Struggling to fall asleep because your mind is running through your day? Looking to calm your thoughts but need something mundane to focus upon? Everyone struggles with insomnia for one reason or another from time to time, and finding something to calm your mind and influence sleep can be a challenge.
Often, if you need something to focus upon, finding something that is boring and soothing can be the answer you need to help you fall asleep. Take a look at our suggestions listed below to provide the boring things you need to help you fall asleep.
You might want to check: How to Fall Asleep Faster
Why Sleep Is So Important
When you sleep your body cycles through various sleep stages to help your body physically and mentally heal. A lower heart rate, respirations, and body temperature all provide the means to allow important processes to occur that helps store memories and influence comprehension, heal physical ailments, and support the immune system.
Without enough sleep, you can suffer from sleep deprivation. This weakens the body physically, as well as mentally, and can create problems with learning, underranding, speaking, and even body control. With chronic sleep deprivation, it can even affect heart health, bring on genetic dispositions of diabetes, and exasperate chronic conditions.
You might want to read: How to Fall Asleep When You’re Not Tired
Reasons You Might Struggle To Sleep
Insomnia, defined as problems falling asleep or staying asleep, can be caused by many different things – some that may be fleeting, and others that may be more chronic in nature.
Stress, Anxiety, and Depression
Stress, anxiety, and depression, whether sporadic or chronic can both cause insomnia, and be caused by insomnia. These issues can cause hormonal issues, create problems with focus, and interrupt daily processes. Adding healthy practices, such as a supportive diet, meditation, and consultation with doctors concerning these issues can help alleviate them.
Irregular Sleep Schedules
Not having a good sleep schedule will disrupt your natural circadian rhythm, and create imbalances that work against natural sleep hormones. Also, napping through a day can trick the body and mind, or interrupt the sleep cycle enough to create insomnia. Try to rise each morning, and go to bed each night at the same time to create a schedule your body will begin to recognize.
Lifestyle Choices
What you eat and drink can affect your body. Alcohol, nicotine, drugs, sugar and other sensitivities in certain foods can create issues that simulate the brain and body. Also, when you exercise can be influential to sleep, and raise feel good hormones that may energize, rather than tire you out. Avoid stimulating foods at least 3 hours before bed, or more if needed. Also, if you feel exercise is creating problems, try changing your workout schedule.
Illness, Pain, and Medication
Illnesses and pain, whether temporary or chronic, can keep you from falling asleep. Medications to treat this, or for other conditions also can change how your body recognizes sleep signals in your body, or may work to keep you awake. Speaking with a healthcare professional can often help you find a solution if you feel this is a problem. Just never take yourself off a prescription medicine without first consulting a doctor.
Sleep Disorders
There are true sleep disorders people suffer from, and if you have tried to narrow down your issues with no lasting result occurring, you may be suffering from a disorder such as sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. There are others as well, but all require a healthcare professional to diagnose upon which they will work with you to alleviate the problem.
Boring Things to Influence Sleep
No matter what the reasoning is, if you have problems falling asleep, there are some other helpful steps you can take – and one of them is focusing on the boring and mundane to help slow your thought process and help you relax. Take a look at some of these suggestions that might just work to make staying awake so boring, you can’t help but to fall asleep.
Turn off the Phone
Much of our distractions these days come from a phone or tablet screen. The problem with this is not only do they provide a constant distraction for the brain to focus on, it also emits blue light that tricks the brain into thinking it is daylight, and influencing wakefulness.
Listen to Pink Noise
Pink noise, or other ‘color’ noises provide a consistent sonic hue that works to block outside noises and soothe the mind. Pink noise in particular is a low frequency option that is reminiscent of nature sounds – such as steady rain, water, wind, or heartbeats.
Write a To-Do List
If you feel the need to do something rather than just lie there, try making to do lists. Nothing is more boring than trying to plan out what you need to do on a day to day basis. The monotonous task and trying to focus on such a plan that may change from hour to hour is hardly exciting or stimulating and can help you relax and decide putting something so boring away for sleep is the preferable choice. Try combining your making of a list with pink noise to make it even more calming.
Read Boring Prose
There are many readings you can pick up that will create a monotonous task to help you fall asleep. Research texts, some poetry, scientific studies, or similar might be used, but often you need something that you can easily understand, even if it is hardly exciting to read. Because of this, there are publications specifically for this that you can search for to create a consistent, understandable, but boring reading.
Intentionally Boring Podcasts
Like the intentionally boring prose, there are intentionally boring podcasts you can take advantage of as well. These boring subjects are explored in a very monotone manner, creating the means for you to focus on something while you relax and drift off to sleep. These are available in apps for download and often provide an automatic off so avoid reawakening you upon its completion.
Boring Videos
If you truly need something more to focus upon, boring, unstimulating videos are also available. These are not at all visually stimulating, are consistently monotone in nature, and explore incredible boring materials. Just be sure to set your television or screen to turn off to avoid something else from playing when it is finished.
You might be interested in: 45 Sleep Tips That Will Make You Fall Asleep
Conclusion
Of course, combining some healthier nighttime choices, or seeking help from a healthcare professional with these suggestions can make them that much more effective. Many times our own problems with falling asleep are easy to fix with a few simple changes as long as there is no underlying problem or medication.
However, everyone struggles with insomnia from time to time, and doing something that allows the brain and body to relax while you focus on a task can be helpful. These suggestions are a great way to help you find a boring, mundane task to influence sleep when you are struggling to fall asleep.
Photo credit: fizkes/Shutterstock; Damir Khabirov/Shutterstock;
Grustock/Shutterstock; Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock;
gpointstudio/Shutterstock; NT_Studio/Shutterstock;
Cozine/Shutterstock; Juan Brian Diaz Hernandez/Shutterstock