Not getting enough sleep is so hard. It doesn’t matter if you are a homemaker, have a career or are going to school; not getting enough sleep at night time makes for a very unproductive day the next day. It’s important that as adults, we get at least seven to eight hours of sleep every night in order to refresh our brains. This will help to promote creativity, focus and better productivity all around. If you never feel like you are getting enough sleep, there could be a few reasons for this. The best thing to do is talk over your options with your doctor. They may recommend putting you into a sleep study to find out what the problem is. You may need CPAP masks, nasal pillows, a better diet, more water, less stress or something else entirely. Here are a few reasons why you might not be sleeping as much as you want.
Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a very common disorder. It is described as brief lapses of breathing while sleeping. Your brain wakes up just long enough to restart your respiratory system. Many people can have it and not even realize because they don’t know what they are looking for. There are various symptoms that you should be keeping an eye out for so you can talk to your doctor if necessary. This can be anything from headaches to irritability to daytime fatigue, snoring and dry mouth when you wake up. The right CPAP masks will help you to be able to breathe properly and alleviate the brief times that you are not breathing.
Children and Babies
If you have kids in your home, namely infants and small children, there is a good chance that you aren’t getting a full night’s sleep. Even the best CPAP masks aren’t going to help that. Talk with your pediatrician on how best to start getting your children to sleep through the night so that you can have a peaceful night’s sleep every night. You’ll be surprised at how much better you will feel and you’ll be able to devote so much more of yourself to your family. Children thrive on schedules and boundaries so try making sure that they have a set bed time routine to help them sleep through the night.
Noisy Neighborhood
Perhaps you live in an area where people stay up late and play music and hang out outside. That can be a fun way to live but if you have to get up in the morning for any reason, it’s frustrating. Or maybe your neighbor’s have a dog that won’t stop barking or perhaps your partner snores or talks in his or her sleep. Any kind of noises that are preventing you from sleeping can be fixed with one thing: ear plugs. This could be the traditional ear plugs that block out everything or it could be ear buds or ear phones that play soothing music that will shut out the outside world.
Too Much Thinking
Part of the reason why people can’t sleep is because there is just too much going on in their minds. The only way to really deal with that is to try and shut down your mind. If you think of ideas or things that you need to remember, keep a pad of paper and a pen by your bed to jot down things you don’t want to forget. Then you can put them out of your mind and go to sleep. Relaxing your muscles also helps to slow your thoughts as well. Tense up your entire body and then starting with your toes, loosen and relax the muscles as slowly as you can all the way up your body. Focus on breathing deeply and rhythmically. If you don’t fall asleep while doing this, you will soon after.
As mentioned, the most important thing to do is talk to your doctor. Between CPAP masks, sleeping medication and other solutions, there is bound to be something that you can do in order to help you sleep better. You may even find you have a disorder that’s preventing you from sleeping and be able to treat it.