sleepless nights by w.J. loesener
You are in an unbearable stupor, your body feels like you’re wearing weighted clothing, and you strain to keep your eyes open. Sleeplessness has struck you with full force and even in the shower, you feel as though you may collapse from sheer exhaustion. You almost feel like lying down in the shower and taking a quick nap to revitalize. How will you survive your day?
Well suffer no more; you can avoid the feeling of exhaustion by simply identifying your triggers and what is causing your lack of sleep. You may be suffering from insomnia and there are a few things you can do in addition to seeing your doctor.
First, practice good sleep hygiene. You have to sleep on a schedule and have what is called good sleep hygiene. What does that mean? It simply means that you go to bed and get up every day at the same time, including weekends. Your body is very susceptible to habits, and those habits will help you fight insomnia by making your body’s clock understand when it’s time for bed, and when it’s time to get up. You might think that waking up early on the weekends is uncool, but think about how much of the day you’ll have left to do all the fun weekend activities that you want.
Second, get consistent sleep. Even if you cannot sleep for a full 8 hours, sleep the hours that you can all at once, meaning, if you can only sleep 6 hours a day, then make that sleep cycle continuous. You cannot cheat and win by sleeping 3 hours here and then 3 hours there. It is not the same. Sleeping is cumulative and disrupting it by breaking it apart will confuse your body. It may put you in a mode where you do not know when you will be able to get adequate rest that you need in order to work at full power. Just think about it, will charging a battery 5 minutes now and then 5 minutes later get you the same results as charging it for a full 10 minutes? It will not and neither will you.
Third, limit your caffeine intake. Whether you feel it or not caffeine tells your body that you have to keep going. You might depend on a full cup of coffee in the mornings to wake you up, but do you really need it?