This week is Sleep Awareness Week and is aimed at promoting the importance of sleep.  How are you sleeping?

Here are 5 tips for good sleep hygiene:

  1. Be consistent with when you go to bed and when you wake up. This is #1 because it is by far the most important. Our bodies are incredibly responsive to timing within a 24 hour cycle. If you can be consistent with them you go to bed and when you wake up, even on weekends or on days when you could sleep in if you wanted to, your body is going to do a much better job or producing tiredness-inducing hormones in preparation for bedtime, and you might even find that you can wake up without hitting snooze 3 times.
  2. Minimize the amount of non-sleep time you spend in the bedroom or, if this is not possible (for example if you live in a dorm or studio apartment), minimize the amount of non-sleep time you spend in bed. Where we are when we do things becomes a subconscious cue to our internal systems about what we are supposed to do in that place. In other words, if you are only in your bed or your bedroom to sleep, your system forms an association and becomes tired when you are in bed. Conversely, if you do a lot of non-sleep activities in bed like TV, homework or YouTube, it will make you excited about going to bed, which actually makes it harder to sleep.
  3. Related to #2, if you are having a really difficult time getting to sleep don’t stay in bed. Get up, go somewhere else, and do something low-key and relaxing (do not do laundry when you can’t sleep as one of my previous clients did). Most experts say to get up if you can’t fall asleep after an hour. The longer you stay in bed awake, the more the association between the bed and sleep weakens.
  4. Start your bedtime routine about an hour before you want to go to bed. Start doing things that wind you down, and if possible do the same things in the same order each night, or as close to this as you can. These can also become associated with sleep, much like Pavlov’s dogs associated the metronome or bell with being fed. Your body can start getting tired from showering, brushing your teeth, praying, etc if these are done consistently before bedtime. Try to avoid stimulating activities within 1 hour of bedtime.
  5. Manage environmental obstacles to sleep. This one seems simple but it gets overlooked a lot. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve tried the above 4 strategies with clients and gotten minimal results only to find out that they share the bed with a St. Bernard with a snoring problem or their significant other is watching a show on the 50 inch plasma TV that hangs above their bed.

– Scott

 

REMINDER: This Sunday is the start of Daylight Savings time.  Make sure you “Spring Ahead” one hour.