I can’t sleep, please help!!

Written by a licensed therapist in Long Beach.

When you can’t sleep, all of your focus is on trying to sleep which actually can make sleeping even more difficult. A lot of the “cure” for insomnia happens before you are even trying to go to sleep.

Blue Lights

Blue lights are present in many devices that we use every day. Many people use these devices right up until they moment they try to go to sleep. Our cell phones and laptops, as well as some light bulbs utilize blue light. Blue light can lower the production of melatonin in our body and can make us more alert and increase our energy. When you are at work or trying to be productive, this can be helpful to people. However, when you are exposed to them before bedtime, it is sort of like taking a caffeine pill and expecting to be able to go to sleep an hour later. I’m not saying you have to give up your devices (for now), but try putting a blue light blocker on your phone and computer. A local IT person can guide you to free/cheap and safe apps which will allow you to schedule blue lights on your devices to automatically turn off a few hours before bed. Your phone might look like a weird color, but you won’t be exposed to the blue light. You can also look up the types of light bulbs you use in your house and perhaps turn off lights that have blue light in them a couple of hours before bed.

Socks

Most people hate wearing socks to bed, however even short “ankle socks” can provide compression that can help you sleep. Think about it, we are brought into the world from a womb where we are compressed. Babies sleep better when they are swaddled. For the same reasons and benefits, wearing socks to bed is worth a try.

Heavy blanket on your midsection

A heavy blanket acts similarly as the swaddling. You don’t need to necessarily put the blanket over your whole body, just your midsection. There is actually a company who puts out weighted blankets for this very reason (I don’t know the company or the blanket so I don’t endorse any specific blanket). The combination of the heavy blanket and socks might help enough to help you get to sleep.

Environment

Talk to your doctor about essential oils that might be safe. Lots of different smells can help relax people. Try to make sure your room is the right darkness, the right temperature, and as quiet as possible. Although some of this is out of peoples control because many people don’t have air/heat or the ability to silence their loud neighbors, but sounds machines, ear plugs and other things can help.

I’m actually in bed and can’t sleep, what do I do?

When you are actually in bed trying to sleep: Focus on closing your eyes and paying attention to your body and your breathing. Usually it is our inability to turn off our brain that causes us to stay up all night. Even if you never actually get to sleep, at least your body is resting. Sometimes, just stressing about not sleeping and looking at the clock a million times and estimating how many hours of sleep we are not getting can cause us to worry more and then not sleep. Many times shifting the focus to relaxing (as opposed to sleeping) helps you enough to sleep.

Still not sleeping

If you are still not able to sleep, consider talking to a therapist. Most people know that sleep helps to heal the body. Most people don’t consider that sleep heals the physical and mental part of your body. Often times we “work out” at night the things we don’t take care of during the day. Our body can do this in the form of dreams, nightmares or simply not being able to sleep. The more we stuff down problems and don’t deal with them during the day, the more that comes up at night.

If you are looking for a therapist in Long Beach, consider calling/texting us at 562-310-9741.