Beat Panic Attacks and Anxiety in Your Sleep - 10 Tips For a Better Night"s Rest
Making a good night's sleep a priority in a busy daily schedule is a vital step towards stopping panic attacks and anxiety from taking over your life.
All parents know how important bedtime is for their youngsters but often become stressed and anxious because they do not rate sleep as highly for themselves.
If you don't place a high worth on sleep and don't recognise the need to stop your mind from spinning around your worries, then you are severely restricting a very necessary quiet time and giving free rein to your fears.
One of the reasons mild anxiety can build to panic attack situations is because the mind is denied the essential healing time which is sleep.
All physical activity such as manual work or sport requires recovery time.
An anxious mind also needs time to recover.
Too much emphasis is placed on having an active mind or body while down time is dismissed as wasted time.
It is a false belief that cutting down on the requisite eight hours of sleep per day will free up time for study, completing work assignments or just keeping up with those late night TV shows.
Sure, lots can still be done while tired, but your efficiency and clarity of thought will suffer until anxiety and panic become your normal state.
There are many forms of anxiety, among them are: agoraphobia, which is a social anxiety; claustrophobia, the abnormal fear of enclosed spaces; panic disorder; hypochondria, which is abnormal anxiety about ones health.
The list can be much longer and includes sleeplessness which, known as insomnia, is just another form of anxiety.
Learn to draw a line at the end of the day's activities and give sleep a new top priority.
10 tips for a better night's rest:
All parents know how important bedtime is for their youngsters but often become stressed and anxious because they do not rate sleep as highly for themselves.
If you don't place a high worth on sleep and don't recognise the need to stop your mind from spinning around your worries, then you are severely restricting a very necessary quiet time and giving free rein to your fears.
One of the reasons mild anxiety can build to panic attack situations is because the mind is denied the essential healing time which is sleep.
All physical activity such as manual work or sport requires recovery time.
An anxious mind also needs time to recover.
Too much emphasis is placed on having an active mind or body while down time is dismissed as wasted time.
It is a false belief that cutting down on the requisite eight hours of sleep per day will free up time for study, completing work assignments or just keeping up with those late night TV shows.
Sure, lots can still be done while tired, but your efficiency and clarity of thought will suffer until anxiety and panic become your normal state.
There are many forms of anxiety, among them are: agoraphobia, which is a social anxiety; claustrophobia, the abnormal fear of enclosed spaces; panic disorder; hypochondria, which is abnormal anxiety about ones health.
The list can be much longer and includes sleeplessness which, known as insomnia, is just another form of anxiety.
Learn to draw a line at the end of the day's activities and give sleep a new top priority.
10 tips for a better night's rest:
- Stop problem solving in bed and tackle your worries with a fresh mind.
- Be determined that the bed is for sleeping, not planning or studying in.
- If sleep does not come quickly enough, resist the temptation to look for something to do.
- Remind yourself that sleep comes in natural cycles which includes periods of deep sleep as well as wakefulness.
- Avoid racy reading material at bedtime, sometimes boring is better for nodding off.
- Resist the temptation to watch television in bed.
- Turn the bedside clock/radio away so that you cannot see the time.
- Don't take computer games to bed or surf the net on your laptop.
- If you must engage your mind before sleep, try a simple form of meditation like focusing on your breathing.
- Pray if you are a spiritual person or recite a favorite poem.
