When it comes to sleeping, I’ve never been one of those people who can hit the sack and be off in the land of nod in no time flat. I toss and turn, and reposition myself about a thousand times before I manage to get to sleep. This is something that is exacerbated when I’m in a period of depression.
Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you the importance of getting a good night’s sleep — it’s right up there with the ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ advice (another helpful tidbit that I’m not good at following). Not sleeping well and being overly tired can lead to being less productive and somewhat grumpy, which can lead to stressing that you’re being unproductive/grumpy, which can lead to a poor night’s sleep. And so the cycle continues.
I’m writing this after I’ve spent half an hour attempting to fall asleep. Which actually translates to: I’ve spent half an hour lying in bed while my mind refuses to shut down and my body refuses to get comfortable. What propelled me out of bed and into the study? A feeling of blind panic that I had taken on too much this semester and was going-to-let-someone-down-or-fail-miserably-in-one-of-my-subjects-andsubsequentlycrashandburnintherestoflife. And that’s not super conducive to a relaxing environment.
There are loads of things that I’ve heard will help you drift off to sleep more easily: not watching television right before you go to bed, not eating too close to going to bed, only using your bed for sleep and sex, not using your phone/ipad/tablet/laptop in bed, having warm milk just before bed, and so one and so forth. Thing is, when I’m already feeling like hell, I don’t necessarily want to stop watching crappy, mind-numbing television shows, because they can be a nice little distraction.
My major battle is getting my brain to chill out long enough to actually get some peace. I find that once all external stimuli are removed, I start to analyse every little thing I’ve done in the past 24 hours (at a minimum) as well as wondering what the heck I’m going to do with my degree once I finish uni-and-not-only-that-but-what-if-I-don’t-finish-uni-thenhowwillIcopeandwhatwillIdo *cue a quickened heartbeat and heavy breathing*. This has led to a few tear stricken panic attacks that not only keep my up, but my partner and my dog as well. Really, nobody wins.
I find music too intrusive to listen to while I’m trying to sleep. My music player will only turn down so far, and I have yet to find something that doesn’t get repetitive and annoying after a while. I do, however, find listening to something can distract me just enough to get me to fall asleep. There’s a couple of different types of apps I use to trick myself into relaxing.
- First up, ambient noise apps! From crickets to frogs to rain to hail to thunder to a creepy singing lady (seriously, the last one freaks me out), these apps have a variety of noises, and some will even let you overlay sounds and save it to listen to later.
- Hypnosis apps. Believe it or not. But these aren’t the kinds of apps that’ll have you squawking like a chicken or dancing on a stage. They’re generally voices set to soft background music. I like them because they tend to be on a longer loop than ambient noise stuff. I do sometimes find myself actively listening to pinpoint where tracks have been looped, though, which is kinda counterproductive to the whole sleep thing.
Sometimes I listen to podcasts to help me sleep. I like the human aspect of them, and the hypnosis app. I started using podcasts because my dad listens to science podcasts to help him fall asleep. The trouble with podcasts, of course, is that sometimes they’re just too darn interesting!
-Emma