05/03/2016,
According to an INPES * survey, 45% of French people aged 25 to 45 consider that they sleep less than they need. And for good reason, we sleep on average 1 hour 30 minutes less than 50 years ago.
Why ? The culprits are often stress, computer and smartphone screens, poor diet, poor sporting activity …
If you can’t get to sleep, the most important thing is to understand why so that you can deal directly with the cause of the disorder.
However, if you do not know the reason or if it is impossible for you to remedy it, certain exercises that promote falling asleep have been proven.
Breathe well to sleep well
Cardiac coherence breathing
Lying down, eyes closed, take 6 calm, regular breaths per minute for 5 minutes.
You can use this video to practice (but avoid looking at a screen before going to bed!):
The 4-7-8 method
Basically, this method, which works quite well on a large number of people, consists of inhaling deeply for a count of 4, holding your breath to 7 and then exhaling while blowing fully for a count of 8. .
See the full method
Meditation
Some people show a reduction in insomnia through mindful meditation techniques.
Thanks to its relaxing effect, meditation can be an effective solution to overcome difficulty falling asleep when it is caused by stress and anxiety.
If you don’t know meditation techniques, you can use this guided meditation exercise or mobile apps like Calm (ios, Android), Relax Melodies (ios, Android) or Sleep Easily (ios, Android).
Thinking of sleep to sleep?
According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (1), we can encourage our brains to activate the sleep process through words.
Indeed, after spending 5 minutes exposed to vocabulary related to sleep, 47% of study participants showed a significant decrease in their heart rate and took a nap.
This method has been shown to be particularly effective in people with difficulty sleeping.
You can listen to these words, write them down and reread them every night, think about them while closing your eyes …
Yoga
One study (2) found that practicing yoga would improve the quality of sleep in people with chronic insomnia.
Other studies (3) – (5), on the elderly, indicate that the practice of yoga would have a positive effect on their quality of sleep, the time of falling asleep and on the total number of hours of sleep.
Certain yoga postures are particularly conducive to falling asleep. For example, you can follow the advice of columnist Robin Roy in this video:
Good night !
* 2007 INPES / BVA survey
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(1) Mitsuru Shimizu, Jesse J. Sperry, Brett W. Pelham, The effect of subliminal priming on sleep duration, 2013 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jasp.12123/abstract (2) Khalsa SB. Treatment of chronic insomnia with yoga: a preliminary study with sleep-wake diaries. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 2004 Dec; 29 (4): 269-78. (3) Chen KM, Chen MH, et al. Effects of yoga on sleep quality and depression in elders in assisted living facilities. J Nurs Res. 2010; 18 (1): 53-61. (4) Chen KM, Chen MH, et al. Sleep quality, depression state, and health status of older adults after silver yoga exercises: cluster randomized trial. Int J Nurs Stud. 2009; 46 (2): 154-63. (5) Manjunath NK, Telles S. Influence of Yoga and Ayurveda on self-rated sleep in a geriatric population. Indian J Med Res 2005 May; 121 (5): 683-90. |
Photo credit: Ines Bazdar – thinkstock.com
