Relaxation: techniques and exercises for better sleep. Effective methods to help you calm down and fall asleep How to relax your brain before bed so you can get a good night's sleep

1. It is best to do this exercise in bed, but if this is not possible, you need to choose a quiet place where there are no distractions such as a phone, TV or computer.
2. Make yourself comfortable. Make sure nothing gets in your way, including tight or uncomfortable clothing. However, if you have already chosen suitable clothes for sleeping, there will be no difficulties with this.
3. You may fall asleep while doing this exercise.. Therefore, check if you are ready for bed. It will be a shame if, having completely relaxed and almost fallen asleep, you suddenly remember that you need to turn off the light, close the door or charge your phone.
4. Close your eyes.
5. Start breathing slowly and deeply.
6. Relax your jaw. Surely after a hard day the tension remained in her.
7. Relax your face. Every muscle of his. The mouth may be slightly open.
8. Imagine how your difficulties and problems leave you. For example, you can represent them in the form soap bubbles or clouds that fly into the sky.
9. Consistently tense and then relax all the muscles in your body. Start with your toes and gradually work your way up to your face. The muscles need to be tensed quite strongly and held for approximately 8 seconds. Then gradually relax. Try to work only with the selected muscle group. For example, if you focus your attention on your thighs, check to see if this is causing tension in your stomach or face.
10. Approximate sequence:

• Right foot
• Right shin
• Whole right leg
• Left foot
• Left shin
• Whole left leg
• Right hand
• Right forearm
• Whole right hand
• Left hand
• Left forearm
• Whole left hand
• Stomach
• Breast
• Neck and shoulders

11.As you perform the exercise, imagine the tension flowing out of each muscle group. You can come up with any suitable image to visualize this process. For example, imagine how the tension turns into a cloud and rises high, high into the sky.

12.As you concentrate on each muscle group, create sensations of warmth, heaviness, and relaxation.

13.Remember to keep your jaw and entire face completely relaxed.

Don't overexert yourself! And don't get angry if things don't work out. Let not only your body relax, but also your mind. If you are good at visualization, imagine quiet and peaceful landscapes. Beautiful garden, sea, snow-capped mountains...

If you do not fall asleep after completing the exercise and want to get up, first take a few deep breaths, open your eyes and get up slowly.

This exercise can be done with relaxing music or special audio programs.

Knowing how to calm down before bed is something everyone needs. But most often there are three categories of patients: women, elderly people, children. Adults can master complex auto-training and self-relaxation techniques. It is important to accustom children to a daily routine and limit all types of activities associated with emotional arousal 4 hours before bedtime. Let's take a short overview of relaxation methods suitable for adults and children.

According to statistics, about 60% of adult Russians have sleep disorders. Stress, difficulties at work, the economic crisis, life in a dense information flow come into conflict with our biological settings. Adults cannot escape emotionally from the busy rhythm of life and spend precious night hours not on sleep, but on experiences associated with the past or future.

Russians compensate for their inability to calm their nervous system by actively consuming sleeping pills. In our country, sleeping pills are taken 20 times more often than in the West.

The most dangerous thing is that people tend to buy these drugs without a doctor's prescription and without competent research into the problems causing insomnia. The consequences of uncontrolled use can be very dangerous: for example, if a patient suffering from apnea, not knowing his diagnosis, buys a strong sleeping pill without consulting a doctor, he can die from respiratory arrest.

It's time to learn how to fall asleep without medications.

Advantages of drug-free methods:

• are not addictive;
• no harm to health with long-term use;
• death is excluded;
• the patient works with the cause of the problem - emotional and mental stress;
• these methods really help.

Such techniques are not suitable for everyone: you will have to study specially. You will need to set aside special time for these procedures in your daily routine. It's not easy because the hardest thing is changing your lifestyle.

With the invention of electric lighting, adults prefer to extend the active part of the day and minimize the unproductive part of the day. However, health problems caused by chronic lack of sleep are forcing many to reconsider their daily routine.

According to the latest scientific research, during sleep the brain analyzes the functioning of internal organs and reconfigures all systems, helping to maintain health. Conversely, chronic lack of sleep - as little as one hour a day - causes weakened immunity, adverse changes in blood pressure and metabolic disorders.

Many people decide to sleep more and go to bed earlier, but this does not help. Going to bed does not mean falling asleep immediately. What can you do to ensure that the desired sleep comes as soon as possible? How to master relaxation before bed?

