Friday, May 11, 2007

Avoid Tossing and Turning

Tossing and turning is an often experienced phenomenon for most of us. There are nights when we are just not comfortable on the bed and keep tossing and turning all over, all through the night. What bothers us?

Tossing and turning is not a feeling of discomfort, it is actually an offshoot of our mental equilibrium that is not relaxed. Irrespective of our mind wanting us to relax, our bodies want to find a more comfortable spot on the bed, a result of misinterpretation. Relaxation has to come from within you and should be a result of your thought process.

Lying in a hammock on a hot summer day, on a Hawaiian beach would sound very relaxing. If you keep thinking about millions invested on the stock market that could take a beating, if and when it crashes, the hammock will not work wonders in relaxing you.

When you feel the urge to toss and turn on the bed, give it time, wait. It will go away faster than it came. Lie there and think about focusing your mind elsewhere more relaxing than where it was and the urge to toss and turn will be out of your system in about 15 seconds. The best part of this exercise is that you will realize that you need to relax and not try finding a comfortable place on bed.

If you start tossing and turning it becomes a never ending process for the night and will not stop till the morning.

At times when you feel that the urge to toss or turn is very high and you have to move, try it the following way:

  1. Move very slowly, as though you are just getting up from sleep in the morning.
  2. While moving try to smile at yourself and take a deep breath.

Tossing and turning keeps us awake because we tend to do it quickly and impulsively, the more quickly we do it, the more agitated we get. Try it in the way said above, you will feel the difference and probably get out of the habit in no time.

No comments: