A Dutch sleep research (Hersenstichting, 2017) has shown we don’t sleep good enough. We can’t sleep in, use sleep medications and can’t wake up easily. This can lead to both psychical as physical health problems. So we should do something about it! We would like to help you sleep better with these tips.

Daily activities
What you do in a day has an effect on how well you sleep. Make sure you have the right balance of work and relaxation. When you haven’t been that active during the day, you won’t be tired during the night. So if you feel you haven’t been as active, you could add a work out to your day.
But also when you don’t rest in between work, your body will react. You will feel tired during the day and restless during nights. So don’t forget to take breaks, go for a walk, stretch, read a book, watch tv or do some mindfulness exercises.

Routine
You body has a circadian rhythm, which is a brain structure that regulates sleeping and waking. Irregular sleeping times can disturb the sleeping- and waking system, which prevents you from falling asleep. So try to set regular sleeping times so that your circadian rhythm can stabilize. In the weekends you can sleep in a little, but no more than 1,5 hours.
Don’t be active before you go to sleep and avoid caffeine. Avoid screens like the television, laptop or mobile phone. If that doesn’t work for you, at least dim the screens.

Worrying at night
Do you often worry about something during the night which stops you from falling asleep? Then plan a moment to worry before bed. Write down all your problems and find solutions for them. Write down the pros and cons of these solutions and decide which one is the best. Try not to worry anymore after this. However, if worries come up, take the time to write them down before you try to sleep again.  

The bedroom
Use your bedroom only for sleeping. Leave the bedroom if you can’t fall asleep and come back when you feel sleepy or keep a time in mind you want to get back.
Also little adjustments can help you fall asleep easier. For example the lighting, because your body can’t make melatonin in a light room. Melatonin is a hormone which makes you feel sleepy. So keep your room as dark as possible! Also noise can keep you awake. So buy earbuds if you live in a noisy environment. The room’s temperature should be around 17 degrees Celsius and also ventilation is needed for a good night sleep.

A vicious circle
If you experienced insomnia for a longer time, you can get restless and anxious. This unrest can stop you from falling asleep, which then again makes the unrest worse. You get stuck in a vicious circle and it’s hard to get out.
So try to stay positive after some bad nights of sleep and don’t make the problem worse as it is. Well, you didn’t sleep well this night, but that doesn’t mean your day is worth nothing. Make the most of it!

Goal: Activate the ‘Sleep Goal’ and try to maintain regular sleeping times to stabilize your circadian rhythm.

If you have a mental disorder, and the Sickness Benefit Act starts to apply to you, it is hard to get out of it again. You feel down all day, you do not want to go out, you have no social contacts and (almost) no one will visit you. Simply because you do not feel like it.

But there is going to be a day that it has to change. And this does not mean it ‘has’ to change between now and one or two weeks. Absolutely not! But, after a while you will realise that something needs to done.

Do not set any rules for yourself, that is the only rule I had. If you ‘have’ to do stuff, from either yourself or other people, it will not succeed. Give yourself space to breath.

• An alarm clock! But not for 7AM. In the beginning I started to wake up at 9:30AM, letting myself snooze until 10AM. Slowly I started to put my alarm clock earlier, until I could easily get out of bed around 8:30AM.
• Shower and dress within 2 hours after waking up. Preferably I wore my sweatpants all day, but if I wore jeans with a t-shirt I felt slightly better. And after a while, I also started to wear makeup again.
• Turn off the television, just to avoid escaping reality. It is very easy to forget all of your problems when you are watching television. But sometimes you need to face what is going on.
• Look for a new hobby or pick up an old hobby. Not to forget your problems, but just to enjoy life. Puzzle, paint, knit. Get a new hobby that you normally would not choose. Amaze yourself!
• Go out for groceries everyday, so you will get out more often. If I did not had to go out for food, I would not get out of the house at all. I used to enjoy walking, also when it is cold. But since I did not want to do anything but lie down on the couch, I did not do that anymore. So needing dinner everyday made me leave my couch again.  
• Tell your relatives that you want to change your pattern. They can help you. They can invite you for a cup of tea, or they might even get outside with you. It can be nice to do stuff together.
• Go to the hairdresser, dye your hair. Be crazy! You will feel different.
• Make chore lists. Write down what needs to be done and divide it over the week. You can do two small chores on one day. But when something requires more energy, such as cleaning and making up the bed, one will be good too. Accept it, it is better to do something than to do nothing.
• To-do lists work as well! It gives rest. But put yourself on the list too… And a coffee with a treat, or that movie you wanted to see.

