Fitness: Staying asleep all night is another aspect of sleeping for health and fitness. For those who can not stay asleep, there are a few things to try to go back to sleep again.

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Fitness and Health

Stay Asleep for Health and Fitness

By BJ Johnson

Fitness: If you can not stay asleep all night, try visualization, meditation, or just plain getting out of bed for a few minutes.

The role of fitness in health: 

Maybe you have no trouble falling asleep. You are asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow.

Yet almost every morning you wake up during the wee hours and sleep escapes you for a long block of time--even until time to wake up for work.

Try Visualization

If you are the type to lie in bed worrying or planning the next day's activities, learn to relax. Start by visualizing  one of your favorite places.

Is it the mountains, the seashore, or a lovely creek near your home? 

Mine is a stretch of sand with waves rolling in and dolphins playing in the surf. I'm the only person there. I smell the salt air, feel the sand between my toes, and lazily watch the dolphins swim in and out of the waves. If a shark (distraction or worry) swims in, I visualize the dolphins chasing it off.  Eventually I drift off.

If you wake up during the night feeling anxious and worried, visualize writing your worries on a piece of paper and sticking them in a drawer. You can even see yourself opening the drawer in the morning and solving all your problems if that helps.

If visualization doesn't work, actually write your problems on a piece of paper, then stash them away in your bedside table.

If ideas and solutions rather than worries and problems are the culprits stealing your sleep, wake up long enough to write them on a piece of paper or record them in a hand-held recorder. Then turn over and go back to sleep, knowing your ideas are safe until morning.

Try Meditation

Watch your breath. Concentrate on your nose. See the breath come in; fill your lungs, then go back out again.  Do this for at least 20 minutes. 

If your mind wanders (and it will), don't follow that wandering mind. Bring it gently back to your breath again.

You will probably soon be asleep again.

If All Else Fails, Get Up

Try getting out of bed and just sitting in a chair in another room for 20 minutes or so. 

Don't turn on the television or computer. Those mechanical aspects of our life wake us up.

After 20 minutes, come back to bed. Go to sleep!

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