A Gratitude Practice that Can Help You Fall Asleep Faster

Laura Khoudari
5 min readNov 23, 2022
Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Health and wellness professionals, including myself, often urge their clients and patients to sleep more, because sleep is integral to our mental and physical well-being, yet we seldom get enough. It also supports our emotional and intellectual wellness by putting our minds and bodies into a state in which we can integrate new ideas and lessons we’ve learned recently. It has been my experience that rest also reinforces my occupational wellness because when I am rested I find myself more easily inspired, and able to lean into curiosity, which in turn gives rise to new work. We know that sleep is good for us, we read articles like this one offering information on how to sleep more, and yet according to the CDC a third of US adults report getting less than the recommended amount of sleep. And while some folks are not sleeping enough because they are choosing to forgo sleep for a variety of reasons, many others would be happy to sleep more but struggle with insomnia and haven’t found a supportive and easy practice that aligns with what they want to feel, what they want to do, and what they are capable of doing at present.

The Individual and Societal Consequences of Not Enough Sleep

Lack of sleep can lead to increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, depression, and accidents…

--

--

Laura Khoudari

Trauma-informed wellness writer and the author of the book Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at a Time