Can’t Sleep? Try This

By Lesley Baird Chapin, Psy.D.

Millions of people experience sleep problems every year. Many things can interfere with the duration and quality of one’s sleep and it is not uncommon to experience some periods of sleep difficulty in life. Sleep is an important aspect of mental health and sleep disruption can often be associated with other mental health issues including depression and anxiety. Mental health professionals and sleep experts have known for years that there are a number of fairly simple behavioral modifications that people can make to improve their ability to fall asleep. If you have been struggling with sleep, use these tips to get yourself back on track.

1. Keep a schedule. This is easier said than done. Although it may be tempting to allow yourself to sleep in on weekends after a long week of early mornings, this can actually disrupt your sleep in the long run. Going to bed at approximately the same time most nights and waking up at approximately the same time each morning is essential, particularly if you are already having difficulty sleeping.
2. Cut the caffeine. That cup of coffee might be the perfect jump-start to your morning routine, but you may want to reconsider sipping those lattes throughout the day or having that extra soda for an afternoon energy boost. Caffeine can impact people differently and sometimes indulging after even three in the afternoon can impact your bedtime routine. Many experts recommend you stop consuming caffeine at least four to six hours before you head to bed.
3. Have a routine. If you have kids, you probably know the importance of the bedtime routine. For example, parents may do a bedtime snack, bath, pajamas, toothbrushing, and a bedtime story in the same order with their children each night before bed. Sometimes as adults, we lose this routine, but having the same evening “wind down” ritual each night can be very beneficial for helping you get into the mindset for sleep. Choosing a routine that includes the same few steps each night can help condition you to become sleepy at the time you want to be heading to bed.
4. Limit the use of your bed. Your bed should function solely as a place for sleep and sex. Using your bed as a multipurpose space for television, work, etc. can break the association your brain makes between your bed and sleep. As with the nighttime routine, you want to train your brain so that it learns that when you’re heading to bed, you’re going right to sleep.
5. If you aren’t sleeping, get up! In order to help train your brain to associate your bed with sleep, you have to also train it not to associate your bed with not sleeping. This means that if you are laying in bed fruitlessly trying to sleep, you should get up and get out of bed. 20 minutes is about the longest you want to allow yourself to lay sleepless in bed. When you get up, try to do something quiet, not particularly effortful, and not especially stimulating. Something like listening quietly to public/talk radio or a book on tape may be the perfect solution. Remember, when you do get tired, head straight to bed! Repeat as necessary if you continue laying awake once back in bed. It may also be useful to ditch the clock when you’re struggling to fall asleep. Staring at a clock tends to make people more anxious and frustrated, which is typically not conducive to bringing on sleep.
6.  Beware of screens. More and more, experts are suggesting that electronics before bed are negatively impacting sleep. This occurs for a number of reasons including correlational issues like what you are doing on that screen. For example, playing an action-packed video game can increase excitement and wakefulness, and trying to get work done can increase stress. Additionally, some research suggests that the amount of time spent with screens in the evening is generally related to later bedtimes. However, one of the biggest problems with screen time before bed is how the brightness and type of light impacts overall wakefulness. Most experts recommend unplugging from our screens at least 30 minutes before bed, whereas others suggest up to two hours is best.
7. Stop Napping. This may seem self-explanatory, but we all know the temptation of an afternoon nap when we didn’t sleep well the night before. Giving into that urge for a quick daytime snooze can become very detrimental to some people’s sleep schedule. Those daytime naps often cause you to be less tired at night when you’d like to sleep, which can become a cycle of even less sleep at night due to increased sleep during the day. If you find it difficult to get through the day without a nap, be diligent about keeping it to less than 30 minutes.
8.  Exercise. Aerobic exercise has a number of benefits including helping to regulate sleep. For many people, vigorous exercise should be scheduled for earlier in the day due to the endorphins released causing an uptick in energy afterwards. The timing of exercise appears more important for some people than others.
9.   Cut out the night-cap. Although consuming alcohol can elicit a quick onset of fatigue for many people, more than one drink close to bedtime is also associated with poorer quality of sleep and earlier waking times. Not to mention that it could also contribute to extra night wakening to use the bathroom.
10. No noise or white noise. “Quiet” tends to be part of the ideal image for a bedtime space. Many find that the use of earplugs can help them achieve a “quiet enough” atmosphere, even while sleeping next to a snoring partner. Others, prefer white noise such as the constant whirring of a fan or use of a sound machine. The trick to using noise effectively is to pick something low, neutral, and constant. The variable noise of something like television or radio can actually hamper quality of sleep throughout the night.

Depending on your current sleep habits, making these changes during a rough patch of sleep can be very difficult. However, this can be worth the extra effort and can actually start to improve the onset and quality of your sleep in a relatively short timeframe. If after committing to these modifications for several weeks, you have not noticed an improvement in your sleep, you should speak with your physician.