How Insomnia Had Help with My Life
Due to work stress, I suffer from sleeping issues. I wear a fitness band to track the quality of my sleep. Many nights, sleep is hard to come. The more I try to sleep, the more difficult to fall asleep. However, I am too tired to do anything productive but too alert to fall asleep. This becomes a vicious cycle, and I could be up for hours.
An Internet forum suggests that if I could not fall asleep within 20 minutes after lights out, I should sit up and perform body scanning.
Sit on the bed with eyes closed. Feel the sensation of the body starting from the head. Just observe the feeling on each part of the body. If there is tension on that part, try to relax it. Observe each part of the body and finish at the toe. Repeat the exercise for as long as necessary until I want to sleep.
Sometimes when I have a headache, the headache would get amplified as I paid attention to it. As I observe the pain, the pain slowly goes away.
Through observations of the body, I find it easier to fall asleep. It is far better than fighting my mind to convince it to fall asleep.
An unexpected outcome from this exercise, my sleep quality is better, and I go to bed less angry. If I had a tiring day, I could quickly fall asleep, but I do not feel as refreshed. By observing my body, it somehow prepared the body for sleep. I may have slept fewer hours, but I do not feel the effects of lack of sleep.
My intention has always been trying to find solutions to fall asleep as soon as possible. Having insomnia, it has forced me to learn to observe my body as part of the sleep routine.