6 Ways to Clear Your Mind for a Better Sleep
Do you have trouble sleeping? Do you feel like your mind is always preoccupied with something when you’re going to bed? Are you constantly going over things in your head when you’re trying to sleep?
Rest is fundamental for a healthy body and mind. But regardless of how tired we are, sleeping well is not always possible. If stressful thoughts plague your mind or if you’re always preoccupied with the future, it’s hard to achieve a restful sleep.
In order to sleep really well, you have to free your mind of all the thoughts that keep it occupied. Below, we list a few ways to help you do so.
Visualize your thoughts disappearing
If your thoughts keep you from sleeping, try to visualize these thoughts leaving your head. Imagine that there’s a big basket next to your bed into which you throw all the ideas that circulate through your mind. These thought won’t go away completely; they’ll just stay there waiting until the next morning.
Meditate
Regular meditation has many benefits, including better sleep and a more peaceful mind. Meditating daily will help you to slow down the rush of thoughts that plague you at night. Meditate by concentrating on your breathing to relax your mind and body. This will leave you ready to go to sleep.
Tell yourself you’ll think about it later
Thoughts that plague us at night are like little children that want attention. Just like little children, these thoughts are persistent. It’s as if they are afraid of being forgotten or ignored.
If you have recurring thoughts, promise yourself that you’ll return to them tomorrow, that you won’t forget about them, and that you’ll give them all the attention they need. The next point shows how you can make it clear that you will keep your promise.
Write down your thoughts
When we don’t have an outlet for our thoughts, they stay there in the mind, spinning around. You have to let them flow so that they can leave your head. One way to do that is to write down all of these thoughts.
Sometimes they’re about simple things like something you have to do the next day that you don’t want to forget. Or it could be related to work, an idea for a project that you want to start, or a change that you want to make. But they could also be about an emotion that you need to express, like a certain pain that you feel over something that’s happening to you.
Whatever it is, don’t let these thoughts keep you from falling asleep. Write them down to set them loose so that they can leave you in peace. Maybe writing them down won’t solve your problems, but giving a little time to the demand they have over your mind will serve to calm you down and relieve stress.
Bedtime habits
Some habits can help us fall asleep, like reading, for example. Reading helps us to clear our minds, to forget about the thoughts that run around in our heads. If you do it frequently, the act of reading in bed will send a message to the brain that bedtime is near, which will help you to fall asleep .
However, using a cellphone or anything with a backlit screen, whether it’s for reading or something else, will make falling asleep harder, so avoid using your cellphone at night.
Mantras
“Mantra” is a word of Sanskrit origin that means “mind” and “liberation.” A mantra could be a syllable, a word, a phrase, or a longer sentence that, upon recitation and repetition, can bring you to a state of deep concentration.
If they’re said deliberately and with attention directed towards the mind, mantras can be very effective. But it’s not enough to just repeat them, you have to focus on their meaning.