6 Steps to Fixing Your Sleep Problems Forever!
The CDC finally recently acknowledged what those of us in the health professions knew already: that American’s are TERRIBLE at getting quality sleep and that this is PROFOUNDLY detrimental to a person’s health. Poor sleep is linked to obesity, heart disease, depression, and Type 2 Diabetes, to name just a few.
I struggled all my life with poor sleep and here is how I fixed my issue (and still do these things to this day):
#1: Start a “sleep ritual” about 1 hour before bed. Turn down all the lights in the house to a bare minimum. Do not watch TV, or look at screens. Put blue light blocking screens on all your devices or wear blue light blocking glasses (we love the blue light blocking devices from Occushield! Get 15% off by using the coupon code WARRIORWELLNESS15 for 15% off their products) Draw all blinds/curtains. Reduce all noises as much as you can (put on noise-canceling headphones, listen to soothing music or a familiar book, something now new to you, so it’s not stimulating). Turn your cell phone onto airplane mode or turn it completely off and put it away until morning. Take a hot shower. Make sure the temperature is set to a cooler temperature in your bedroom. Get into bed. Listen to soothing background noise, or a progressive relaxation audio file (Audible has these and so do the meditation apps like Calm and Headspace. If there is background noise from neighbors, wear noise-canceling headphones and turn on white noise in your room like a fan or quiet, soothing music. Take melatonin to your tolerance level about 30 min before bed. Don’t do anything in bed but try and sleep. When you train your brain to expect to do different activities, like work, school work, fold laundry, watch TV, etc. in bed, you are confusing the brain as to the purpose of the space. If you have anxiety and racing thoughts, I highly recommend journaling the thoughts (ink and paper, no screens) and doing a stress-reducing mediation after you “purge” the thoughts onto paper. Cover your eyes with a cloth or a sleep mask. Make sure your mattress and pillow are of good comfort to you, many times, sleeping issues are due to poor quality mattresses and pillows or a room that is too warm.
#2: If you wake frequently in the night, here is how to deal with that. First, stay in bed. Don’t get up if you can’t help it. If you have to empty your bladder, certainly do that. Again, go trough the exercises in #1. Listen to a meditation, clear your mind. Try and avoid having to turn on bright lights. Have a dim night light available if you need to get up, but try not to turn on overhead lights. Try and stay calm. Most of the time, people who wake in the night stay awake because they are anxious about being awake and not getting enough sleep. This perpetuates the problem. Relax, listen to something familiar and soothing or just focus on listening to white noise. Keep your eyes closed.
#3: Don’t eat, exercise or consume caffeine or other stimulants (that means you, cigarette or vaping smokers) or drink alcohol at least 2 hours before you go to bed. Try and not do anything too stressful 2 hours before bed (like working on a deadline, being stressed out, watching the news, etc.) Save all the stressful things for the morning and daytime. Make sure you are well hydrated. Drinking alcohol is a circadian rhythm interrupter. That nightly glass of wine (or 4) may be the culprit behind your sleep issues.
#4: ALWAYS get up and go to bed at the same time every single day. There is no such thing as “catching up” on sleep. Each night is damage that cannot be undone by “making up for it” on the weekend. This will also motivate you to make the sleep window you have higher quality, because you know you are not going to be trying to “make up for it” later in the week. If forces you to focus on making each night the best quality sleep possible for you.
#5: Everyone requires a different amount of sleep. Wear a sleep monitor, like the FitBit Versa and evaluate each night. Take notes on what worked well, what were the circumstances surrounding the nights that you got good sleep? Do more of those things!
#6: Be vigilant. Do not “make exceptions” to cut into your sleep for anything but real emergencies. If you have to keep your phone on in case of a family emergency, you can set up your phone to override silent mode and ring only if certain phone numbers attempt to reach you, you can then silent your phone at night and not have constant toning, vibrating and distractions. Responding to your friends “hey whats up” text is not more important than your sleep! If you have family members who tred on your sleep boundaries and call late, Ask them to stop calling after a certain hour. If you feel they would take offense and don’t want to ask, then you need to mute their number at night along with everyone else.