First off ... discuss coming off sleeping pills with your doctor perhaps, but without coming off them I don't know how you're going to change this. Assuming a lack of sleeping pills:
- Caffeine? Limit intake / as a drastic measure you could cut it entirely, but certainly good idea to only have it before 2pm
- Dark room - make sure your room is very dark and quiet
- Temperature? Is it comfortable? Most people like their bedroom to be slightly cool at night and then be at a comfortable temperature in their bed
- Do you have a comfortable bed and mattress
As for calming the mind ...
- Only go to bed when you are very sleepy ... perhaps you could sit up and read until you want to go to sleep. The first few nights you try this method you may get no or very little sleep but obviously over time your body will become more tired and ready for bed
- Wake up at a consistent (same) time every day without fail, this will teach your body that you are going to wake up at a set time which will create sleepy feeling + ready for bed earlier
- Get enough exercise but maybe doing it a little while before you go to bed would be a better idea, as opposed to directly before
- Avoid bright screens
- Have a warm-down routine, this could include a warm bath etc
As for your mind ... practise mindfulness meditation, this is for me the most helpful thing, visualisation also helps me get into a 'dream-like' frame of mind. But I do all of this from a place of not minding whether I sleep or not ... if you are "trying to sleep", you are getting in the way of a natural process that just happens when you are relaxed about
it. Being tense does not help you sleep, nor does frustration, agitation or a racing mind. Stop trying to get to sleep, start relaxing, start allowing that natural process to happen, and be relaxed about
whether or not it does happen. If you get into bed and find you are not falling asleep within minutes, you are not sleepy enough, so get back out and read some more until you find yourself reading the same line more than once and you really feel drowsy. When you read, fiction with a story you can imagine visually / escapism is better than non fiction or weighty information for your brain to consider and consolidate.
There can also be physical factors involved ... even stuff like you could have high copper levels or something like that (just a rogue example). And as for the pred ... come on, I am pretty sure that if you find you have an active mind at night that could well be the daily 9mg of prednisolone you are taking. But I'm certain that you can find focus and relaxation - and sleep - even within that context, if you learn and apply useful approaches (or, more accurately perhaps, unlearn approaches which have been stopping you effortlessly achieving this unconscious task).
And daily life ... stress? Anxiety? Does this occur and if so I would recommend finding ways to learn new perspectives / behaviour
s that allow more relaxation into the system, this in turn will create a less worried mind at night. As worry and excitement are often about
looking into the future and speculating, if you instead daydream about
pleasant and relaxing memories from the past, this will actually serve you much more. Sometimes you will find that you get into a visualisation of a nice memory from the past and you find your mind drifting into the dreamy state that leads to sleep.
And out of all those tips ... most of all I actually recommend the mindfulness meditation, also check out guided imagery / visualisation, hypnosis (there are some good videos to relax to sleep online) and progressive relaxation. Do this during the day as well as in bed, because when you change the overall context of your psychological space to one of relaxation, you will find relaxation growing.
Post Edited (chickenwings1) : 8/9/2016 10:30:49 AM (GMT-6)