What To Do When You’re Too Tired To Sleep

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Sometimes, even though you’ve had a very long and hectic day, and you are completely tired, you just can’t get yourself to sleep.

Your mind and body are totally drained out, but your eyes are wide open staring at the ceiling, even after hours of getting into bed.

I’m pretty sure you can relate.

Why Can’t You Sleep?

One strong reason is possibly the fact that you’re too tired.

At times, when you overexert yourself throughout the day, your mind is not able to ward off the afterthoughts of everything you did during the day. This prevents you from getting a sound sleep.

Related 30 Sleep Idioms and Phrases

While your body may have decided it’s time to shut down, your mind believes that it’s still got some juice left.  Syncing the body and mind takes some effort; it’s attainable through meditation or being able to find somewhere you can lie down in peace.

Don’t worry.

I understand it’s not as easy as syncing your Bluetooth devices,  so this short guide will help you improve certain areas of your life which can result in better sleep quality.

Improve your work-life balance

According to a recent survey in the US, more than 80% of the workers think that their unstable work-life balance is the major cause behind ruining their sleep cycles. This is probably true for a major chunk of the world’s working population.

One reason behind a disturbed work-life balance is the technology that allows one to constantly stay connected to the world around them, and especially their work folders. Even after getting home from work, one can access work emails and other relevant data. This prevents them from coming out of their work zone and may lead to a disturbed home and family life.

These additional hours of work from home extracts one’s leisure hours from the day and leads to overexertion and insomnia. So, if this happens to you on a daily basis, you need to get your daily routine on track and make sure you do not indulge yourself in excess of work or even play!

[bctt tweet=”All work and no play makes everyone dull. ” username=”The_Two_Sided”]

Consider playing some games which are created for the purpose of making you fall asleep.

Relax your muscles and mind

Stress for prolonger periods can cause restlessness to your muscles and mind. To get rid of it and get a good night’s sleep, you should practice some simple stretching exercises and a few deep breathing techniques.

A few sets of standing hamstring stretch and lunges coupled with deep and focused breathing might do you some good when you are up like an owl in the middle of the night.

Related : How to Prevent Tossing And Turning At Night

Moreover, according to a report published by Harvard Health Publishing, 55% of yoga practitioners said that yoga has helped them get better sleep. So, if you can take out time to practice some exercises or indulge in yoga on a regular basis, you will see a drastic improvement in your sleep cycle.

Freshen up and relax before bedtime

If you wish to ease your mind before going to bed, indulge in an activity that might help you do so. For example, if you enjoy reading, you should spend some time reading a book or magazine (not one on-screen) before going off to bed. Other things may include taking a nice, warm bath or listening to some soothing and relaxing music.

Doing this will divert your mind from the worries of daily life and help lighten your mood and mind. With your mind free of any stressful thoughts, you will surely fall asleep easy and good.

Say NO to food before bed

It’s a well-known fact that your metabolism slows down once you fall asleep. In addition to this, an important but lesser-known fact is that the deceleration in metabolism is tenfold when you are exhausted.

Therefore, it’s advised to avoid eating right before bedtime. If you do, it will slow down the digestion process and make you feel uncomfortable or sick to the stomach. Therefore, you should maintain a considerable gap between your dinner and bed time if you wish to get proper sleep.

So, it all comes down to following a disciplined routine in your daily life. When you have a busy life, disruption of any kind in your routine can disturb your sleeping pattern.

Take a magnesium-rich diet

Overtiredness and sleep problems are often associated with lack of magnesium in one’s diet. Magnesium helps in increasing the energy level in one’s body and also aids in reducing anxiety. We know that anxiety and sleep problems go hand-in-hand, thus, increasing magnesium intake will definitely be helpful.

Some magnesium rich foods that you can include in your diet are nuts such as cashews, almonds, legumes such as lentils, beans, chickpeas, types of seeds such as flax, pumpkin, chia, etc.

Avoid excessive intake of stimulants

Sometimes when you’re too tired but still have deadlines to meet, you go for stimulants like coffee or tea which has caffeine.

It’s a general assumption that these stimulants give us energy.

But, the fact is that they just dig deep into the body’s energy reserves in order to help the body function on a normal pace. Moreover, excessive intake of caffeine increases the body’s tolerance for it and makes it less effective. The body is forced to stay energised which obstructs one’s sleep cycle even when one is tired.

Wrap Up: How to Improve Your Sleep Cycle

If you think you are overtired, try to find ways to manage your work in order to get to bed on time. Going to bed late or way past your regular bed time also disturbs your sleeping pattern.

One easy way to avoid this problem is to monitor your sleep cycle. There are a lot of mobile applications that can help but it could be counterintuitive if you end up getting distracted.

Most of these applications have soothing music and demonstrations to various breathing exercises in order to help you relax and get a good night’s sleep.

If you love your sleep and feel like you are too tired for it, you’ve got to start working on improving your lifestyle.


Author Bio: Shivani enjoys reading, writing, and sleeping in her free time, and of course otherwise as well. A final year student from the University of Delhi, she originally hails from a small town in Assam.

You may follow her adventures @shivanimodyy

Featured image by jcomp


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2 Replies to “What To Do When You’re Too Tired To Sleep”

  1. one thing that has worked for me in the past (sometimes) is that I constantly try to distract myself. It’s mentally draining when you’re not able to fall asleep even after several attempts so it’s best not to think about it

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