At the age of 22, I took Benadryl every night to be able to fall asleep. This lasted for over a year! Once I kicked my Benadryl habit, I decided the solution was to go to bed at 8:00pm every night. The reality was, no matter how early I went to bed, it was still never enough. I was tired ALL the time. I have since corrected this major challenge in my life and I am going to share my top tips for getting the best night’s sleep!
Feeling rested is not about the number of hours you spend lying in bed, it is about how many hours of deep (REM) sleep you are getting each night. My challenge was that my mind was always racing and it was hard to turn it off long enough to fall asleep and then once I did fall asleep, I would wake up frequently in the middle of the night and resort to aimlessly scrolling my phone or deal with all the thoughts running through my head again.
Most people who struggle with this feel the only way to correct their sleep problem is to fix all the areas of stress in their life. I am here to tell you that’s bullshit. I believe you can and should address your lack of sleep FIRST and then use your new found energy to tackle all your problems.
Here are the tips that will help get you there…
1. Go to bed and wake up around the same time every day --- Your body does not care if it’s Saturday or if it’s Monday. Routine is so important for your body to be able to shut down and wake up when you need it to. There is no such thing as a weekday sleep cycle and a weekend sleep cycle. If you get up at 6:00am for work but you’re sleeping in until 10:00am on the weekends, you are setting yourself up for failure.
2. Start winding down 2 hours before bed--- This will mean different things for different people but if it's helpful, here is my evening routine:
8:00pm- Aaron gets a bath followed by story and snuggle time.
8:30pm- I take a bubble bath, with dim lighting, and listen to an audiobook or podcast.
9:15pm- I get in bed, write in my daily journal and then read a book (yes, an actual paper book!) until my eyes get heavy.
10:00pm- I am fast asleep.
3. Do not look at any screens for 1 hour before bed--- This means, no TV, no phone, no computer. Flashing lights stimulate your brain and will keep you awake. It's science, people.
4. Go to bed in a cold, dark room--- Scientifically speaking, the ideal room temperature for sleep is between 60-67 degrees. We usually keep our thermostat for 65 overnight and that works well for us.
5. Avoid consuming caffeine, sugar and alcohol 4 hours before bed--- Eating food at night in general will make it harder to sleep because your body is busy working hard to digest said food, but these foods in particular will really hinder your ability to get a good night’s rest.
6. Do not hit the damn snooze button! EVER!--- Set your alarm for the time you actually need to wake up and then GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED! This is so important because your body goes through a series of sleep cycles every night. Each sleep cycle is 75-90 minutes in length. To feel rested, your body must complete 3-4 of these cycles. Once you have, your brain begins preparing your body to wake up over the course of the next 2 hours. This means when your alarm finally goes off, your brain is ready to start the day. If you hit the snooze button for 10 minutes and doze off, all you are doing is beginning a new sleep cycle that you will not finish. Once this happens, it will take your brain 4 hours to wake up again and function to the fullest. Hitting the snooze button for 15 minutes, can cost you FOUR hours of feeling groggy and unfocused AND leave you feeling LESS rested!
These are my tips based on my research and education on this topic as well as what has personally worked well for me. If you are feeling skeptical about any of this, I challenge you to super honest about the false beliefs you may have about sleep. People tell me all the time “I need to have the TV on to go to sleep”, my response is always the same “If that is true, and having the TV on is truly what you NEED, then why do you sleep like crap?”
If you do not get as much sleep as you need, if you do not wake up each morning feeling rested, I challenge you to begin operating on the assumption that the beliefs you currently have about sleep may be wrong and just try something new for 30 days and see how you feel :)
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