How to avoid night fears? - Dr. Sulata Shenoy

Sleep is something that can allude a lot of us causing us distress and inability to function normally the next day. So it is important to follow some good sleep hygiene practices so that we can avoid anxiety, stress when we go to bed. Why does this happen? Physically you may wind down your work and get ready to go to bed. Mentally you may be carrying on the tensions that happened during the day or worried about what will happen the next day. So one needs to not only physical shut down all the activities but also the mentally switch off from all activities, small or big, that could interfere us from falling off to sleep. This is something to be done very naturally and normally but however we find that our stressful lifestyles don’t permit is to drift to sleep. Some of us think that sleep is a luxury that we can ill afford and try to pack it up with entertainment, tv time, screen time, gadget time. Night we try to catch up with all our telephone calls, mail etc as a result the mind is kept very busy and the mind may take quite some time to settle down. At the subconscious level all these tensions and stresses can surface leading to anxiety. Many have said a vague feeling or dread, something not going right, waking up in the middle of the night in sweat, not knowing how to go about it, panicking. Though they are unable to tell the reason for it. What one needs to tell is. So what to do is have a good bedtime routine Close down all your personal, professional related activities. A good couple of hours before you fall asleep make sure there is no bright or flickering light that can interfere in your falling asleep, nor any unnecessary sounds that can cause your brain to stay awake. Practice some meditations, relaxation exercises, peaceful visualizations which can cause you to slowly drift off to sleep. This way you can avoid night time anxieties san panics during the night so that you can have a good night’s sleep.