8/13/2023 0 Comments Happy thoughts before bed![]() ![]() I got to spend extended time with my siblings, get to know my now sister-in-law and her family and friends better. Taking place at a cozy bed and breakfast set high on a cliff in Marin, California, the wedding weekend was a lovely affair that brought my whole family a lot of happiness. It was difficult to use this specific memory without going into an anxiety spiral, so I switched gears and chose a different one to experiment with for the next instance of savoring during week two: I envisioned my brother’s wedding from last fall. When I tried to think about the dinner in question and being with my family, it kicked off a cycle of fear and rumination that led me to stay up and actually fall back into my doomscrolling the news habit to get the latest earthquake updates. Because of the devastating earthquakes in Turkiye, the actual location of my memory and the people in it were in danger (my family is safe, but the general region has a long road to recovery ahead). Savoring felt especially poignant this week because my chosen memory was being altered. ![]() When I got in my bed, my next visit to Turkiye (whenever that may be) was on my mind, but in a sense that felt positive and put me at ease. Even so, I liked how I felt when I afterward, and I found myself in a relaxed mood. ![]() When I tried the savoring technique while I tidied my room before bed, I found that five minutes felt short, so I decided to increase the time slightly. He suggests folks in this camp seek cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Dasgupta, savoring may not be helpful for people who suffer from chronic insomnia (he defines this as having difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep at least three times a week for three months). "Having positive, relaxing, happy thoughts as part of a routine before going to bed is useful."-Raj Dasgupta, MD, pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialistĪ caveat, though: According to Dr. “People ruminate because they think they’ll get more insight into their problems, but it’s associated with things like anxiety and depression and we know those unfortunately lead to insomnia and sleep difficulties.” ![]() “Having positive, relaxing, happy thoughts as part of a routine before going to bed is useful,” says Raj Dasgupta, MD, pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist with Keck Medicine of USC, of the promise that savoring-essentially the opposite of ruminating-for sleep. Given that stress and sleep have an adversarial relationship, it make sense that putting yourself in a positive mindset absent of stress would help your case. While more research is needed to connect a causal relationship between A+ sleep and savoring, we can still deduce that putting yourself in happy state before bed stands to help your case when it comes to having sweet dreams. According to the findings, "higher levels of savoring were significantly associated with lower levels of sleep-related impairment." On the flip side, rumination, or dwelling on thoughts and memories that aren't happiness-inducing, was associated with higher levels of sleep impairment and disturbance. Research on savoring has positively connected it to well-being in general, and a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Gerontology and Geriatrics examined its effect on sleep. Another option to add to your bedtime toolbox? Savoring, a mindfulness technique that involves concentrating on positive thoughts and basking in the joy and peace such thoughts bring you as a means to ease into sleep. Some hinge on breathing exercises others focus more so on meditation and others still ask you to practice mental exercises, like cognitive shuffling. The idea of mindfulness activities promoting healthy and restful sleep isn't novel in fact, there are numerous mindfulness methods that are both poised to improve mood and get someone in the space that invites restful sleep. ![]()
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