Quitting Smoking why can’t I sleep? When you quit do you get terrible insomnia? Are you struggling to quit because of the lack of sleep when you try and quit?
If you have trouble with sleeping when you try to quit smoking and you want to know why and how to deal with it then this video is for you!
Stay to the end of video as we will give you 7 tips, tricks and hacks to beat insomnia and teach you how to get a good night’s sleep.
My names Ted Bradley Quit Smoking Expert and if this is your first time to this channel and you are interested in quitting smoking and you want tons of tips, tricks and hacks to quit than simply hit that subscribe button and smash the notification icon – it simply will notify you when I post new content to the channel and I post a minimum of two new video’s every week.
Let’s hop right into the content. Why do I get insomnia when I try and quit smoking? First of all you are not alone according to science 42.2% of smokers who try and quit experience sleep issues.
Insomnia is defined as having difficulty initiating or maintain sleep. So the question becomes why does quitting smoking bring on sleeping issues? (Pause) There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that there are multiple factors that cause sleeping issues when you try and quit smoking.
Most people try to quit without the aid of a program and only 7% of people are successful at quitting for 3 months or longer without using some form of quit smoking program, so that means 93% of people will fail when trying to quit. That means on average if you are using cold turkey you will attempt 30 times before making past 3 months and you will do this over a 20 year period. If you want to destroy you’re sleeping patterns and create an environment for insomnia than quit smoking and relapsing using the cold turkey method is a recipe for disaster! So if you want to try quitting and you don’t want insomnia then cold turkey is not for you.
If your concerned and you want free advice I will put a link in the description below where you can book yourself into my calendar for a free 15 minute phone consultation and I will get you on the right track to quitting smoking for life!
Here’s the thing with sleeping issues and smoking, you damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Here’s why. If you smoke you already likely have sleep issues (Pause) as smoking leads to sleeping issues. Most people with sleeping issues also smoke. Here’s why sleeping issues and smoking are connected. Nicotine is a heart stimulant it causes your heart to beat 6 times more per minute. Nicotine is a chemical stimulant. Smoking already is getting in your way of a restful night’s sleep. In fact over half of all smokers wake up during the night to smoke. Talk about giving yourself sleep issues, imagine waking up from a restful night’s sleep to light up? Smoking causes you to wake up more frequently and it shortens the overall length of your sleep. So how much worse could quitting be for getting a good night’s sleep? Well actually it can be worse as the quitting and relapsing in other words quitting and failing over and over is very disruptive to your sleep cycle, here’s why, sleep cycles to be successful need to be regular and predictable, meaning when your systems has a habit it responds well to that habit and your system rewards you. If you have good sleeping habits you will have longer sleeps coupled with fewer times waking in the night. You’ll just get better sleep when your sleeping habits are routine that’s the key with getting a good night’s sleep, it’s all about routine. Guess what quitting and failing does? It is like walking up to the apple cart of sleep and tipping it over. No wonder your sleeping issues get worse when you try and quit. The news still gets worse, even if you do a program guess what? Not all programs are created equal. Some programs are designed to help with cravings, like the patch, the gum, the lozenge, the drugs like Chantix or zyban and all these products have additional chemicals in them other than nicotine and guess what the side effects of those additional chemicals are? Vivid Dreams and insomnia! This just makes the whole “dealing with quitting and sleeping issues” even worse. If you have sleeping issues and you need to quit then nicotine replacement therapies like the drugs, the patch, and the gum just aren’t for you. That’s just the science of it.
So the questions becomes what can you do? First pick a program to quit smoking that does not use nicotine replacement therapy for example NLP, EFT, Hypnotherapy there are quite a few to choose from. In my program “The secret to quitting smoking for life” we use the stacking method as we know this is the best method known to help people quit smoking for life and it is design to help with sleeping issues. If you want more information on stacking just click the link in the description to book yourself into a free 15 minute phone consultation on how to quit smoking and get a good night’s rest. Its free and I am happy to help. Let’s move on to the 7 tips, tricks and hacks you can use to get a better night sleep when quitting smoking.
Getting a better night sleep is all about regularity and routine.
#1 Go to bed and wake up at the same time everyone night. Getting your body into the routine of a specific bedtime and specific time to wake up every day will help trigger your body for sleep and for taking on the day. In fact it is one of the habits of almost all successful people. You want to start to be more productive in your life? getting more done every day? and living life to the fullest? Go to bed at the same time every day and wake up at the same time every day.