Calm down with aromatherapy. Relax your muscles in a warm bath. Ask your partner for a gentle massage. Yoga or breathing exercises give excellent results.

How can a little person relax before bed? Problems falling asleep in children preschool age are most often associated with overexcitation of the nervous system; among teenagers, the use of gadgets until late at night and the psycho-emotional stress associated with studying at school come to the fore.

The parents' position must be firm: if the child cannot fall asleep for a long time, at least 4 hours before bedtime, all sources of emotional stimulation must be removed: TV, computer, telephone.

Teach your baby to relax before bed. In this situation, reading aloud the book by Swedish psychologists Karl-Johan and Forssen Erlin “The Rabbit Who Wants to Sleep” is very useful.

Together with Roger Rabbit, children will learn to calm down and relax:

This publication will help put preschoolers and primary school children to sleep.

You can do it on your own: compose your own “sleepy” fairy tale, teach your child to consistently relax his muscles.

It will be easier to fall asleep if you take a short evening walk.

Talk about what is bothering your son or daughter, tell him how you can solve the difficulties that have arisen.

You can take a bath in a bath with an infusion of soothing herbs, or have a relaxing massage.

The main thing is to pay attention to the psycho-emotional state of the little person. Let the baby feel that he is not alone, he is loved, he is safe and any problems can be solved.

Contents of the article

The modern pace of life keeps a person in constant tension. It happens that daily worries, responsibilities and demands do not go away even at night. Then rest does not bring satisfaction and does not restore strength.

How to calm down before bed? Start getting enough sleep? In this article you will find answers to many questions related to sleep. In addition, we accompanied each solution with a simple recipe or effective exercise.

What are the causes of poor sleep?

Perhaps sleep problems begin long before a person goes to bed. Or the reasons are hidden directly in the bedroom. Let's consider different options, and perhaps you will find yours.

Unable to stop anxious thoughts

The constant search for a solution to a particular problem can become even more active in the evening. There are no distractions in bed before going to bed. It would seem that it’s time to pay attention to pressing problems and think about them well.

But thoughts jump from one to another, daytime grievances and misunderstandings are remembered, but there are still no productive solutions. And the result in the morning is weakness and irritation. Especially for those who managed to get enough sleep. Do these lucky people have no problems?

The thing is that our mind distributes energy throughout the day. Where there is a problem, energy is released there. But often a person does not spend it where it is needed.

For example, the boss makes unreasonable demands. Reason provides resources to deal with injustice and make the situation comfortable. But the person “swallows” the offense and does nothing. However, unspent energy continues to remind itself again and again, fueling the endless “search for a solution.” To achieve relaxation before bed, you need to relieve tension and calm your mind.

The bedroom is uncomfortable

Create a cozy atmosphere - open the window for ventilation, turn off all the lights and TV

It is very important to go to bed to rest not only good mood, but also into a bed that is really comfortable. Before going to bed, the room should be well ventilated (if possible, open the window at night). Blanket, pillows, mattress, bed sheets, soft light - everything should create harmony and delight with comfort and freshness.

Poor nutrition

Late dinner, an abundance of fried, spicy food contradict the idea of ​​healthy sleep. Not only heartburn, but also just heaviness after the last meal can make night rest uncomfortable.

It is advisable to avoid meat, alcoholic beverages, hot sauces and ketchup during dinner. It is better to give preference to light carbohydrate and dairy products.

No movement

It happens that people are prevented from relaxing by their passivity. For example, as a result of sedentary work in the absence of a craving for sports and movement exclusively in a car. Constant “stagnation” in the body causes discomfort: somewhere in the bed it starts to hurt, somewhere itchy, etc. And instead of the expected relaxation before bedtime, only irritation comes.

Walking before bed will help you sleep well

Those who don't like gyms will benefit from the habit of evening exercise. A walk before bed not only accelerates the blood, cleanses the body, but also improves your health by feeding it with oxygen. Unfortunately, many (except dog owners, of course) have forgotten about this wonderful tradition.

On the other hand, too active activities immediately before bedtime invigorate, making it difficult to fall asleep.

Recipes for soothing herbal infusions

If sleep problems are persistent, then natural remedies will come to the rescue:

• St. John's wort herb not only calms, but also eliminates anxious feelings;
• lemon balm lowers heart rate, normalizes blood pressure and perfectly relieves nervousness;
• mint in small dosage calms;
• motherwort, valerian have a strong effect, helping to quickly cope with irritation and insomnia;
• Creeping thyme has a calming and mild hypnotic effect.

