Relaxation and mind and body practices for treating insomnia
Everyone struggled to sleep or stay asleep at some point in their lives. Whether it’s anxiety (the night before a big exam, or a job interview), stress (problems at work or with children) or those times when you can’t stop your mind. But when sleep is usually unable, it becomes insomnia and can lead to serious problems.
Indeed, research shows that insomnia can lead not only to drowsiness, but also deep fatigue and even cognitive impairment. It weakens people’s ability to perform normal tasks and affects memory, concentration, logic, and problem-solving. Also, people who suffer from chronic insomnia are four times more likely to develop depression and increase the incidence of conditions such as cancer and heart disease.
But there are some things you can do to treat insomnia naturally, without medications – from relaxation and mind and body practices.
How do relaxation and mind and body practices work to treat insomnia?
Relaxation, mind, and body practices help reduce insomnia by reducing anxiety at bedtime. This allows the mind and body to calm and sleep. Specifically, relaxation works by increasing a part of the nervous system that slows the heart and calms the mind, reducing a part of the nervous system that increases heart rate and promotes alertness.
Whatever the reason, research shows that relaxation and a mind-and-body approach to insomnia lead to measurable, reliable, and lasting benefits. The quality of sleep improves, and the time it takes to sleep decreases. It provides an additional benefit in treating insomnia naturally without treatment.
5 Relaxation and mind practices of the body for insomnia
Progressive muscle relaxation
Progressive muscle relaxation is designed to reduce stress-related muscle tension. With this technique, you can simply stretch and then relax specific muscles. As you work through the entire muscles of the body (avoid the places of injury), your mind will also start to relax.
With this technique, the more you train, the better your results.
Breathing exercises
Evidence indicates that focusing on your breathing reduces your heart rate and blood pressure and turns you to sleep. One of the special exercises to try is called 4-7-8.
Using this technique, you simply inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and exhale for eight seconds. Then repeat.
Mindfulness meditation
Another way to achieve a relaxing sleep-response is to wake up mediation. This type of meditation begins with a focus on breathing and then drawing your mind’s attention to the present without thinking about past or future worries.
20-minute mindfulness meditation creates a reflex for relaxation, so it becomes easier to evoke this response at night to combat insomnia.
How-to pictures
The vector image is a simple process but it can give good results. You simply focus your mind on one thing – like a mental picture or a story. Choose a picture or a comfortable moment and live – what you see, smell, hear, taste, and feel. Go slowly and find the details. Keep doing this until you get carried away to sleep.
Don’t panic if you find your mind wandering away. You only need to return to the moment each time.
Massage therapy
If you suffer from insomnia due to chronic pain disorders such as arthritis, massage therapy can provide significant increases in sleep duration and reduce long-term pain.
Massage therapy can be beneficial even if the insomnia is caused by something else entirely. Regular massage reduces levels of depression and anxiety and improves sleep quality. This technology works well for children and teenagers as well.