If you do a quick search on how to sleep better, you will find endless recommendations and articles on the matter, most of them very helpful. However, these articles leave out the most common mistakes that people make when trying to sleep better. Therefore, I want to change things up and use reverse psychology so you can be aware of all those practices that increasingly damage our sleep.
So how do you worsen your sleep and make it a chronic problem? ... do the following:
> Force your sleep!
Suppose you want to sleep worse and worse and become anxious because it is difficult for you to fall asleep. In that case, the best way to do it is to go to sleep when you are not sleepy and stay in bed tossing and turning - for more than 30 minutes - waiting for you to fall asleep magically.
> Get up every day at a different time.
The best way to damage our internal biological clock and live with all the effects of Jet-Lag is by getting up at different times every day. God forbid that your biological clock can work well, have regular sleep schedules and organize all the internal bodily processes that need constant regularity!
If you also want to take this to another level, please get up super late on Sunday so you can experience, in all its glory, the effects of an irregular schedule on Monday (perfect to start the week on the wrong side of the bed).
> Stay in bed all day!
Please stay in bed longer than necessary to make the bed multifaceted and turn it into a space to work, worry, eat, etc. Once you have established this habit, you will see how you cannot help but worry, scare away your sleep, and send it to the sofa when you get to bed.
> Ritualize your sleep routines!
Why maintain a pleasant and flexible sleep routine? ... If you want this to generate anxiety, instead of helping you sleep, it is best to ritualize it to the extreme. Make each indispensable, that if broken, it becomes the harbinger of a stormy night.
> Make sure your environment is as stimulating as possible.
Very dull, dark and quiet room? ... What better way to worsen our sleep than with a fun environment full of stimulating factors? ... So make sure to keep your room fully lit at night (the whiter, the better light), leave the TV on to "lull you to sleep," never change the pillow and mattress (surely that does not help for back and neck pain).
I hope that with a bit of dark humour and reverse psychology, you've gotten an idea of the most common sleep-related mistakes so that it's easier for you to avoid them or correct them.
Sweet dreams!