A psychologist identified the main factor that can obstruct sleep and explained how to resolve it in just 15 minutes.
In a recent post for CNBC, Aric Prather, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, discussed how to enhance one’s sleep.
In his article, he disclosed that after conducting years of research, he has discovered that the main factor contributing to restless nights is rumination. He claims that his personal capacity to fall asleep has been impacted by worrying at night.
Your focus is continually brought back to anything that didn’t go well or to a regret, she wrote. Even if the person I said it to probably forgot about it a short while afterwards, I have lied in bed and replayed a stupid comment I made at a party.
He recognised that ruminating cannot be stopped by a “magic switch,” but there are techniques to stop it at night. For instance, he claimed that since “you have essential tasks” to attend to, you can’t “get caught up in mental loops,” “during the day” is the greatest time to worry.
This idea is related to Prather’s first piece of guidance, which is to devote 15 minutes in “the mid-to late-afternoon” to concentrating on “emotional anxiety.” He also emphasised the value of spending this time alone.
Give yourself permission to focus on just one issue at a time once the timer starts, he said. “Consider it like a to-do list that you go through one by one, but the items you’re crossing off are the subjects that give you the greatest worry.”
When asked what to do if you find yourself worried after those 15 minutes, the psychologist responded, “Tell yourself: ‘Look, I just need to postpone this till the next emotional worry time.'” If your problems resurface at night, use the same strategy: “I have this scheduled for tomorrow.”
He said that people will notice themselves ruminating less and less at night if they have “emotional worry” time two to three times a week.
Prather advised readers to engage in “constructive worrying,” which entails making one “Problems” and one “Solutions” column on a piece of paper, as his second 15-minute technique. You can choose which of the “present challenges you’re dealing with” are most likely to keep you up at night by making a list of them.
You can list the following “one or two actions” for resolving your problems on paper in the “Solutions” field.
Remember, the objective is to outline a strategy for getting started with concrete measures for tomorrow or the coming few days, he added. “You are not fully resolving it,”
At the conclusion of the ritual, he advised folding the paper and setting it beside your bed before reminding yourself that you “have a plan.”
Although he acknowledged that his counsel “may sound stupid,” he emphasised its advantages, saying that because “you’ve already spent focused attention on these problems,” you can stop worrying about them at night.
Prather has been approached by The Independent for comment.
Not just Prather’s study has demonstrated how crucial getting adequate sleep is. Researchers evaluated self-reported sleep duration data from over 8,000 adults, recorded at ages 50, 60, and 70, in a study published in the journal Plos Medicine last month.
Researchers discovered that, compared to those who slept seven hours, persons who slept five hours or less at the age of 50 had a 30% higher risk of acquiring two or more chronic diseases over a 25-year period. When compared to those who slept seven hours a night, people over the age of 60 who slept five hours or less had a 32% higher risk.
In comparison to those who slept for seven hours or more, 70-year-olds who obtained five hours or less of sleep had a 40% higher chance of developing chronic diseases.
Related Post: https://vortexunited.com/a-practical-approach-to-handling-anxiety
For more information visit: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works
