Originally published in Psychology Today
Source: Photo by Gregory Pappas on Unsplash
When you cannot sleep it can ruin your entire day. It can be difficult to get out of bed when you feel like your night was spent tossing and turning rather than resting and rejuvenating. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to help support a good night’s rest.
How Much Sleep Is Enough?
A decent place to start is to consider how much sleep you actually need. Not everyone needs a full eight hours of sleep to be healthy. There was a study done that discovered that people who averaged seven hours of sleep at night lived longer than the people who averaged eight hours of sleep (Spurgeon, 2002).
Author David Spurgeon reported that Daniel Kripke, a professor of psychiatry, said that “individuals who now average 6.5 hours of sleep a night can be reassured that this is a safe amount of sleep. From a health standpoint, there is no reason to sleep longer" (2002, p. 446).
One way to support the natural rhythms of your body is to only go to bed when you are feeling sleepy. If this means only getting six or seven hours of sleep, that is ok. If you force yourself to go to bed earlier than your body may be ready for, you may find yourself laying wide awake in bed for an hour or more just waiting to fall asleep.
Shutting Down
This time spent laying wide awake in bed waiting for sleep to come can sometimes be a trigger to anxious thinking about a perceived lack of sleep, why you cannot sleep, how not sleeping may affect the day tomorrow, and so on. To reduce the chances of finding yourself looping through this type of anxious thinking, you may try waiting until you feel sleepy before getting into bed.
Additionally, if you find that it is taking longer than 20-30 minutes to fall asleep, consider getting out of bed to engage in an activity that you find relaxing and calming. Some ideas are meditating, coloring, listening to ambient music, journaling, or anything that brings you a sense of calm and peace. Once you begin to feel sleepy again after engaging in that activity, then return to bed.
Mind-Body Connection
Another way to support your body and mind’s preparation for bed is to experiment with different ways of mentally coming into your body and grounding yourself. This may look like drinking a warm beverage before bedtime, giving yourself a foot massage, or sleeping with a weighted blanket. Bringing your awareness into your body can help you tune into your body’s circadian rhythms and more accurately gauge your body’s tiredness.
Preparing a Space
A final note on helping to support your mind and body for sleep: Only use your bedroom for sleep and sexual activity. Keeping all other activity outside the bedroom can help prime your body for bed when you are in the bedroom. Understandably, this may prove difficult for some, but if you are able it might be worth experimenting with this idea.
Hopefully, these tips help you discover a bedtime routine that works for your body, for your lifestyle and, most importantly, for a sound night of sleep.
References
Spurgeon, D. (2002). People who sleep for seven hours a night live longest. BMJ, 324(7335), 446.