There are times in all our lives when we feel a little bit worn out. That in turn can lead to feeling overwhelmed and anxious, when we feel overwhelmed and anxious, we can sometimes struggle to get proper sleep and so the cycle continues.
How much sleep do we need?
As a nation, we can become fixated on the number of hours we “need” to sleep. Everywhere we look there are reminders that we should be getting good quality sleep, our 8 hours a night. Social media offers up all sorts of sleep remedies, various therapists suggest ways to create bedtime routines in the hope we will be able to switch off and sleep.
It doesn’t always work. We become tired and find coping with things we normally take in our stride, far more challenging.
Insomnia – it’s a killer!
I have struggled with insomnia most of my life, it’s a bugger and I have learned that I need to find pockets of time to rest otherwise I just fall over.
When I was little, I used to get very anxious when I couldn’t sleep and those of you who also suffer with sleep problems (or lack of it) you get caught up in getting more and more anxious that you are not sleeping that then makes you not sleep.
My lovely Mum would come into my bedroom and offer up various visualisations and meditations (I didn’t know that’s what they were at the time) but more often than not, would suggest that I just rested. She would explain to me very carefully that just because I wasn’t sleeping, I was resting my body and that if I rested my eyes too, it would allow my body to recharge.
Pockets of rest.
So that’s what I do. And if I find that life is feeling overwhelming, if I feel tired and run down and in the need of rest, I find pockets of time to do just that. It doesn’t have to be a long period of time, half an hour just doing nothing, focusing on my breathing with my eyes closed can make all the difference.
Taking care of your mental health.
Pockets of rest are not something you can always plan, you sometimes have to be a little spontaneous BUT if you know you have a busy week ahead, if you know that you are running on empty, identify where you have that odd 30 minutes and mark it as time out. It can increase your productivity and work wonders for your mental health.
