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Q: I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in several years as I suffer severely from insomnia. Is there something that I can do to help.
A: A tired body is going to rest. There are sometimes other causes such as worry or stress.
The primary cause for most insomnia is a lack of physical activity during the day. We need to increase our activities to get better rest. It’s like your puppy dog. If you take that dog out on a walk once or twice a day, it will sleep through the night. There’s no difference for us.
Part of the problem is that many of our activities today disrupt our circadian rhythms. When we are sedentary, we sit in front of computer screens or tv screens and we don’t get enough activity then we aren’t tired enough when we go to bed because we haven’t done enough to move around.
The goal should be 10K steps a day. This may be difficult to get without making an extra effort. For example, I wore a pedometer at work on a very busy and long work day. I thought that I would give myself a break and only attempt 6K. I didn’t even make 1500 steps that day and I worked a full day. That was kind of sobering for me.
My job isn’t very active – I’m at the computer and then I take two steps and listen to someone’s heart rate. It’s not a very active job – so if I’m going to get 10K steps a day, I will have to deliberately plan, schedule, and take the time to get in more steps. That will be true for most people.
If you don’t get the activity from your work, you will have to create time and space for that activity in other areas of your life. Otherwise, you will not get good sleep. And it becomes more of a problem when you get older. Many people say they suffer from ‘monkey brain’ and their brain keeps working, worrying and trying to organize their life when they are trying to sleep. Meditating before sleep and taking slow deep breaths after lying down should help. Getting enough physical activity during the day will help quiet the monkeys at night. Reading before bed often has the same effect as drinking a warm cup of milk. My best advice is to tire your body. If you still can’t sleep, get up and walk around.
It can also be helpful to establish a pre-bed routine. You might wash your face, brush your teeth, drink a cup of herbal tea, write in your journal, meditate or read for a few minutes before turning out the light. This may take a couple of weeks of practicing this routine, but your body will learn that this set of activities means it is time to sleep.
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