Our hours of rest are sacred and fundamental for integral health since we replenish our energy during the rest of the day and repair tissues in our organism for perpetual and calm youth. Any resource to facilitate sleep and optimize this time to the maximum will be a powerful weapon in preventing and overcoming diseases.
At FastlyHealwe brings a beneficial topic for everyone. It is about relaxation exercises to sleep better, favoring a lower consumption of drugs that do not solve the root problem.
Table of Contents
Standing stretches for good sleep.
When we speak of rest, we must refer to our nervous system, which works as wiring that transmits electrical energy. For this wiring to work well, it must be correctly tensioned, and in the case of our nervous system, something similar happens: it needs to be adjusted (aligned) to function correctly. When we stretch, we allow all those cables to reorganize, work better and, with this, reduce nervous stress that can so much prevent us from having proper rest.
The following exercises for better sleep are effective in producing this nervous tightening, starting on your feet before going to bed:
- With your legs together, stretch your arms, hands, and fingers upwards as much as possible, several times (suggestion: 10 repetitions).
- Proceed to lower, try to touch the feet with your fingers and hands stretched out, and return to the stretched-up pose. Be careful to keep your knees straight, as the therapeutic effect is not reaching the feet but stretching and relaxing the sciatic nerve and the lumbar back. Necessary: the movement is born from the trunk and navel but not the head. That is, do not bend the neck.
- When you get down, on your last rep of Exercise 2, you can stay down there without bending your knees and keeping your arms hanging down. You breathe deeply, counting for breaths or until you feel dizzy and need to go up slowly. This will relax your lower back.
- Another way is to stretch completely upwards, including your feet, in such a way that for a couple of seconds, you stand on tiptoe when inhaling and holding the air, and exhale through your nose when you let yourself fall in a controlled way.
- If your bed or sleeping area allows it, you can do exercise 3 lying down or simply stretching your feet as much as possible when you inhale and contracting them when you exhale.
Exercises for fast sleep: muscle contractions
The stress that prevents a correct rest is not limited only to maladjustments to the nervous system. Muscles are also highly involved, and any part of the body with accumulated tension can be an enemy to sleep, either through pain or by not allowing the body to relax fully.
For this reason, contraction exercises are optimal for combating insomnia. By applying excessive concentrated tension, chronic low-grade strains are allowed to react with them, thus encouraging them to relax once the pressure is released.
To proceed with this exercise, sit upright or lie down and take an inhale through your nose to the best of your ability. Then, hold that air internally and tense every muscle: face, jaw, shoulders, back, hands, arms, buttocks, sphincters and abs, everything.
Increase the tension more and more for at least 8 seconds or until you cannot hold your breath and exhale forcefully through your mouth, releasing all the stresses you applied at once. Repeat this procedure at least 3 times or until you feel more relaxed. Concentrate on squeezing more and more muscles and with more force with each repetition.
Variants
- This exercise is also effective to do without air (exhaling everything). Apply full muscle tension after blowing off the air.
- You can try to do it standing up before the exercises that we explain in the first section. In this case, the gluteal squeeze should elevate the body when stretching the feet. It’s okay to let it happen.
Voluntary yawning to fall asleep
Although it seems complicated for you to fall asleep and with it the desire to yawn, the act of yawning is a reflex that can be stimulated even without feeling like doing it voluntarily. You should open your mouth wide and breathe gently. The urge to yawn will undoubtedly appear soon, and this action signals the brain and nervous system in general to relax.
The volunteer’s yawns should be large and slow enough to produce a hypnotic effect; several iterations are necessary and depend on each person and situation.
Variant with hip twists
Although it may seem strange to the naked eye, the mandibular area works in an analogous or reflex way with the hips region, so it is helpful to produce movements and relaxation in one place or the other to have peace in both. If you can accompany those yawns with slow, wide and relaxing hip turns, the effect against insomnia will be much better.
We hope that these relaxation techniques for sleep and exercises will be helpful in the moment of wanting to fall asleep. The following article gives you some tips to help you sleep through the night.
This article is merely informative. At FastlyHeal .com, we do not have the power to prescribe medical treatments or make any diagnosis. We invite you to see a doctor in the case of presenting any condition or discomfort.
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I am a Surgeon with a diploma in comprehensive ultrasound and surgical care residency, an area I am specializing in. During the exercise of my profession, I have realized the need for patients to know the diseases they suffer, and I can tell you that a large part of their complications is due to a lack of information. Being a health web writer allows me to transmit my experience, without borders, to all those readers eager for knowledge, educate them in the prevention of diseases and promote a healthy lifestyle.