ending chronic insomnia & becoming a 5am girly

i’ve had insomnia for my entire life. falling asleep as a kid was always a struggle. waking up at 3am with severe anxiety in college was commonplace for me. watching my husband fall asleep in 2 seconds while i laid awake for hours felt so unfair.

over the course of the past few years, i’ve been working to change this and after a lot of trial and error, i can now happily say that i no longer struggle with chronic insomnia.

yep… i feel asleep between 9-9:30pm every single night and wake up happily at 5am.

how?!?

1️⃣ i cut out caffeine and alcohol

i hate to say it ladies, but this was probably the biggest change i’ve made. i cut out consistent caffeine (yes i still drink a coffee on the weekend sometimes) over 4 years ago and cut out alcohol over a year ago. i saw a dramatic shift in my sleep after cutting out both.

cutting out caffeine made it easier for me to fall asleep and cutting out alcohol made it easier for me to stay asleep.

2️⃣ i reduced cortisol levels

even with cutting out alcohol, i would still have some nights where I would wake up at 3am and not be able to fall back asleep. this was cortisol's fault.

➡️ tips for reducing cortisol

- meditate

- journal

- avoid high intensity exercise

- add low intensity exercise

- let go of what is out of your control

the biggest of these for me was probably letting go of control. every time i would wake up at 3am and start stressing i’d ask myself if i could do anything about what i was stressing about in that moment. obviously, the answer was no 99% of the time, so i’d still myself to stress about it in the morning. this doesn’t always work for me, but it helps a lot!

3️⃣ i built a night routine that supported sleep

i stop scrolling on my phone a couple hours before sleep. i journal out my to do list to get anxious thoughts off my mind. I lightly stretch before bed. i keep my lights low with warm tones. all these things help support my sleep.

your routine might look different than mine, but it’s important to have some kind of routine and to avoid things that single to your mind that it’s go time.

4️⃣ i woke up at 5am

it might seem obvious, but one of the best ways to curb insomnia is to actually wake up early. don’t let yourself fall into the cycle of going to bed at 9pm, trying to sleep for 2 hours, and then sleeping in the next morning because you didn’t get enough sleep.

the healthiest way to avoid this is to slowly move your sleep schedule. the fastest way is to suffer through a few days of sleepiness… i’ll let you decide which one you’d like to try!

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