To sleep soundly throughout the night, you should take an infusion of the herb before or shortly before bed, choosing the dosage carefully.

Mint and valerian in large quantities are invigorating, but lemon balm, wormwood and oregano are undesirable during pregnancy.

Many herbal infusions can be purchased at a pharmacy and follow a doctor's prescription or instructions. At the same time, it is believed that herbal drinks prepared at home are tastier, more effective and healthy. Let's look at a few of the most popular recipes.

1. To obtain an infusion of valerian, the roots of the plant are poured with cold water and infused for 5 hours. To prepare the decoction, 1 tbsp. roots are boiled over low heat in 200 ml. water, then infuse for 2 hours. Valerian should be taken 1 tbsp. 3 times during the day.
2. You don’t have to prepare chamomile, mint and lemon balm separately, but add a little to the tea while brewing. By adding a spoon of honey, the drink will become even healthier and tastier.
3. Another plant that helps cope with insomnia is black thyme. The decoction is easy to prepare: just pour 40 grams. two glasses of boiling water and leave for 2 hours. The resulting drink should be taken in 4 doses, 100 g each.
4. If you cannot take motherwort alcohol tincture, you can use the decoction recipe: 2 tbsp. pour a glass of boiling water over the herbs. After the drink has cooled, it can already be taken.

Tinctures and herbal decoctions help relax before bed, but it is worth remembering that many of them are contraindicated for long-term use. Therefore, let's consider other ways to relax.

For centuries, our ancestors used these simple methods to live harmoniously: to be more alert during the day, to sleep soundly at night. Of course, not all of them are suitable to modern man(for example, looking at a fire, walking in the forest, doing handicrafts), but some are still relevant.

• pillow forsleep. It has long been noted that under the influence of aromatherapy a person quickly calms down. To fall asleep faster, you can make a simple pillow filled with herbs. To do this, put hop cones, mint leaves, St. John's wort, thyme, chamomile flowers, lavender, valerian roots and other herbs into a bag (or pillowcase). It is not necessary to place your head on such a pillow; it is enough to place it next to it on the bed.
• Milk with poppy seeds. A simple and tasty drink has a slight sedative effect. To prepare it, you need to heat a glass of milk with a spoonful of poppy seeds over low heat. Drink before going to bed, adding a spoonful of honey.
• Beet juice not only perfectly cleanses the body, but also has a beneficial effect on the nervous system, calms and fills it with vitamins. True, drinking concentrated fresh squeezed juice in large quantities is harmful; it must be mixed in a 50/50 ratio with carrot juice or diluted with water.

Exercise before bed

There are many gymnastics to start the day and end it. The more active the exercise, the longer the gap between exercise and going to bed should be. Some techniques can be used while lying in bed. For example, « corpse pose ». No matter how funny its name may sound, at the end of a hard day of work this exercise is indeed very effective.

All you need to do is lie comfortably on your back and relax. It will take a little time to relieve tension from all muscles:

• first relax your feet, then your calves, thighs;
• feel your hands fill with warmth, your arms and shoulders become heavy and relax;
• after that you need to calm the muscles of the abdomen, chest, neck, filling them with warmth;
• last of all, the muscles of the forehead, around the mouth, eyes, and cheeks relax. If this is not easy, you should stroke these parts of the body with your palm and completely relax again.

Yoga is a great pre-bedtime activity. One of the complexes, “Eye of Revival,” is perfect for daily practice and takes only 15 minutes. The morning part of the complex concentrates energy, while the evening part calms and promotes relaxation of the whole body.

"Inhale-exhale." This simple technique will help you achieve results in just 1 minute. To perform it, you need to tense all the muscles of the body while inhaling, stay in this state, and while exhaling slowly, relax. Do as many times as necessary.

Medicines

In the fight against depression and insomnia, sometimes you have to resort to “serious artillery” - remedies prescribed by your doctor. Some medications can only be purchased with a prescription, but many are available over the counter.

When choosing a sedative, you should first give preference to mild herbal preparations (Novo-Passit, Dormiplant, Persen, Relaxil, Alvogen Relax, Neuroplant, Notta, Negrustin, Florised, Deprim, Sedafiton, Levana IS, etc.). They help you sleep if there are no serious health problems.

Among strong sedatives, homeopathic medicines are preferable. Just like herbal ones, they can be obtained without a prescription:

• Tenoten;
• NervoHeel;
• Leovit,
• Calm down;
• Gelarium;
• Neurosed et al.

