What happened last night? Did you fall asleep later than usual? And did you wake up multiple times during the night? There’s this unsettling feeling about not being able to fall asleep. Or sleep through the night. Sometimes it has to do with what you eat. Other times, it’s what you feel. And then, there’s also the environment you stay in.
A while back, I wrote an article on sleep. I knew a thing or two about it because I had experienced nightmares and trouble sleeping for a good chunk of my life. But I wanted to make this article compelling with studies and so on. Just the type of article that we read and don’t apply. Cause, let’s face it, most of the stuff we read, we just use in conversations, not to change our habits.
The point is that I did not discover anything new about sleep. Although, it was expressed in different perspectives. And this is important for you to know. It’s not about the principles or the actions that we should follow/do in order to improve our sleep. Or anything else for that matter. It’s about how convincing they are. And about the exact moment in time when we read what we read.
There are just a few openings throughout our lives where we take in information and apply it right away. We cannot be motivated all the time. Things need to align. If you’re reading this and want to sleep better, I want to show you what has worked for me. It might work for you or not but the cool thing about it is that it’s something new so you might have fun with it.
Eat Real Food
I was battling heartburn at that time. Yet, I was so stubborn that I did not want to let go of the foods I was eating. Until I started to notice a pattern. There were a few foods that were making me feel sick. An attempt at explaining how I was feeling is this: constant butterflies in my stomach for no apparent reason; this lack of reason was bugging me and the symptoms prevented me from falling asleep; when I did fall asleep, I would quickly wake up gasping for air. For some, this description might resemble anxiety or panic attacks. And they are right. The symptoms are similar.
I made a list of all the foods that did not agree with me. And slowly eliminated them. But I also made a list of all the foods that made me feel great. Because, here’s the thing – when you pay attention to these things, you’re going to notice the differences. I ditched the processed foods because the oils and added sugar were making my symptoms worse. My focus shifted to real foods only.
PS: Do not forget about water. Water is also real food.
Clean your environment
Yes, it might also be tidying it up or getting rid of things that don’t serve you. But what I did was I moved the furniture around and gave myself a fresh start. I made sure the temperature was alright. This was happening during summer so heat was also part of the problem.
Make a decision
Or more. My work schedule was all over the place. Graveyard shifts and 24 hours straight at times. Not a very good combination with everything else going on. A few deaths in the family and I felt so stressed out that I couldn’t even sit still in my chair at work. I would fidget all the time, unable to find my place. Unable to focus. Then, I’d get back home only to fail at falling asleep. Without sleep, of course that I could not function properly.
I tried relaxing supplements but nothing fully worked until I took the decision to leave my job too. That was my story. Your might be different but there’s always a decision that we need to make. Still, we postpone it and we dismiss it as being part of the problem.
After having done these 3 things, plus a bit of exercise, my sleep has improved tremendously. I mean if there’s one thing I might complain about is the fact that I sleep like a log. I’d like to be more sensitive to outside sounds. But I trained myself to fall asleep in any type of situation. Because sleep is just so important for us to function well and be happy.
If you’re wondering what real food looks like and how you can easily combine it, check out my course: Design a 7-Day Clean Eating Meal Plan.
