How to Improve Sleep Hygiene
The first thing that often comes to mind when people have trouble sleeping is to try the basics of sleep hygiene. Even if they don’t call it sleep hygiene, they’ll often cut caffeine, get new pillows, blankets or mattress, google tips and reduce screen time in bed (or feel guilty like they “should” cut screen time).
This article covers some of the top “tips” for preparing the mind and body for bed. However, there’s an important caveat here that is often overlooked.
As a psychotherapist specializing in sleep. I often see clients when they’ve reached their wits end with sleep after trying what feels like everything which usually involves doing a lot of research online, reading about sleep hygiene. While sleep hygiene can be beneficial, it can also backfire.
Here’s the Important Caveat: Sleep Hygiene is great for prevention but for those with full blown insomnia, focusing on sleep hygiene can make the situation worse.
Sleep hygiene is like dental hygiene, it’s great to do routinely, but once there’s a deeper issue, doubling down on hygiene isn’t effective and can aggravate the issue.
In the case of dental hygiene, excessive brushing flossing and mouthwash use won’t fully address a deeper issue and can just create hopelessness and frustration.
Once someone has insomnia, they often become even more strict with their sleep hygiene and bedtime routine. For example they take even longer to wind down, cut screen times even more to the point where it interferes with their social activities and enjoying life.
Now not only are they not sleeping well, the excessive sleep hygiene is interfering in their enjoyment of life. Often, once it reaches that point, they need insomnia treatment to get to the root of the issue.
From there, sleep actually improves without the need for lengthy or overly complicated bedtime routines each night. The American College of Physicians recommends CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) as the first line treatment for Insomnia.
If your sleep is at a point where sleep hygiene might still be beneficial, here are some of the top sleep hygiene basics:
Bedroom Environment
In general, humans are diurnal (the opposite of nocturnal) which means we are meant to be awake during the day and asleep at night. It also means we tend to sleep best in a bedroom environment that “signals” nighttime.
It is generally recommended that the bedroom is:
Dark
Cool temperature
Quiet and
Still
For example, If your current bedroom has a bright overhead light that remains on, the light can trick the brain into thinking that it is the middle of the day and make sleep more difficult. In a way, it creates a sort of “jet lag” where the brain thinks it is daylight.
If you’re worried about having a dark bedroom, that can be a sign that there may have been a terrifying past experience. If you’re having nightmares or struggling with feeling “on guard” at night, talking with a therapist can help.
Read more: Are frequent nightmares normal?
Read more: Nightmare Treatment
While light is the most important factor, temperature also plays a role. Many people can relate to the experience of waking up due to being too hot (especially those in the menopause period).
Learn more about Night Sweats and Sleep in Menopause
Even without any hormone or internal temp shifts, a bedroom that is too hot, can also signal mid-day and cause an awakening.
Winding Down
If the first quiet moment you have all day is in bed, it will be difficult for your mind to shift to sleep. Giving yourself some time to wind down at the end of the day can help with the transition to sleep. Our brains need a little time to adjust from activity and a busy mind to restful sleep, it’s not like a switch.
Taking some quiet time to reflect, journal, read, take a bath, do some light stretching are all great ways to wind down and prepare for sleep.
It can also be helpful to avoid bright lights and blue light (as in screens) by keeping “warm” or amber colored low lamps on. Think sunset or campfire colors for lighting as then signal end-of-day and the low amber light helps the body’s clock signal sun down/night time and sleep time.
Relaxation Exercises
There are numerous relaxation exercises available online and everyone is unique in their own preferences.
When it comes to sleep, the key is to think about the relaxation exercises as opening a door to sleep …but not causing sleep.
Sleep is an involuntary process. You may do lots of things to support sleep but we can’t directly cause it. If we could, the rate of insomnia would dramatically decrease.
So by trying to force sleep to happen with a relaxation exercise, that creates “sleep effort” which ironically, makes sleep less likely to occur.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation can be helpful in relaxing the body but remember, whichever exercise you choose, the purpose is to relax, not to make sleep happen.
Keep a consistent sleep schedule
Keeping a consistent sleep schedule can be really helpful in reducing sleep loss. However, a common pitfall people get stuck in is keeping an early bedtime when their body takes a long time to fall asleep.
On the surface, it makes sense, get in bed earlier to sleep more, but in reality this can just lead to more awake time in bed which can make the problem worse as the bed becomes a stressful place.
Instead, focus on keeping a consistent wake time.
Sleeping in on the weekends is a cherished pastime for many people and, if it works for you, that’s great! Keep doing it.
But if you’re struggling with sleep, particularly if you have “Sunday Scaries” or a sense of dread about Monday morning on Sunday night, the extra sleep on the weekend makes it harder to go to sleep on Sunday night.
Just like we have a hunger drive, we also have a sleep drive. When we’ve slept extra on the weekend, we’re less “hungry” for sleep on Sunday night, by keeping a consistent schedule, you’ll still have a sleep ‘appetite’ on Sunday night. A therapist trained in sleep can help you come up with a custom sleep plan for you with a schedule based on your body’s sleep need (calculated using sleep logs).
Blue Light and Screen Time (with a twist)
This is at the bottom of the list for a reason, blue light and cutting screen time is a really popular suggestion but it usually lacks nuance and causes unnecessary stress or guilt.
Understanding why this suggestion is so popular can help address the underlying issues rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach and cutting screens if that isn’t feasible. There are two main reasons for reducing screen time in the evening.
Blue light
Stressful content (work, social media, news etc.) on devices
Let’s start with the first one: blue light
Thinking back to earlier in the article, when we covered light, bright or blue light signals daytime to the body clock (circadian rhythm). Our devices are rich in blue light and therefore trick the brain into thinking it is daytime.
While cutting screen time altogether does solve this issue, it’s not always feasible and there are other options to address the real issue.
Most modern devices have a blue light blocking feature. This goes by many names including (but not limited to)
Eye Comfort Mode
Night Shift
Low Blue Light
These settings reduce the blue light emitted from the device. For older devices there are also blue light blocking screen protectors.
Reducing blue light doesn’t have to come from cutting the screen time all together although that is a perfectly fine option if it works for you.
The second reason: Stressful content
This is a little more self-explanatory, if you can set a time to stop working or engaging with stressful content, that can help dramatically.
Pairing these two together, let’s imagine two scenarios where someone is engaging in screen time before bed to see the difference.
Scenario 1: Rick has a laptop, TV and cellphone on. All three devices have the brightness turned all the way up, and no blue light blockers. He has the TV playing the news while he checks his email, putting out work-related fires as he waits for a phone call. Rick has difficult sleeping.
Scenario 2: Rick makes some swaps and has only his TV on, with the brightness turned low and sets his smart TV settings so the blue light is off. He watches a calming documentary about fish. He finished work for the day and is not on his phone or laptop. Rick is able to wind down and goes to sleep easily.
In both of these examples, Rick is using a devices but the difference is huge.
In conclusion
These three categories are what I’ve seen to be most effective for most people but the list is not exhaustive. There are many other sleep hygiene tips available. Some people need additional support to get sleep back on track an no amount of sleep hygiene on it’s own would be effective.
If you’d looking for custom 1:1 support, feel free to contact me for a free consultation
Email: Schedule@BodyMindAllianceCC.com