Independently purchasing other potent sedatives, without a doctor’s recommendation, is undesirable for many reasons. Sedatives:

• may have serious side effects (on the liver, kidneys, cardiac system);
• cause inhibition, slow down reactions (especially important in production and for transport drivers);
• cause drowsiness and reduce performance.

Before purchasing anything serious from a number of medications, you can try a few more methods based on psychosomatics.

Relaxation techniques are effective when they directly target the cause of high tension before bed.

1. Forgiveness technique allows you to relieve increased anxiety associated with grievances and unjustified expectations. A sincere desire to let go and allow each person to be themselves, refusing to control the actions of others, forgiving oneself for some misdeeds (happens to everyone!) frees the body and mind from old blocks. You may need to perform this technique more than once to get results.
2. Technique for liberating consciousness. This exercise is effective if you need to stop the endless cycle of thoughts that prevents you from falling asleep. You need to close your eyes, try to relax and imagine how thoughts, like clouds, float past your head. To do it correctly will help to realize that we ourselves decide what to think about and what not to think about.
3. Visualization – A simple way to distract yourself from heavy thoughts that prevent you from falling asleep. You need to get ready for bed, lie down comfortably, close your eyes and imagine something very pleasant for yourself. For example, a garden with flowering trees or little puppies playing at your feet, the light that comes from heaven cleanses and fills you with strength and tranquility. If you feel heavy, imagine yourself on the top of a mountain: a white light cloud descends from above, washes away all the heaviness from the body, taking it for itself, and flies down to rain, then the next cloud... until a feeling of purity and lightness comes.
4. Meditations. You can find it freely available online a large number of audio recordings that are created specifically to harmonize consciousness and eliminate the causes of insomnia.

Other methods: remote constellations, holotropic breathing, NLP, various techniques that combine these areas help not only to identify the problem, but also to eliminate it.

Some more good ways to cope with stress

If the services of a psychologist and medications can become additional costs in the family budget, then the following methods are simple and accessible.

• A bath with pleasant aromas or infusions of soothing herbs. It is very pleasant to relax, lying in silky warm water, inhaling the relaxing notes of your favorite aromas. But, if you are short on time, then a simple shower will also be very effective.
• Reading a book or listening to relaxing music in bed before bed will help you fall asleep much faster. True, if the book is unfamiliar and very interesting, then this threatens, on the contrary, to turn into a sleepless night (you need to read to the end). Therefore, as in the case of a film, you should carefully consider the choice of book genre.
• Games with words and numbers. The main goal of such an activity is to distract and tire the already tired brain of the day to sleep. A simple repetition of the multiplication table and slightly more complex tasks will do. For example, name several animals using letters of the alphabet. “A” – alpaca, antelope, shark, “B” – ram, badger, buffalo... etc.

All the methods collected in this article serve one good purpose - to make a person healthier and happier. To do this, you need to decide to change something in your life so that you can start waking up in the morning in a cheerful and joyful mood again. Good luck and happiness to you on this path!

Many people today are interested in how to relax before bed. It happened that after a hard day you would finally lie down in bed and be glad that at least for a few hours you could take a break from all this endless stream of affairs and worries. You close your eyes. But that was not the case. Your heart is pounding, your head is filled with thoughts and worries, some plans for tomorrow unfold slowly and sluggishly, unpleasant experiences pop up, and in general, you can’t fall asleep. And so for several hours (well, if not until dawn!) you toss and turn, cursing everything in the world, and then, naturally, you don’t get enough sleep and enter the new day in an even more depressed and clearly unrested state. This is our reality, the reality of city dwellers in the 21st century, who do not sit idly by, but are constantly busy with something, even if you don’t have your own business, but just the usual to-do list of a hired family worker. Stress catches up with everyone and spares no one. This does not mean, however, that you cannot cope with this terrible beast and sleep peacefully like a baby.

How to relax before bed? That's the question, you say. Everything about the reasons is clear. But how to do that? It should, of course, be noted that relaxation before bed occurs individually for each person. To a large extent, how you relax, and how quickly it happens, depends on your daily habits, on your metabolism, on whether you consume stimulants during the day - coffee and tobacco (probably not even worth mentioning how much these substances interfere with healthy sleep). And also from your physiological and psychological characteristics and various external factors, for example, at what temperature you sleep, is the room ventilated, what is the noise level, and the like.

