay—asleep. It’s best to take these when you have enough time to get a full night’s rest, as they can otherwise make you feel somewhat groggy upon waking. If you’d rather not pop any pills, try eating some cherries before bedtime; these pleasing fruits contain small amounts of naturally-occurring melatonin.

8. Drink a sleep-inducing tea. Chamomile tea, made from the chamomile flower, has a smooth, slightly sweet flavor.  It is also known for its slightly sedative effects, which can make this an ideal pre-bed beverage. Some also say chamomile reduces anxiety, which can help us relax into sleep. Valerian root tea is also thought to bring on the zzz’s.

9. Meditate. Mindfulness can help reduce insomnia and depression, according to a randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the forefathers of the modern mindfulness movement, defines mindfulness as “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment.”  One of the easiest ways to develop this quality is through a basic breath awareness meditation practice, for as little as five to 10 minutes a day. You can access a basic, guided mindfulness meditation here. Doing this regularly will help ease the mind and body and increase your ability to overcome insomnia.

10. Induce the relaxation response right before bed. Herbert Benson, M.D., a Harvard cardiologist and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was best known for studying the stress response. That is until members of the transcendental meditation community started to ask him to study their meditation technique. Benson, who initially refused, eventually acquiesced, but replaced the Sanskrit mantras with the word “one.” Much to his surprise, he found this simple meditation technique induces the opposite of the physiologic stress response, a phenomenon he named the “relaxation response.” Meditators doing this technique not only felt more relaxed; their heart rates slowed, their blood pressure decreased, breathing became slower and deeper, and their brains showed signs of rest. Certain breathing techniques, such as alternate-nostril breathing can also invoke the relaxation response. Watch the video below to learn this simple technique.

11. Set a regular schedule. Many of us have work schedules that vary week-to-week. Or, even if we work a consistent 9-to-5, we may find we stay up much later on our days off, and sleep in on the weekends. If we’re up until 3 a.m. Saturday night and sleep until 11 a.m., it will likely be extra hard to get to bed early Sunday and wake up early again on Monday morning. Although some variation is inevitable, if getting a good night’s sleep is difficult, it may be a good idea to commit to a consistent schedule to help your body’s rhythm get in sync. Occasionally, this means saying “no” to social invitations, but if you want to feel well-rested, it may be worth it.

12. Move your body. According to the National Sleep Foundation, daily exercise can help improve sleep. A vigorous, aerobic workout is best, yet any kind of exercise, such as an after-dinner walk, can help prepare your body for a good night’s slumber. Yoga can also help you ease into rest. (Try our yoga sequence to prepare for sleep here.) One caveat is that vigorous workouts right before bedtime send adrenaline and other neurochemicals through your body, which may make it difficult for some people to fall asleep. Also, waking up extra early to squeeze in a workout may cut into your sleeping schedule and thus defeat the purpose. So, do your best to move your body daily, just not at the expense of bedtime.

Sign-up for Sonima’s free 12-week meditation plan to better sleep. Receive weekly reminders featuring smart sleeping tips and guided, 10-minute meditations to help ensure a better night’s rest. Learn more here.

The post Can’t Sleep? 12 Doctor-Approved Solutions appeared first on Sonima.

The Effects of Mindfulness on Stress, Pain, and Sleep

Mindfulness meditation involves the practice of learning to be accepting and non-judgmental of your thoughts, emotions, and feelings, and developing awareness of the sensations you’re experiencing in the present moment. Studies have identified several benefits of practicing mindfulness, from improving stress and focus to aiding the immune system,. Recent research indicates it may help reduce insomnia symptoms and improve sleep.

David Black, Ph.D., assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, and director of the American Mindfulness Research Association, explains, “Mindfulness practice is recognized by the National Institutes of Health, and is considered an integrative health approach rather than an alternative approach.” This means that mindfulness is no longer considered something to be used in place of conventional medicine; rather, it is frequently incorporated into mainstream healthcare in a coordinated way.

A new study authored by Black showed significant improvements in sleep quality, insomnia, and fatigue among older adults who received mindfulness meditation instruction, compared to the control group receiving sleep hygiene instruction.

Stress reduction is one avenue by which mindfulness may support sleep. A Carnegie Mellon University study recently found that people who received mindfulness training reported feeling less stress than the control group when completing complex speech and math tasks.

Of the findings, J. David Creswell, Ph.D., study author and assistant professor in psychology at CMU says, “It is well-known that stress triggers many different types of sleep difficulties, and here we provide some initial evidence that mindfulness training may help individuals manage stress more effectively for better sleep.”

Mindfulness meditation may also help provide pain relief by increasing cognitive and emotional control and changing appraisal and evaluation of sensory input. Mitigating pain could prove helpful for rest, as the 2015 Sleep in America poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 57% of Americans regularly experience pain. Polls associated both acute and chronic pain with poorer sleep quality, less sleep, and more fatigue.

