Deep Sleep Is the Antidote to Social Anxiety

13 ways to sleep like a baby despite the anxiety! (8 is my favorite)

Jun 10, 2021

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It was the fall of 2016.

I woke up on a Monday morning feeling refreshed and filled with energy for the first time in my life.

This is not an exaggeration 👆

I distinctly remember growing up and trying to sleep every night. Closing my eyes, and then staying up in the darkness of my mind every night. The next thing I knew, I would hear my parent's alarm go off and it was morning time!

When I look back at those times. I feel sadness for the younger version of myself.

Because it all makes sense. Sleep is the bedrock layer of health. Without sleep, your biochemistry doesn’t function properly, even your memory, mood, focus, are all heavily impacted.

You would think, an activity that takes up a 1/3 of our lives we would be taught how to do it properly.

Nobody teaches us how to sleep.

Eventually, as I got older I just gave up on sleep. I said to myself, you know what if I can’t sleep then I might as well stay up and try to do stuff!

Worst decision ever. It felt good and rebellious at the time, but not for my future self. I spent years of my life staying up at night, playing video games, binging junk food, sleeping at 3 am, waking up at noon, etc.

It’s okay to stay up every once in a while, but if you do it regularly, and lack proper sleep, you are opening the gates for poor mental health, illness, and miserable tiring existence regularly.

I will split this guide into two main parts; physiology & psychology.

Let’s start with psychology first...

I. Psychology

No sleep supplement in the world will help shut off a mind that’s not living a purposeful life and not living an authentic life.

Let me explain...

I remember staying up at night and my brain would replay all the social interactions I had that day. Either cringing over what I said or replaying what I should have said at the time. You can dismiss that as social anxiety....or.

View it from the perspective of my mind was trying to get me to be the real me in front of people. It’s not the most brilliant strategy as it took over 10 years to start working.

If you are not your authentic self in social situations...

If you are not doing what you want to be doing...

If you have deep regrets about life and aren’t doing anything about it...

You will more than likely have sleeping issues for the rest of your life until you fix these things.

Unfortunately, it’s also a debilitating toxic cycle that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You have social anxiety, you stay up at night regretting and overthinking, you wake up the next day exhausted, your brain is barely functioning, and now you are plunged in the same social situations, inherently repeating the cycle.

Which now brings me to my favorite part..

II. Physiology

Without complicating it, here are the most straightforward actions I would be taking for sleep...

Go outside in the morning and get some sunlight. Exercise in the morning or afternoon. Tire your physical body out via cardio, lifting weights, or even just trying to reach 10,000 steps.
Eliminate processed food like junk snack foods, sugar, alcohol, etc. Eat a well-balanced whole foods meal filled with healthy forms of fat, protein, and carbohydrates to fuel your body’s recovery during sleep. Eat more healthy complex carbs at dinner time.
Don’t eat or drink anything right before bed. You want your last meal to be consumed a minimum of 2-3 hours before you sleep, including any fluids like water to ensure an uninterrupted sleeping pattern without going to the bathroom.
Participate in a body relaxation technique like stretching deeply or a yoga session you can watch a YouTube video or sleep relaxation breathing exercise.
Limit your caffeine intake to 1 cup of coffee before Noon or as early as possible. If you must drink caffeine later on in the day stick to lower caffeine sources like green tea.
Engage in a regular meditation practice to relieve your mind and decrease anxiety around intrusive thoughts that may cause panic at night & full-body scan.
Avoid taking a melatonin supplement long-term. It’s fine if it’s every once in a while but consistently is not a good idea for the long term.
Anchored Sleep Breathing - Each time you inhale and exhale, create a vowel sound effect and anchor it to your inhale, and a slightly different vowel sound for your exhale. For example, breathe in (play inaudibly in your head AAAHHHH) and when you breathe out, play OOOOOO in your head. Sounds weird but give it a try. You will sleep in 5 minutes or less. Again, you are not saying these out loud but in your head.
Sleep Is Sacred. Imagine your bedroom is an altar for one of the most important things in life, sleep. You should only sleep in your bed and nothing else except for engaging with a partner. Do not play with your phone or watch TV before falling asleep. Try reading a book to put yourself to sleep, will work every time. I recommend a book that will not get your head thinking too much.
Magnesium & Tea. Magnesium is a supplement that has greatly improved my life. It’s been shown to decrease anxiety but it also works as a relaxant for sleep. It may also be worthwhile to drink Yogi Soothing Caramel Bedtime tea as well.
Write down your thoughts, on a piece of paper or other writing tool and capture what you are grateful for today and what went right, and what you look forward to doing tomorrow.
Don’t fall asleep watching TV. Fall asleep reading a book. Our subconscious can be accessed during sleep, which moves our conscious mind during the day. What you do during sleep is surprisingly important and letting your TV in the background is the best environment for sleep.
White Noise or Binaural Beats. At times it can be useful to put in your wireless headphones and play some white noise or binaural beats which are sounds created for ambiance to focus your brain on the sounds over your thoughts. Speaking of, check out our sponsor for the podcast - Acerting Arts.

I hope this article is a good starting place to get you to take your sleep seriously. That’s always the first step.

Once you realize how important sleep is you start to create a life that prioritizes sleep.

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Over the last several years I’ve devoted my life to helping introverted, shy, socially anxious creators, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and professionals move these mental health obstacles out of their life so they can get busy being their real selves in front of anyone.

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