Relaxation Tips for Better Sleep
Managing stress and ensuring a routine of plentiful, high quality sleep are critical to protecting your health. Relaxation exercises can help you do both. They have been shown highly effective in reducing stress and improving sleep. Low-impact, self-directed, and easily integrated into your daily life, these relaxation strategies can help you get a handle on stress and anxiety during your waking day, and help you de-stress before you go to bed. The truth is, the line between day and night is not so clear. How we behave during the day including how we manage stress has a significant effect on how well we sleep at night. Think of your daily, consistent attention to relaxation as a round-the-clock investment in your nightly sleep.
Autogenic training
Autogenic training (AT) isn’t particularly well known, but it is an effective, accessible method for reducing stress and improving sleep. AT uses a series of exercises to focus the mind’s attention to specific physical sensations of the body, in order to relax both mentally and physically. Autogenic training focuses the mind on cultivating sensations of warmth and heaviness in different regions of the body. These exercises use both visual imagery and verbal cues to relax physically as well as to quiet and calm one’s thoughts. The exercises are most effective when practiced regularly, and you can use these techniques to manage stress throughout the day. Incorporating autogenic training into your nightly power-down routine can help you prepare the body and the mind for sleep.
Breathing
Deep, slow, self-aware breathing is an ancient and powerful way to clear the body of stress and tension, and a great way to relax as part of a nightly transition to sleep. Deep breathing kicks off a series of physiological changes that aid relaxation, including reducing muscle tension, slowing breathing rate and heart rate, and lowering blood pressure and metabolism.
A breathing practice can be as simple as taking a series of even, slow inhale and exhale breaths as a regular routine during the day or whenever you feel anxious or stressed. There are also a multitude of structured breathing exercises—"4-7-8" breathing is one of my favorites. In a comfortable position, with your eyes open or closed:
Progressive Relaxation
This mind-body relaxation technique is a simple, striking way to become familiar with your body and the places where you hold stress and tension. Progressive relaxation involves working, one at a time, with different areas and muscle groups of the body, first tensing and relaxing them. This cultivates an awareness of what both tension and relaxation feel like in your body. With that awareness you become better prepared to address that physical tension—and any mental or emotional stress that accompanies it.
Used as part of a nightly power-down routine, progressive relaxation can help you release physical and mental tension that, left unaddressed, can interfere with sleep. A typical progressive relaxation routine starts at the lowest point of the body—the feet—and works gradually up to the top of the head, tensing and relaxing every area of the body along the way.
Autogenic training
Autogenic training (AT) isn’t particularly well known, but it is an effective, accessible method for reducing stress and improving sleep. AT uses a series of exercises to focus the mind’s attention to specific physical sensations of the body, in order to relax both mentally and physically. Autogenic training focuses the mind on cultivating sensations of warmth and heaviness in different regions of the body. These exercises use both visual imagery and verbal cues to relax physically as well as to quiet and calm one’s thoughts. The exercises are most effective when practiced regularly, and you can use these techniques to manage stress throughout the day. Incorporating autogenic training into your nightly power-down routine can help you prepare the body and the mind for sleep.
Breathing
Deep, slow, self-aware breathing is an ancient and powerful way to clear the body of stress and tension, and a great way to relax as part of a nightly transition to sleep. Deep breathing kicks off a series of physiological changes that aid relaxation, including reducing muscle tension, slowing breathing rate and heart rate, and lowering blood pressure and metabolism.
A breathing practice can be as simple as taking a series of even, slow inhale and exhale breaths as a regular routine during the day or whenever you feel anxious or stressed. There are also a multitude of structured breathing exercises—"4-7-8" breathing is one of my favorites. In a comfortable position, with your eyes open or closed:
- Inhale for four seconds.
- Hold your breath for seven seconds.
- Exhale slowly, for eight seconds.
- Repeat several times.
Progressive Relaxation
This mind-body relaxation technique is a simple, striking way to become familiar with your body and the places where you hold stress and tension. Progressive relaxation involves working, one at a time, with different areas and muscle groups of the body, first tensing and relaxing them. This cultivates an awareness of what both tension and relaxation feel like in your body. With that awareness you become better prepared to address that physical tension—and any mental or emotional stress that accompanies it.
Used as part of a nightly power-down routine, progressive relaxation can help you release physical and mental tension that, left unaddressed, can interfere with sleep. A typical progressive relaxation routine starts at the lowest point of the body—the feet—and works gradually up to the top of the head, tensing and relaxing every area of the body along the way.
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