Steven Hickman, Psy.D., director of the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness, says, “Often what keeps people up is rumination, going over and over things that they have no control over. Mindfulness has been shown to be effective at reducing rumination, meaning people experience less mind wandering and more focused attention. People that practice mindfulness meditation may find that they can more easily drop out of the rumination loop, relax, and sleep.”

Practicing Mindfulness Meditation for Better Sleep

For people interested in mindfulness meditation, Hickman suggests patience, persistence, and keeping in mind that relaxation is often a benefit of practice, but not the direct goal. He says, “Meditation is about cultivating a way of being with one’s full experience of self. You aren’t trying to achieve a certain state—you’re working on becoming aware of your current state.”

Hickman describes a simple mindfulness exercise that beginners can try: “Ask yourself, “Where are my feet?” It brings your attention into the present moment since you have to notice the sensation and placement of your feet in the bed. It’s a quick drop-into-your-body mindfulness practice, not necessarily a meditation but a way to get in touch with the sensation of your present body.”

For those new to meditation, David Black offers, “Structured mindfulness-based interventions are likely to be the best place for beginners to gain a solid foundation in mindfulness practice. Recognized and structured programs such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) or Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs) are available in many communities and online.”

Other helpful resources included free guided audio meditations on the UCSD Center for Mindfulness website, the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center website, and the Chopra Center’s 21-day Meditation Experiences (periodically offered for free).

Yoga and its effects on health are also receiving considerable research in recent years. Yoga encompasses a broad range of exercise forms, from intensely cardiovascular to relaxingly meditative, offering a variety of ways to incorporate into daily life.

Valencia Porter, M.D., director of integrative medicine at the Chopra Center, explains, “Yoga and meditation can help us handle stress and improve our general sense of well-being. With yoga, we can also release stress and tension that accumulates in our body. An increased sense of self-awareness that can be attained by practicing yoga and meditation can also help us understand how we respond to the cycle of natural rhythms through the day. Aligning ourselves with these rhythms (versus fighting them) can help restore a healthy sleep pattern.”

Jonathan Halpern, Ph.D., authored a recent study on yoga involving older adults with insomnia who attended yoga classes and practiced meditative yoga at home. Significant improvements in sleep quality, efficiency, and duration were demonstrated, as were improvements in stress, depression, and general well-being.

Halpern explains that yoga, sleep, and sleep disorders have many aspects from physical to psychological to environmental, and says that, “By understanding cause and effect and how the yogic tools and methods work, an appropriate yoga practice can be designed in order to improve sleep quality.”

Another study researching the effects of yoga for cancer survivors experiencing sleep troubles observed significant improvements to overall sleep quality. Participants in the intervention group attended Yoga for Cancer Survivors (YOCAS) programs, which combine breathing exercises, engaging Hatha postures, restorative yoga, and mindfulness.

On the subject of how yoga may influence sleep, study author and YOCAS developer Karen Mustian, Ph.D., M.P.H, professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Department of Surgery, says, “The actual mechanism whereby yoga influences sleep is still being researched, but we have a lot of avenues we think might be the reason and there are multiple pathways that we think it could be working through.”

Mustian continues, “For example, it could be eliciting a relaxation response which in turn influences HPA axis function, and subsequently, can influence autonomic responses and eventually sleep. Circadian rhythms might be influenced by those processes, and depending on the type of yoga and time it could be eliciting a physical conditioning response like other modes of activity.” She adds that improved heart and lung function and changes to weight may also influence sleep.

A literature review on yoga’s application for neuropsychiatric disorders also found support of possible benefits for depression and sleep complaints, among other disorders.

P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., study author and Duke University professor of psychiatry and medicine, says that while large, multicenter controlled trials are still needed to identify yoga’s impact, several clinical trials have shown yoga to improve many aspects of sleep such as sleep efficiency, sleep time, and alertness when awake.

Practicing Yoga for Better Sleep

To people interested in approaching yoga to improve sleep, Karen Mustian suggests basic, gentle Hatha and restorative yoga classes. “Beginner classes take you through the movements much slower, allowing you time to get into position, receive help from instructors if needed and work through movements.” She cautions that all types of yoga may not be appropriate for everyone, however. Particularly, yoga performed in heated rooms has not been studied for safety among those undergoing treatment for cancer or cancer survivors.

Related: Try this simple breathing technique for better sleep.

For those more familiar with yoga postures and DIY practice, Valencia Porter adds, “I would recommend a gentle and mindful practice. Some poses which can be helpful include: Child’s Pose, Standing Forward Bend, Legs Up the Wall with Eyes Closed, Spinal Twist (seated or lying down) Reclining Butterfly (supported with pillows), and Corpse. I also would recommend Pranayama with alternate nostril breathing or just relaxed belly breathing. One need not take a full yoga class, just performing some of these relaxing poses for 5 minutes or up to 30 minutes can be beneficial.” You can also try this simple yoga sequence before bed for better sleep.

Murali Doraiswamy recommends daytime practice, suggesting, “Typically yoga and meditation are best done in early morning, in a quiet peaceful natural setting, and with exposure to sunlight.” He says that daytime yoga aids sleep at night, also adding that 20 minutes of meditation at bedtime can prove helpful.

