Recommendations For Irregular Sleep During Confinement
After being confined at home for more than 30 days, many people have noticed that their usual sleep schedule has been altered.
Sometimes These imbalances in the regular schedule are due to anxiety the uncertainty and the overflowing emotions that are being experienced, but it is also due to not having a work schedule to which we must adjust.
The fact of not having high physical activity, together with not maintaining the same level of mental activity during the day, means that we feel less tired at night. In addition, of these factors Most people who are at home do not have to adjust to work schedules except in cases of teleworking in which an established schedule is followed.
All of these conditions have contributed to a greater or lesser extent in affecting the general population’s sleep pattern, either in terms of reconciling or maintaining it.
For this reason we find it necessary to provide some recommendations to alleviate irregular sleep.
Sleep hygiene
Before moving on to some specific guidelines, it is necessary to comment that it is important that we maintain good “sleep hygiene.” This is about a series of habits and attitudes that help us maintain good quality of sleep at a general level Among these habits we must remember the following.
1. Try to avoid stimulating drinks
Avoid stimulating drinks, such as those with caffeine at least for six hours before going to bed.
2. Avoid consuming alcohol from the early hours of the afternoon
Failure to do this can significantly worsen your quality of sleep.
3. Also try to avoid smoking at night
Although sometimes smokers think that smoking relaxes them, the truth is that it activates the body.
4. Exercise during the day but not too late
Do not do physical exercise at least two hours before going to sleep.
5. Also try to avoid having a heavy and heavy dinner
Avoid foods with excessive refined oils , sugars and simple carbohydrates. It is important that you also try to eat dinner at least 2 hours before going to sleep and, if it is earlier, the better.
6. Try to maintain a suitable environment for sleep
That is, try to have in your room a good temperature, little noise, lighting that facilitates sleep etc.
7. Use the bed only for sleeping and for sexual relations
If you do other activities such as reading, watching television, talking, it will be more difficult for you to associate bed with sleeping and this will affect your sleeping pattern.
8. Do relaxation exercises
The last hours before going to sleep try to do relaxing activities that facilitate sleep : watch a movie that is not overly exciting, read something pleasant, listen to quiet music…
9. Try to connect some activity with the time of going to sleep
For example, sometimes we have a kind of “routine” before going to bed (brush our teeth, go drink water, read a few pages of a book, etc.). If we always do the same activity just before going to sleep, this can help us connect these activities with sleep and our brain will associate both things.
Behavioral guidelines
When we can’t sleep what usually happens is that We start to get nervous and we look at ourselves over and over again This in turn means that when we see that we still cannot sleep, we increase the activation that we already had, entering a loop, so that it is even more difficult for us to fall asleep. To try to alleviate this there is what is called “stimulus control”. It consists of the following.
Try to always go to sleep at approximately the same time
Don’t go to sleep at the time you used to before confinement.
Go to bed and try to sleep, try not to be watching yourself all the time
Above all, do not use this moment to plan what you will do, worry…
If after about 20 minutes you still can’t sleep, get out of bed and go out of the room Go to another room in the house and try to do some relaxing activity: watching television, reading, etc. Something that does not require great activation.
When you see that the drowsiness returns, go back to bed
When you have returned to bed, try to do the same as in point 2. If you see that you are still not sleeping, you should go back to step 3. You will have to repeat this as many times as necessary until you sleep.
Keep schedules
Despite not having rested that night too It is important that you try to get up at the time you used to before If, on the other hand, you continue sleeping until 12 noon, we will continue with the same problem, we will delay the time of sleep at night and we will still not be able to sleep.
Don’t take a nap
Another important step is to try not to take a nap in the afternoon. Now we have a lot of free time and many people use this resource to make the time pass faster, but It does not benefit us at all when trying to return to a normal sleeping pattern
Concluding
It is important that you know that acquiring a regular sleeping pattern is not a matter of a few days. It requires time and perseverance. Additionally, as we have said previously, the circumstances we currently have make it more difficult for us to return to our usual routine.
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