Reasons Why You Can't Fall Asleep| Sleep Tips

Nothing is more exasperating than lying in bed knowing you need to sleep, but you just can’t get to sleep. When you cannot sleep, you run the risk of more than just being bleary-eyed the next morning. Not getting enough sleep increases your risk for illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Even sleeping at odd hours can increase some health risks. If you suffer from insomnia, a chronic inability to get adequate sleep, you are not alone. About one-third of the adult population worldwide suffers from insomnia. The fist step in overcoming a sleeping problem is figuring out why you can’t sleep.

Mental Causes of Sleep Problems

Mental causes of an inability to fall asleep include anxiety, stress, tension and depression. If you are facing financial hardship, relationship problems or troubles at work, you are likely finding it harder to sleep. If you feel your mental issues are severe, such as chronic depression, you should speak to a professional, a therapist, your primary care physician or a sleep therapist. If the problem is less severe, some of the following tips will help.

Physical Causes of Sleep Problems

If you can’t sleep due to physical causes, the root problem can be hormonal changes. Hormonal-based sleep problems are common for women during menstruation, pregnancy or menopause and in older individuals when the body produces less melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep. Other physical conditions that cause sleep problems include medical ailments (such as: allergies, arthritis, asthma, heart disease and high blood pressure), pain from injury or disease, or genetics.

Situational Causes of Sleep Problems

If you occasionally can’t sleep, the problem can be related to a change in schedule (jet lag, new school year, work-shift change) or food/beverage consumption (too much caffeine or alcohol, spicy food, too much food) or environmental factors (too much noise, uncomfortable bed, extreme temperature).

Tip 1. Set up a regular schedule.

Help your body realize it’s time for sleep by sticking to a set time for bed. If you are finding it hard to sleep, try to stick to a regular sleep schedule, even on weekends. Many people will experience insomnia at the end of the weekend, if they have stayed up very late on Friday and Saturday nights. If you work a swing-shift, which makes a regular schedule impossible, you may need to consider some sleep aides as you move from one shift to another. If you are going to travel to another time zone, try to operate as if you were in the time zone a week before you travel.

Tip 2. Avoid stimulating activities or food just before bed

Don’t bring up a contentious topic with your spouse as you are both getting into bed. You should steer clear of any brain stimulating activities such checking email or balancing your checkbook right before bed time. You should also avoid caffeine-laden beverages and spicy food in the hours before your bedtime. Remember that some over-the-counter medications such as cough syrups and analgesics contain caffeine. Read the labels and look for night-time versions. You should also not consume high-glycemic foods just before bed, as these foods raise your blood sugar, making it harder to sleep. Even if you do fall asleep after eating a high-glycemic food, you may awaken during the night when your blood sugar drops.

Tip 3. Setup a “getting ready for bed” routine.

One of the keys to quickly falling asleep is to teach your body and mind how to recognize that it is time for sleep. Do only calming activities right before bed. For example, you could meditate, dim the lights and play soothing music just before bed. Meditation can work especially well if you are facing stress in your life. Regular meditation can help train your mind to turn-off the worries for a time. Some people have luck with taking a warm bath (or even a warm foot bath), while others drink warm milk as a sleep inducement.

Tip 4. Create and keep a sleep-friendly environment

Try to keep your bedroom as dark as you can. Lower light will encourage your body to produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin. If you do need to get out of bed at night, avoid turning on bright lights. If you regularly get up to go to the bathroom at night, use a low-light night-light. Low light will make it much easier to fall back to sleep. Your body may see a bright light as a signal to wake-up.

Set the bed temperature to the ideal sleeping temperature. If you are too hot or too cold, your body will fight sleep. Also, get a comfortable bed.

Minimize noise. Sound can stimulate your brain and a stimulated-brain can’t sleep. Even if you fall asleep to sound, such as a TV show on your bedroom television, you may not sleep restfully. Noise can prevent you from reaching the deeper stages of sleep.

If you live in an urban setting and face a noisy street, buy a white noise machine.

I have had very good luck with a white noise machine. The Ecotones Dual Sleep Sound machine provides 10 high-quality and long playing tracks (such as ocean sounds). Since the tracks play so long you do not hear any repetition.

Also, this product has a very unique adaptive feature, which means the sound level reacts to the outside environment. If you have noise outside your home that wake you up, this machine can increase its volume to mask that noise.

Tip 5. Get regular exercise

Do you remember the last time you had a physically taxing day. Maybe you moved, did a lot of yard work, or danced for hours. Even regular exercise (as little as 30 minutes a day) can help you sleep. Exercise will help you relieve muscle tension. When you are physically tired and your muscles are not tense, your mind and body will often find it easier to fall asleep. Try to exercise in the morning or early afternoon. Exercise does produce adrenaline; so, avoid strenuous activity in the 2 to 3 hour period before your bed time.

Tip 6. Talk to your physician

If your sleep problems are severe or you are battling a serious medical condition that is creating your sleep disorder, be sure to talk to your physician. Your doctor can prescribe medications to aide in sleep, if the lifestyle changes do not work.

Web MD sleep disorder information

Medlin Plus (National Institute of Health) sleep disorder information

Cleveland Clinic sleep disorder information