This blog contains everything you need to know about how to sleep better with anxiety and restore your circadian rhythm.
Your body needs you to sleep (well) to perform necessary functions that it can’t do while you’re awake. When you’re sleeping, your body takes care of important business, like processing memories, removing toxic waste byproducts, growing and repairing tissue, releasing hormones, and regulating your kidney, metabolic, immune, and cardiovascular functions. If you suffer from a chronic mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression, then you know how much of a challenge it can be not just to fall asleep but to stay asleep. Inadequate sleep has many potential impacts on your body because it disrupts your circadian rhythm. To explain, your circadian rhythm harmonizes vital physiological functions such as your body’s temperature, hormone production, metabolism, and sleep cycles. Hence, when anxiety prevents you from getting proper sleep, these functions become dysregulated.
How To Sleep Better With Anxiety
Step 1- Solidify your bedtime routine
How you spend the few hours before you hit the sheets matters. If you’re using this time to binge Netflix or doom scroll on social media, it’s no surprise you can’t sleep. Stimulating activities such as these send constant signals to your brain that it needs time to process. The result is an overactive psyche that isn’t ready to settle down. Here are our tips on how to solidify an effective bedtime routine:
- Get in and out of bed at the same time each day. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day gets your body into a routine and lets it know when to activate and when to wind down.
- As mentioned above, limit screen time as much as possible in the hours leading up to your established bedtime and at least one hour after you wake up. TV, computer, and phone screens expose you to blue light exposure, further interfering with your sleep-wake cycle.
- Instead, opt for calming activities before bed, such as reading a book, bathing, meditating, or a short living room yoga session.
Step 2- Optimize your sleep environment
Make your bedroom your sleep sanctuary using these tips:
- Our first unassuming tip is to declutter your space. It truly is amazing how much better you feel when your environment promotes order vs. when it promotes chaos.
- Keep it cool. Opt for a room temperature that stays around 65 degrees.
- Make it as dark as possible. Invest in blackout curtains, a sleep mask, or another way to block visible light once you’re lying in bed.
- Consider using a white noise machine if you’re uncomfortable sitting in silence or living in a noisy neighborhood.
- Invest in a quality mattress and pillows.
Step 3- Try these mindfulness exercises
Managing stress and anxiety better while you’re awake will help to deescalate it when it’s time to sleep. Some of our favorite techniques are:
- Box breathing. The best thing about box breathing is that you can do it at any time, from anywhere. Try it now: inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds, repeat.
- Muscle relaxation. Like box breathing, this muscle relaxation exercise can be done anytime. Try it now: Pick one muscle to tense, then slowly relax it. Move to the next muscle and repeat until you’ve covered your entire body from head to toe.
- Guided meditation. Mindful meditation is so commonplace nowadays; you can download dozens of apps on your phone, and a quick YouTube search will do the trick, too. Within these apps, you can even search for sleep-specific meditations.
Step 4- Mind your diet and exercise habits
The food you consume and the amount of physical movement you allow your body matters when it comes to sleeping with anxiety. Think of food as fuel and exercise as the vehicle that drives negative energy out of your body. Both need to be present to dismantle anxiety and, in turn, put that racing mind to rest. Some key factors to keep in mind are:
- Balance your meals. As a general rule, include more foods rich in magnesium and tryptophan, which promote sleep by relaxing your mind.
- Move your body for at least 30 minutes a day. What exercise looks like is completely up to you. Whether you’re doing CrossFit or spending 30 minutes stretching, anything goes. Just be sure to avoid any super energizing workouts right before bedtime.
- This one is a tough one for some. Yet, it’s extremely important to note that high intakes of caffeine and alcohol are large contributors to sleep problems. We know the attachment is real. If it’s too hard to let go of that morning cup of coffee, try a workaround like this premium CBD-infused coffee, which promotes balance and homeostasis in your mind and body while enhancing the effect of the caffeine. Similarly, we recommend exploring a CBD mocktail recipe in exchange for that glass of red wine at the end of a long day to help you wind down.
Step 5- Manage stress and anxiety while you’re awake
The stress you are worried about while awake is the same that prevents you from sleeping at night. Hence, it helps to manage stress proactively rather than reactively. Here are some tips we love:
- Block 30 minutes to one hour per day on your calendar to worry. That’s right- set aside a dedicated period of time each day to do nothing other than tend to your anxiety. Sitting with anxiety is a necessary and often overlooked part of dismantling it and thereby treating its side effects, such as irregular sleep. By doing this, you carve an appropriate space to deposit inevitable worries without letting them intrude on your sleep cycle.
- In between your daily worry appointments with yourself, keep a journal or ongoing note on your phone to deposit any stressful or anxious feelings. Keeping your emotional dumping organized ensures stress and anxiety have an outlet so you can focus on your priorities.
- Go to therapy. This is a tall task, as finding and building a relationship with a therapist can take time. However, if you can get through the hard part and find someone you feel comfortable with, this resource will pay off tenfold when it comes to managing anxiety and improving the quality of your sleep. For beginners, we recommend starting with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which is particularly effective for sleeping better with anxiety.
- Enhance your self-care routine with CBD products. CBD is proven to be a sustainable solution to managing stress and anxiety, as well as regulating sleep patterns. Moreover, it offers other health benefits, such as mood and appetite regulation, boosting energy levels, and pain management, that help keep anxiety at bay. Cloud City advocates for customer transparency and CBD education to guarantee you get the most out of your CBD experience. Visit our downtown Campbell store for a 1:1 consultation with one of our knowledgeable budtenders, who can provide expert recommendations tailored to your individual needs and preferences.
To sleep better with anxiety, you will need to solidify your bedtime routine, prime your sleep environment, and employ mindfulness and stress management techniques. At the same time, when you’re awake, keep healthy habits of managing diet and exercise. These strategies will help improve your sleep patterns and quality, and overall well-being. Cloud City Supply’s premium CBD products speak for themselves and present sustainable solutions for managing both anxiety and better sleep. Browse our sublingual, topical, and edible CBD products and prepare for the best sleep you’ve ever had. Sweet dreams coming right up!
