Quality sleep is necessary for everyone. It allows us to recharge and wake up fresh and alert. However, it’s not uncommon for people to go to bed and find themselves tossing, turning, and overthinking rather than drifting off to slumber. Psychotherapist, Terence Watts, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He assists people when it comes to handling anxiety, stress, addictions, phobias, and similar challenges. He has shared two methods that should lead to a restful slumber.
The Importance of Quality Sleep
Sleeping every night is a necessity as it helps the human body recharge and maintain proper functioning. It’s beneficial for one’s immune system and ability to stave off diseases. After a proper evening’s rest, our brains become alert and ready to process at normal speeds once more. Poor sleep can lead to irritability and drastically affect people’s moods. There isn’t a single system that sleeping doesn’t have an effect on, which is why we need to do our best to provide ourselves with quality slumber every night.
Battling a Restless Mind
For many people, sleeping isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Once the head makes contact with the pillow, it becomes difficult to get your brain to calm down and stop thinking. One might start recounting all the things they must accomplish at work the following morning, obsessing over unimportant situations, or worrying about something someone said that day. For some people, a restless mind can keep them up for hours. According to Watts, there are methods to combat this.
The First Method
Visualize that you’re getting into an elevator in a skyscraper and the display shows floor 300. Press the button for the ground level and imagine the sensation of the elevator starting to move downward. Imagine seeing the numbers on the display going down as you count down along with it in your mind. By the time you’ve reached the ground floor, you will likely already have drifted off to sleep.
The Second Method
If the elevator trick didn’t work, try to visualize being in a crowded department store. There are hundreds of people carrying items around you, carrying items to the register. The atmosphere is noisy and hot, and you want to get out of there. You push your way through the crowd to an escalator and step onto it to go down. The lower floor has fewer people. It’s calmer with less shouting and shoving. You wander for a while until you step onto another downward escalator as a sense of calm washes over you. The floor you arrive at is empty and peaceful, with one luxurious bed waiting for you to lie down in and drift off to sleep.