#2 pretend your three years old – if you have children you will understand this life hack. If you do the same thing every night with your three year old you can trigger them for sleep. For example with my two children we put them to bed at the same time every night, every night in the same order at the same time we give them a bath, put on our pajamas, brush our hair, brush our teeth, get into bed, read a story and sing a song. This routine allowed my two children to easily and gently go off to sleep each and every night. Want to see a home where the children struggle with bed time? Look for a home with no bedtime routine where every night is different. All child experts know routine works super well. So ask yourself why would this not work for me? Create a bedtime routine and do it at the same time every night. Have a nice warm bath or shower, remove makeup, wash your face, brush your teeth and anything else you need to do before bed but do it every night at the same time in the same order. This routine will help you sleep much better.
#3 No screen time one hour before bed, It’s a matter of cognitive stimulation: flashing colors, other people’s voices, engaging storylines, breaking news, all of this and more is what you encounter with a flickering TV set or a mobile phone—and it’s the total opposite of what you need to do to have a good nights rest.
Despite how easy it can be to fall asleep right there on the couch, television is still one of the most stimulating activities you can undertake without actually moving, and the firing of neurons and electrical activity taking place in the brain can wind up the nervous system. Instead, seek out activities that help you wind down. Many people can fall asleep with the tv on but it actually disrupts your sleep unless you stay asleep until the morning without waking and we all know that does not happen, we wake up we go upstairs or the tv is constantly putting us to sleep and then waking us again and we go in and out of sleep just when we should be going down for the night. So even if you say “wait I can fall asleep in front of the tv” that’s not the point, all sleep is not equal and TV sleep is very bad and leads to insomnia and isn’t that what your trying to avoid?
#4 Eat lighter in the evening. Often when we over eat we feel tired (pause) as much of our energy is consumed in digestion and its true that if you eat a big meal you will feel tired but here’s the thing, typically you don’t do it within 10 minutes of sleep you do it two hours or longer before you go to bed for the night so when you go to bed you now have excess energy from your body needing to burn off the extra sugar your body produces as a side effect of the large meal. Even if you do go to bed right away your sleep will be restless, difficult and uncomfortable. Not conducive to a good night’s sleep.
#5 Exercise and not just any exercise or at any time, for example not right before bed. Building muscle has been shown to improve the quality of sleep, and it can also help you fall asleep faster and wake you up less frequently throughout the night. So try doing exercises like shoulder presses, bicep curls, tricep dips, squats, lunges, calf raises, sit-ups, and push-ups that will make you stronger. No matter your gender or age muscle building is shown to improve overall sleep.
#6 Avoid Caffeine and alcohol. There has been thousands of studies of how alcohol ruins a good night sleep. Often people drink to fall asleep and it works but again it’s the quality of the sleep. When you drink to fall asleep the alcohol induced sleep is short, shallow and restless, the quality is not there and your sleeps get shorter and shorter and more frequent waking the more you develop this habit. Often what we think is a cure for a good night sleep is a mistake and it doesn’t really help us sleep in fact it does more harm than good. Basically what you think is helping you sleep is actually giving you sleep issues.
#7 Only sleep in your bed and do nothing else in your bed. If you read or do other things in our bed over time you will teach your body that bed is for more than sleeping. So your body thinks what I am supposed to be doing here? Reading or sleeping? Don’t confuse your body. If all you do is sleep in your bed than your body will know what to do when you lay down for the night. As a bonus tip also do not think about reality when you go to bed. Here’s why – when you think about either reality or sex your mind gets revved up. This is the perfect time to use our imagination and fantasy instead. Pretend to be a professional athlete or a police officer or a ballerina whatever fantasies you enjoy just as long as they are not based on your actually reality. We know from hypnosis when you engage your fantasy or imagination we are engaging the unconscious mind and it brings the unconscious mind forward which is a precursor to sleep.
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Also if this video was helpful please subscribe if this is your first time to this channel and you are interested in quitting smoking and you want tons of tips, tricks and hacks to quit than simply hit that subscribe button and smash the notification icon – it simply will notify you when I post new content to the channel.
Also take advantage of the free fifteen minute phone consultation with me the link is in the description below. I will get you on the right track to quitting smoking for the rest of your life.
Thank you so much for your time and attention, blessing to everyone and I look forward to speaking with you.