Do you know about a few simple techniques to help you fall asleep?
- Dr. Ani
- Sep 28, 2021
- 4 min read
Sleep is very important to our lives and to our physical and mental wellbeing. When we sleep well, our entire body recovers because during sleep the following processes occur:
Our bodies grow new tissue. Cells repair any damage and regeneration occurs.
Proteins are the building blocks of our bodies, and our cells synthesize proteins.
Hormones, which are the regulatory molecules of our bodies, are released and
balanced.
The brain stores information and reorganizes its circuits. Short-term
memories are converted to long-term memories. (Who did not experience a brain fog
after a sleepless night?)
Emotions are regulated (Who was not in a bad mood after a sleepless night?)
The body stores energy (Who has not been fatigued after a sleepless night?)
The body and the brain release toxic waste.
and many more…
In order, for us to fall asleep our bodies need to switch the entire set of brain mediators (the molecules with which nerve cells communicate). This is quite a complex process and a lot of brain parts are involved in a highly coordinated manner.
The first step in the process of falling asleep is for our muscles to relax.
If our muscles are not relaxed, it would be difficult for us to fall asleep.
After all, the body is a perfect feedback machine. The brain takes signals from the body in order to know what to do and when to do it. This is particularly true of our face and shoulder muscles. When our muscles are tense our brains think that there is a danger to address or a desire to fulfill. In this heightened state, there is no way our bodies would relax and go to sleep.
When the muscles of our bodies truly relax they become heavier. Who did not experience, at least once, the overwhelming sweet body heaviness, right before falling asleep?
Unfortunately, in today’s stressful world, when information and demands from our jobs, family life and life in general, make us all tense, sleep often becomes a luxury. We bring our daily problems to our beds and think about them when trying to fall asleep.
In that process it is important to know that our muscles respond to our thoughts.
If we are angry or frustrated, we may clench our teeth in our sleep, or if we are happy we may smile.
Unfortunately, unhappy and tense thoughts populate the heads of many of us, much more frequently than we want. Unhappy thoughts create tension in our muscles that can persist, on an unconscious level, throughout most of the day. When this happens, our bodies freeze in a perpetual defense posture: our shoulders move forward and down, our foreheads wrinkle, our jaws clench and our eyes strain. The unfortunate part is that we often carry this muscle tension for days and days in a row, making it difficult for our bodies to relax at the end of the day.
Today, I am introducing to you a simple technique of muscle tension release as a potential key facilitator in your process of sleep initiation.
Lie down, with your pajamas on, and make yourself comfortable.
Give a command to your body that you are going to fall asleep.
Consciously relax your jaws until your upper and lower jaws separate, while at the same time your lips are closed. Feel the heaviness of your lower jaw pulling your chin down gently.
Shift your attention to your forehead and command it to relax completely. If it does not want to relax, you can place your hand over it and mentally focus on the muscle until it relaxes.
Shift your attention to your shoulders and mentally make them relax.
Shift your attention to your closed eyes and relax them, imagining that your eyes move slightly down and out (like a crab’s eyes).
Then move your attention back to your jaws. You may notice that you have tensed up a bit since your last relaxation of that region. Then move to your forehead-shoulders-eyes in the same manner as you did the fist time.
Keep repeating the loop until you fall asleep.
There are two additional sleep facilitators that I wish to share with you:
a warm shower just before bed, and the use of a pink NASA light bulb, which you can turn on while you are already in your bed ready to fall asleep.
The warm shower provides instant muscle relaxation, which helps sleep initiation. Remember – you cannot fall asleep, if your muscles are tense.
The NASA light bulb was indeed designed by NASA for their astronauts who had problems falling asleep due to the challenges of space travel. The bulb emanates a pink light that has been shown in research, to facilitate sleep. You can easily find and purchase these bulbs online.
I hope the knowledge you received today proves useful to you, as it is to me.
I wish you a healthy, lovely and restful sleep.
From my heart to yours,
Dr. Ani
Disclaimer:
Though I am a medical doctor and I share my experience and knowledge with you, please be advised that I am not your medical doctor, so you will need to seek and follow the directions of the medical professionals involved in your case. This article is purely informational and cannot be taken as medical advice.
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