You will see, step by step you will get your life back. Give it some time and trust yourself! No rush, because then you will probably need to start over again and again. Allow yourself to enjoy life again.

This week Racoon with Laugh about it. You got this!

Love, Renée x

You often hear that using your phone/tablet before sleeping is bad for your sleep. Especially young people suffer from a bad night of sleep because of this. They sleep later and  they wake up later, or they didn’t had a restful night sleep because they had to wake up early. A lot of research has been done as to whether the telephone/ tablet usage affects this. But what makes the usage of the devices have a bad influence on your sleeping?

Blue light

If you want a good and restful night of sleep, you better not use the devices with blue light before going to sleep. Because a certain amount of this light shining in your eyes, through the phone or tablet, makes you have to spend more time to fall asleep. This is due to the hormone melatonin, this hormone is a sleep hormone and is very sensitive to light. During the day the production of melatonin decreases, but in the evening it increases. However, light prevents melatonin production. This causes your biological clock to be confused and you will feel less tired, which makes it harder to fall asleep. This blue light isn’t only present in phones and tablets, it also in television and laptops.

Your brain stays active

During the day your brain had a lot of influences of outside and at night you brain wants to process this. A good night of sleep is essential, unfortunately your phone may affect this. Because you’re busy with you phone till late, several parts of your brain will stay active. Your brain has to read, click and type things. These are a lot of activities that your brain has to process during the late evening, after all the things it already had to process. If you’re reading a book, you use less parts of your brain. This means your brain is less active and you fall asleep faster.

What can you do?

Of course, it’s the best to put your phone away during evening, especially in bed. However, some of you may struggle to do so. Here are some tips and things you can try to reduce the effects: 

• If it’s not possible to put your phone away. At least try to turn off your phone an hour before you’re going to sleep. You can read a book instead of using your phone, for example.
• Dim the light of your phone to the minimum.
• An alternative solution can be: blue filter glasses or computer glasses. These glasses will make sure the blue light will not get through the glasses. You can also put your phone on ‘night stand’, if you don’t have it you can download an application.
• Put your phone on airplane mode, or put it on ‘quite’ so you can’t wake up from notifications.

Try to get a good night sleep, because you deserve it!

Hard, rejecting and demanding to yourself, but caring to others. Not allowing yourself to make mistakes, but when others are in the same situation you comfort and encourage them. Does this sound familiar?

Consolation

Perhaps it’s time be more friendly to yourself. Because sometimes you also need comfort and someone who says: “It’s ok, I’m there for you.” That person could be you. That may feel a bit odd, especially if you’re used to degrade yourself if something goes wrong. However, you can develop your comforting side, if you are aware of it and give this side enough attention.

Younger version

You may have never learned to speak to yourself in this way, because you missed someone to learn from. Your younger version has developed or acquired protective patterns that were needed at that time to survive psychologically, but at the moment it may only block your development. Try to find out what the child in you, who maintains this behavior, actually asks for. What do you need?

Break the spiral of negativity

Let the negative thoughts about yourself boil up from your mind and write them down. By giving them attention, you already made a connection with where they came from. Do a reality check and ask yourself the following three things:

• Is this thought true?
• Does this thought make me feel good?
• Does this thought help me achieve my goals?

These questions help you break the spiral of negativity.

An alternative

The next step is to write a positive alternative that makes your negative thought harmless.

• For example, replace the thought: ‘I can’t handle this’ by: ‘I can handle this. It’s a great opportunity to grow. I am a valuable person and have enough power to handle this, but I also understand where this tension comes from. Let it be, it’s okay.‘
• Try to feel these alternative thoughts too, instead of just thinking. Imagine how you would comfort a child, and try to send those feelings of security and affirmation to yourself. Imagine embracing yourself, and replace: ‘I’m powerless and vulnerable’ with: ‘I have control over my safety and well-being.’

Practice

Something that’s so deeply rooted does not change in an instance. The more often you can express yourself as a loving parent, the faster it will become an automatism. So practice as often as possible!