How Sleep Can Help You Get Over that Breakup

Via hang_in_there

Here’s an Excuse to Nurse Your Pain in Bed

Breakups are not generally fun, but some can definitely be worse than others no matter if you were the one dumping or getting dumped. It just kind of sucks. That being said, recovering doesn’t have to take forever either. Besides normal healthy living, getting plenty of sleep on a regular schedule might actually be able to help you recover faster.

A recent study at the University of Arizona has discovered that keeping a normal sleep schedule might be able to help you deal with a breakup. The study found that when people went to bed and woke up at their normal times after a breakup they reported overall better life satisfaction than people who didn’t. So, having a bedtime might be quite helpful.

When we don’t stick to regular sleep schedules, we try to catch up on sleep on certain days and spend other days feeling groggy and out of it. This sort of mimics what it is like to have jet lag and we all know how annoying that is. Besides making it hard to focus at work, being perpetually sleepy can a toll on our physical and emotional well being.

If however we are getting plenty of rest and feel alert during the day it is much easier to deal with our emotions in reasonable ways. And feel less like weepy toddlers who missed their afternoon nap.

Unfortunately for some people, sticking with a sleep schedule requires that you keep to it on the weekends as well. Yes, that means getting up early. Other studies have found that sleeping in on the weekends can actually make people feel more tired when Monday morning comes around and jolts us out of our slumber.

If you’re new to the whole sleep schedule thing it can take a bit of practice. If you have to get up at a certain time for work, count back 7 hours (or however much sleep you would like to get), and then set that as your bedtime. If you need to start going to bed dramatically earlier it can take some time to ease into it. Try moving your bedtime by an hour or even fifteen minute increments to slowly start giving your body a new schedule.

Avoid watching TV right before bed, and don’t spend too much time looking at your phone, both of which can mess with your sleep quality. Some studies have found that the longer people spend in front of a screen throughout the day the worse quality of sleep they are going to get.

Most of us can’t completely cut out the electronics (and nor would we want to), but keep them out of the bedroom as much as possible. If you have a habit of checking your phone in the night try putting it on the other side of the room while you sleep to stop the habit. Plus, it might help you refrain from stalking your ex on Instagram.