Maybe I should just sing you a lullaby. Would that help? No, probably not. I'm a
psychologist. I want to help you understand how to calm your mind down
before sleep. And then you can do it.
Let's take a look at the 4 main culprits that disturb your sleep and
then we'll come up with a strategy for each one. The four culprits that disturb
sleep the most are alcohol, caffeine, blue light.
I know, surprising, right? And anxiety. That one didn't surprise you. I attended a
professional conference not too long ago with Dr. Preston out of Stanford
University. Dr. Preston shared with us these culprits that disturb our sleep.
And that get in the way particularly with our stage 4 sleep. The deeper levels
of sleep that tend to be restorative. And as he shared these findings, there's
something that we can do about each one of these. Take alcohol for example.
Alcohol has been shown to disturb certain parts of our sleep. Now, this
surprises some people because a lot of people will drink to relax or to help
themselves go to sleep. And it's true that sometimes if you become intoxicated,
you'll just fall asleep at some point. But it disturbs some of the parts of our
sleep that we don't even notice. And that's why it's one of the culprits that
was listed. Dr. Preston suggested that we avoid alcohol as much as possible. Now, I
know that some people drink much more responsibly than others. And please, if
you use alcohol, be very judicious and wise about how you do so. We, know that it
predisposes some people toward addictions. We know that it causes
impaired that can make people unsafe when they're
driving or operating equipment. So, beside all of those things, if we get right down
to the sleeping issue, staying away from alcohol could improve your ability to
fall to sleep and to get the right kind of sleep that you need. It's rare that
you find someone who says, "Oh, I really wish that I could start drinking." No, it
usually goes to the other direction. "I really wish that I could stop" if they're
in an addictive pattern. Let's take a look at that in a very responsible and
mature way as it relates to our sleep. Let's go to caffeine next. Caffeine is a
stimulant and it's obvious why that might interfere with our sleep. Kind of
like alcohol. It has some effects that are unseen. In other words, you might be
able to fall asleep but if you're consuming a lot of caffeine, you might
not get all of the restorative levels of sleep that you need. The suggestion here
is that you limit your caffeine intake to less than 200 milligrams before noon.
Now, you go check your favorite beverages or sources of caffeine and just see what
the milligram count is. This will give you an idea of what we're talking about.
Before noon, really? Yeah, because like a lot of other substances, caffeine has a
half-life. Half-life just means how long does it take to get rid of or
metabolizer or flush out of your system about half of the potency of that
chemical. And the half-life on caffeine has been shown to be about 5 to 6
hours. Wow! So, do the math if you ingest 100 milligrams of caffeine at noon,
you still maybe have the effects of about 50 milligrams floating through
your body at about 6 P-M. And if you're on a regular sleep schedule, you don't
want to have much caffeine in your system as you're trying to go to sleep.
Because that works counter to the processes that will naturally
help you to sleep. A quick word about blue light. This one caught my attention
because I didn't really expect it to happen. But the kinds of light that are
emitted from screens are actually counterproductive when we're trying to
sleep. Our body is wired in this way. There's some organisms in your retina
for example that are tied into your thalamus --one of the glands of your body.
We call it the retina thalamic response. Where certain things are triggered to
either get you more wired up or calm you down for sleep. And different wavelengths
of light have different effects. The findings are showing that the kind of
light that comes out of a screen like a computer, a tablet, a smartphone are the
kinds that are counter-productive toward our sleep. Now, there's things you can do
about this like limiting your screen time before bedtime. You might try a good
old-fashioned book once in a while read by a lamp as opposed to reading
something off of your screen or viewing videos or playing games which have
become more common of course in today's culture in the Information age and the
availability of all of those devices. Limit your screen time. You probably
don't want to have much screen time at all within an hour of going to sleep. See
if that helps and there's also some lenses that can help, glasses that you
can wear that filter out certain wavelengths. Check around and see what
you can find along those lines. That could help as well. Now, let's get to the
last one. Anxiety is probably one of the biggest
culprits to disturbing our sleep. And it's because we can't turn off mind.
Anxiety is something that you can develop some skills to handle in a way
that will allow you to sleep better. In fact, we've got a lot of videos here on
the channel. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on this video about how to
handle anxiety. But when we know that it's one of the major culprits to
disturbing our sleep. This is something you might want to gain some skills to
take on. We've got a 3-day challenge here on the channel about how to become
more positive. I think that one's going to help. We've also put out a video about
how to avoid a nervous breakdown. Check out that one.
Or any of the other titles here around anxiety. It's going to give you some
ideas. Here's the thing: We get really good at whatever we practice. And if your
mind is really accustomed to thinking about things in a way that causes you
anxiety or fear or apprehension, that triggers something in your brain that
prevents sleep. Because that little part of your brain wants to keep you safe. It
doesn't want you to be in danger. And when you feel fear or anxiety, your body
is trying to take care of you to keep you safe. And so it's not going to let you
sleep. That's why this is such an important one to address. I think as you
start to get serious about taking on anxiety, you're going to find it much
easier to sleep and practice it so that you can train your brain to think
differently about the things that are causing that anxiety in the first place.
That will give you a few things to think about. There's plenty to think about,
isn't there? I'm ready to help you out with this. I think the best place to
start would be getting a copy of my book. I'll send it to you for free. You just
pay for the shipping. This sounds like a good plan? Go to the description and
click on DrPaulJenkins.info. That's going to take you right over to my
website. You can go to drPaulJenkins.com. There's a big warning button there
as well. Either ones going to get you there. Let's get that book in your hands and
I'll help you out.