The main thing that a person must be able to do in order to become a master of his own world and the master of his life is to be able to pull himself together in any situation, to think soberly and clearly. And find solutions that are optimal for yourself, and not be guided by other people’s advice from the Internet and absorb other people’s mistakes along with useful experience. This principle is probably the most important thing that I learned in Konstantin Dovlatov’s “100 days” courses. I now apply it to all areas of my life. The tips that I give below have helped me personally, and I have developed them for myself. However, since I consider myself an absolutely ordinary and normal person, not significantly different from others, I believe that they will suit you too. So let's get started.

Methods

Firstly, since the issue of calm, relaxed falling asleep directly relates to the body (this is one of its two natural modes of existence), it makes sense to start working with the body. I recommend that you try to start doing physical exercises, which should be done about one to two hours before you go to bed. In this case, of course, the exercises needed are not forceful ones, but calm ones, aimed at muscle relaxation. In my experience, muscle stretching exercises are excellent, causing that very pleasant relaxation that helps so well to quickly fall asleep.

Here is one set of exercises you can do:

To begin, lie down on the floor and relax. After this, take turns raising your straightened legs to a distance of about 15 centimeters from the floor. Hold them in this position for 10-12 seconds. Next, tighten your pelvic muscles, hold them for 10 seconds, and then relax. Repeat the exercise 10 times. Next, clench your hands into fists and raise them to the same 15 centimeters above the floor. Hold them tense for 10-15 seconds, then lower and completely relax your arms. This exercise can also be repeated 10 times or until you feel enough. Next, fold your palms in front of your chest, as if in prayer, and begin to press on your chest one by one - first with one hand, then with the other. Next, try to bend your back as far as possible, bringing your shoulder blades together (as close as you can do it), and also stay in a tense state for 10-12 seconds, then relax and repeat 10 times in a row. Last exercise: from a lying position, raise your shoulders as high as possible, hold them there for 10 seconds, then relax, also repeat 10 times. Finally, tense the muscles throughout your body for 10 seconds, relax, repeat 10 times. You will feel pleasantly tired, and you may even feel welcome sleepiness. Now you just need to go to bed.

To consolidate the effect after these exercises, you should take a hot bath or shower. For a 100% effect, the bath can be combined with aromatherapy using oils or aroma sticks. It is recommended to wait at least 45 minutes between bathing and going to bed.

other methods

Also in good ways How to relax before bed are meditation and breathing practices. Your breathing should be deep and even. Exhale all the negativity accumulated during the day through your mouth, inhale through your nose, using your stomach, drawing in the energy of positivity and relaxation. Candles and music for relaxation will be a great help here. Affirmation also works well: repeating to yourself the phrase “I really want to sleep” at the same evening time every day. Develop a reflex in your body to this phrase.

You can also relax right in bed. Once you are comfortable, in a position that is optimal for you, begin to relax. Slowly, one muscle at a time, starting with your toes, relax and let the pleasant warm wave cover you. Remember to relax the muscles of your face and head. After this, surrender to the flow and let it take you to the long-awaited kingdom of Morpheus.

A little meditation before bed is also very helpful. You can spend about 20 minutes on it. The benefits from it will be invaluable, not only for your relaxation before bed, but also for your overall spiritual development and understanding of yourself, your motivations and reactions. Cleansing your head on a periodic basis is a very beneficial practice, especially when combined with physical exercise, proper nutrition and giving up bad habits.

Meditation is performed like this: sit in a comfortable position, without touching anything with your head and back, relax, close your eyes. Start observing your breathing. Don’t do anything artificial with it, just as you breathe, let it breathe. Deeply or often, with difficulty or easily. The most important thing is to completely focus all your attention on your breathing, on the nostril area. There is nothing but inhalation and exhalation. Thoughts, experiences of the past day, images from the past, a desire to scratch will come to you - do not pay attention to anything. Just watch your breathing. You are the breath. When you learn to quickly and easily concentrate and enter this state, even a short meditation of this kind will have a truly healing, relaxing and beneficial effect.

Results

This article describes several ways to relax before bed. I figured them all out for myself intuitively after attending Konstantin Dovlatov’s “100 days” courses. This program greatly helps to unlock your inner intuitive potential. You yourself select a ready-made solution for the necessary issues, focusing on the advice of a professional psychologist. I recommend these courses to everyone, because they helped not only me, but also many of my friends and acquaintances who came with completely different problems and requests. Each of us ultimately received real help, boundless love and support. And this is exactly what is needed so that we can take that very first step towards ourselves! Discover in your personality the focus of true peace and wisdom in the continuous movement of the flow of life.