The post The Science Behind Meditation, Yoga, and Your Sleep appeared first on Sonima.

If you’re struggling with sleep issues and traditional advice hasn’t made a difference, you might consider visiting a naturopathic doctor or other complementary health care practitioner for natural sleep remedies. At first, the basic recommendations will likely be similar whether you see a conventional doctor or a complementary medicine practitioner. For example, it’s important to make sure your bedroom is conducive to sleep. It should be dark, not too hot and not too cold, and quiet. It’s also important to evaluate your physical activity routine. Intense exercise late in the day can also be overly stimulating, whereas yoga and deep breathing can help you nod off more easily.

If basic advice doesn’t help enough, a physician would likely recommend a prescription for a sleep medication, whereas a complementary medicine practitioner will continue to look at your experience holistically to provide more customized natural sleep remedies. He or she will take into account the whole person, not just your sleeping problem as an isolated issue, to better understand the root cause. Here, I’ve outlined eight of the most tried-and-true natural remedies that can help address common factors that disrupt sleep. You can apply many of these yourself, or you can work with a professional for more comprehensive therapy.

Watch what you eat and drink. Avoid caffeine past 3 p.m. so your body can metabolize it before it’s time to go to bed. Avoid alcohol two to three hours before bed. Alcohol helps you fall asleep initially, but many people wake up two to three hours later. Lastly, eating heavy, spicy, or greasy meals before bedtime can interfere with sleep. If possible, have your last meal about three hours before bed. Hunger can interrupt sleep, too, so if you feel pangs before bed it’s okay to have a light snack.

Sip herbal tea. About an hour before bedtime, pour yourself a cup of herbal tea containing ingredients known to aid relaxation such as chamomile, skullcap, lemon balm, or passion flower. Brands such as Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime and Yogi Tea Bedtime Tea contain some of these herbs. If you get into the habit of sitting down to a steaming mug of herbal tea about an hour before bedtime, it also creates a routine and signals to your brain that it’s time to quiet down and get ready for sleep.

Try trigger points. Certain acupressure points can help relax and quiet the mind. Liver 3 is located on the top of your foot between the big toe and second toe, a few inches down—you’ll feel a depression the size of your fingertip. This point helps draw energy from your mind down. Large intestine 4 is located on the topside of the hand on the web between the thumb and index finger. It’s used for headaches, and it helps relax the mind and improve circulation. Pericardium 6 is on the inside of the wrist between the two tendons. It’s used for nausea, but also alleviates nervous tension. Apply pressure to each spot for five to 10 seconds, release, and repeat a few times as necessary.

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Supplement with B vitamins. Sleep problems sometimes stem from a compromised nervous system. B-complex vitamins play a key role in maintaining a healthy nervous system. Supplementing your diet with B vitamins may help sleep come more easily. This isn’t a quick fix, but if you take them daily in the mornings you should notice an improvement in your sleep within about a month. For the first month you may want to try a B-complex in liquid form, which is often easier to absorb than a pill.

Get help from homeopathy. Calms and Calms Forte are two homeopathic remedies that can be taken before bed to aid sleep. These are non-sedative treatments comprised of homeopathics and usually come in the form of little white pellets. If you have mild sleep problems, such as difficulty sleeping while traveling, these remedies can help you regain a normal sleep cycle after three or four nights.

Pop melatonin on sleepless nights. This is the ingredient many of my patients with sleep issues find the most success with, though it’s particularly effective for people over age 50 since the body’s production of melatonin decreases with age. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain that helps maintain your body’s circadian rhythm. If you experience maintenance insomnia, in which you can fall asleep, but wake up two to three hours later, taking a dose of melatonin when you wake up during the night may help you fall back asleep. In younger adults, melatonin may not be as helpful if you’re still producing the hormone at normal levels. For younger adults consider chamomile tea, homeopathics, and B complex.

Take magnesium before bed. In one study, people with insomnia who took magnesium daily for eight weeks fell asleep faster, slept longer, and woke up fewer times at night than those who popped a placebo, the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences reports. How, exactly, magnesium helps isn’t completely understood, though participants who took the supplement showed increased levels of melatonin and other hormones associated with sleep as well as decreased cortisol concentrations. For sleep specifically, many people report doing better with a powder or liquid form of magnesium as opposed to a tablet. Follow the package dosage instructions and take it before bedtime.

Vitamin D. At your next doctor’s visit, consider getting your level of vitamin D checked. There is plenty of research and anecdotal evidence supporting the connection between vitamin D supplementation and improved sleep. Vitamin D should be taken in the morning and not at night.

Get hands on. Get a back massage or ask your partner to rub the muscles on either side of your spine, which is relaxing to the mind, body, and entire nervous system. Add your favorite soothing essential oil such as lavender, chamomile, bergamot, lemon, or ylang ylang for an aromatherapy benefit.

Join Sonima’s free 14-day jumpstart to better sleep for a downloadable guide and daily advice from top experts. Learn more here.

The post A Natural Guide to Overcoming Sleep Issues appeared first on Sonima.