How to Sleep Well During Uncertain Times
This is a time of great unsettling, of overwhelming uncertainty.
Suddenly everything is tossed into the unknown; it looms in front of us, misty obscurity. We fill this space with hope, denial, projections, fears, worries, and rumors. Emotions boil to the surface.
The uncertainty wears different guises.
We feel uncertain about our health, our livelihoods, about the economy, about politics.
We feel concerned for ourselves, our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors, and our community.
All of this unsettling can easily interfere with sleep.
Feelings of uncertainty and anxiety may cause you to seek refuge in habits that may feel comforting in the short term but actually impact sleep.
Routines that hold your life together may start to fall apart. For example, you may find yourself binging on Netflix and sleeping in.
However, routines in your life also provide structure, contributing to a sense of comfort.
Maintain a routine
When it comes to sleep, maintaining a schedule is key.
Good sleep requires consistency.
The body prepares for different physiological activities according to a routine. If your body knows it will get up at a given time, it will prepare cortisol for you to feel alert when you wake up.
From this, a cascade of other functions, including muscle tone, digestion, and elimination, come into play.
A similar process happens at bedtime when the body expects to wind down, preparing itself with sleep hormones and all the rest and maintenance that is going on while we sleep at night.
Irregular sleep times increase the risk of heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, diabetes, and obesity.
Maintain a sleep schedule. Put some habits in place to help you get to bed on time and to get out of bed in the morning.
Schedule morning activities
Decide on a wake-up time and stick to it - this means getting up within a 30-minute window of time. Start the day with a consistent ritual or routine
Plan your day
Develop evening routines and rituals
Maintain a consistent bedtime.
Implement a wind-down routine. Turn down your lights, get ready for bed and do something relaxing and calming.
Stay away from blue light-emitting screens, which delay your ability to fall asleep.
Avoid worry
A pervasive sense of uncertainty may trigger worry and bring latent anxiety to the surface.
Worry, of course, solves nothing, it simply breeds more of itself.
It may seem that worry is out of your control, however, the opposite is true. We are entirely in control of how much we worry.
One way to control worry is to avoid feeding it.
Consider what amplifies worry and what calms you down.
Especially before you go to bed, try to avoid anything that causes you anxiety.
For example, the news. The news is designed to heighten fear. Rather than watching the news before going to bed, enjoy a funny movie, a documentary, or a relaxing book.
There are endless things you can choose to do before bed that will enable you to wind down and relax.
Protect your sleep! Sleep is always important for health, but now even more so.