I have my eyes closed for hours but still can't sleep

It's the middle of the night, but you're still awake. We will help you fix this issue with a few beneficial tips. Improve your sleep quality, and this will have a positive impact on your skin, appearance, and overall health. Read along for useful information, and you'll soon be sleeping like an innocent child.

What causes insomnia?

Insomnia, that's precisely what we are talking about. After a day awake, you go to bed, turn off the lights, close your eyes… but two hours later you're still not sleeping. What's going on?

There are multiple causes to insomnia. The most typical cause that comes to mind is stress. Everyday stress, coming from your work, your household, disturbing news about the world, or other factors. While stress factors tend to be external, there can also be internal factors. Perhaps your mind doesn't process stress optimally. The good news here is that you can improve your resilience to stress thanks to various methods.

Before blaming stress, you may also want to verify the physical circumstances. Is your room too warm and/or too bright at night? What about sedentary lifestyle, do you make yourself tired enough during the day? Also check your screens consumption before bedtime, as well as food consumption. Finally, try and reconnect with your body and become aware of your biological rhythm and seasonal changes. Some people simply don't need as much sleep as others.

Resolving sleep issues

We will regroup the main advice into relevant categories. A single piece of advice usually won't help you. But bringing meaningful changes to your lifestyle will certainly help improve your sleep quality and give your back your health and your ideal skin.

Adopt a healthy lifestyle!

While we're not going to tell you what (not) to eat, we will tell you when: always leave a couple of hours between your last meal and the time you go to bed. Give your body time to digest food. And if you like fatty foods, eat those at noon, because your stomach needs more time to handle these.

An hour or two after your meal, we advise you get some exercise. Even a simple brisk walk is considered valuable exercise. The point is to burn the sugars. This will keep you slim, dynamic and will also solve the sedentary issue. As your body is getting tired, it will long for sleep at night.

Likewise, try to tire your mind, but not on screens an hour before bedtime. Screens emit blue light that tell your body “it's daytime”. Instead, read a nice book. During the day you can keep your mind active with work, puzzles, games… but before bed you should calm down your mind. Solving chess puzzles before bed is not a good option as this will get your mind excited.

Some drinking tips

Our tip number one is of course to drink enough water during the day. Water constitutes 70% of your body, you need it to function, to keep your articulations smooth and to fend off germs. But drinking large quantities of water right before bedtime will only result in you waking up at 3am with an urgent need.

If you enjoy drinking coffee and/or tea, you'll need to determine a healthy drinking schedule. Both these drinks contain substances that wake you up. Via trial-and-error testing, you can find out what is the latest moment of the day when you can drink a cup of coffee or tea without compromising your sleep. Same for alcohol.

Relax your mind and body

If stress is the main problem, you can implement methods of relaxation. Sometime during the day, a nice moment of meditation can lower your stress levels and help your mind ignore negative thoughts. It can be full meditation, or mindfulness – contemplative meditation. If you like to move, methods such as yoga and tai chi are very beneficial.

But keep in mind that all these methods are activities: don't practice them 5 minutes before going to bed. Better arrange a schedule to practice them during the day.

Dynamic sports are often overlooked: if you have too much energy and/or stress, you need to evacuate those via some sports. Again, this also solves the sedentary lifestyle issue, and will improve your overall health and wellbeing.

Manage the lights

Light is often the nemesis of deep, restful sleep. Is your bedroom bathed in too much brightness, or do sudden fluctuations in light disrupt your slumber? Installing effective blinds on your windows and removing light sources, like devices with a glowing standby indicator, can help. However, in our tech-filled lives, this task becomes increasingly challenging. That's where the solution of wearing a sleep mask comes into play. Opting for a luxurious, soft green silk sleep mask can shield your eyes completely from any intrusive light, creating the perfect dark sanctuary for your eyes. This is especially beneficial for easing into sleep, particularly during the brighter months of spring and summer.