Having a bad night of sleep can throw off your whole next day, and this is an all too common problem for many Americans. In fact, the Sleep Foundation says that two thirds of Americans experience occasional insomnia. In this post, we’re covering six tips and tricks you can use to help improve your sleep.
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The first tip is to actually seek out information from reliable sources to help combat any misinformation you might have in your mind. As a therapist, I have done additional training related to working with people who struggle with sleep, and a first step of that treatment is often simply related to sleep education. So let’s start there and quickly cover a few important things about sleep.
The Goal
First, it’s important to know what we’re aiming for. Generally, adults will need seven to nine hours of sleep per night. It is uncommon for someone to feel at their best with more or less than that. It can happen, but it’s a smaller percentage of people who that applies to. So, when you’re working on your sleep, aim for somewhere in that seven to nine hour range. If you’re getting those seven to nine hours and still feeling sleepy, that might be a sign that the quality of your sleep is not the best, which the tips and tricks we’re covering today can help with. I should also mention that it is not a bad idea to speak to your doctor to confirm you do not have sleep apnea or another medical condition that may be impacting your sleep.
The Struggle
Second, it is often helpful for people to realize that everyone will struggle with sleep sometimes. A bad night of sleep sucks and can make the next day tough. But they are unavoidable. The best you can, when you have those nights with less-than-ideal sleep, try to not let it frustrate you too much or cause you too much anxiety. We want to try to avoid one bad night of sleep causing negative reactions that could cause more bad nights of sleep. Remind yourself that bad nights of sleep happen, that you’ve gotten through other days lacking sleep, and you will get through this one too.
The Clock
Third, our sleep is influenced by our internal clock, called our circadian rhythm. This is important to remember because what we do in the morning, afternoon, and evening all can play a role in our sleep that night. We’ll cover more about that as we continue through these tips.
The second tip is about maintaining a consistent sleep schedule. When people struggle with sleep, one of the most important steps they can do to help improve their sleep is to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Yes, that even means sticking to the schedule on the weekends and during vacations as best we can. For example, if you are aiming for eight hours of sleep and need to be up at 6:30am to get ready for work, this means going to bed at 10:30 the night before. Then trying to keep this sleep schedule every day of the week.
I know this tip can be difficult for people to implement because it feels great to sleep in on the weekends. But trying to stick to a consistent schedule can be so helpful! If you’re not sure about this, I’d encourage you to try it out consistently for a couple of weeks and see how you feel!
Earlier I mentioned that our sleep is influenced by our circadian rhythm, the 24-hour internal clock our body has. A big influence on that clock is getting sunlight in the morning, so opening up your blinds or shades to let the natural light in can make a huge difference to our sleep and mood!
If you think back to the days of the prehistoric humans, they were probably relying on the sun to help wake up. After all, that was the best alarm clock they had! That morning sun helps our body release different hormones and chemicals that wake us up, but also help set us up for better sleep that night.
There is a slight problem here though. Because of our lifestyles or where we live, we might not have access to sunlight when we wake up. For myself, I live in Minnesota, and during the winter months, we have very few hours of sunlight, and I am up hours before the sunrises during those months. When we don’t have access to sunlight in the morning, there are some things that we can try to do instead. One is to get a specific type of light to mimic the sun. These artificial sun lamps are often used for people with Seasonal Affective Disorder. There are many reviews of these lamps online, so check them out and see if this is something that might benefit you. It is often recommended by sleep professionals that you look for a lamp that is rated at 10,000 LUX or more (which is a measure of light) and to get a lamp that is UV-filtered.
Tip four now is actually the opposite of the morning. In the evening, we want to start avoiding light as we get toward bedtime. This can mean turning down the lights in your house, closing the blinds or curtains, and being mindful of other light sources. Just like how light in the morning can be a cue for us to wake up, if we’re getting a lot of light exposure in the evening, this can keep us up. In fact, as our surroundings become darker toward the end of the day, this can be a cue for our body to start releasing chemicals and hormones, like melatonin, to help us fall asleep.
If you can’t keep your room dark for some reason, you might consider getting a sleep mask as this can help block out light that might disrupt your sleep.
The fifth tip is about associating our bed with sleep. For people who struggle with their sleep, it can be really helpful to start teaching their brain that bed means sleep. While this can sound obvious because we intellectually associate beds with sleep, we want this association to be automatic for our brains.
Therefore, an important rule in the world of sleep is that our beds are for sleep and sex. This means that if you are in bed, you should be sleeping or engaging in sexual activity. So, when you’re in bed, you should avoid being on your phone, reading, talking to your partner, eating, or anything else!
This is what we want to do with our bed and sleep. We want our brains to start to see our bed and know that it’s time for sleep. In other words, by helping our brain associate our bed with sleep, it can help make it easier and more automatic to fall asleep.
The sixth tip is related to physical activity and exercise. I think it’s safe to say that most people are aware that exercise is a good, healthy habit. But did you know that it also helps sleep? Indeed it does! In general, any exercise at any point in the day is going to most likely improve the quality of your sleep that night! Each of us might have to experiment to find what works best for us and our schedules, but if you can squeeze in any exercise in a day, that’s probably going to give you an advantage when it comes to your sleep that night.
Many can struggle to be consistent with working out, so it might be best to try to find a way to incorporate exercise that you’ll be able to incorporate more consistently. In other words, do the workout you like most! Some people love running, so that’s what they should do. Others prefer weight lifting, so that’s what they should pick! Or maybe you would rather take a quiet walk by yourself, or with a group of friends. Do what you enjoy and what works with your schedule!
Recent Research
A recent meta analysis gives us a bit more insight into how exercise broadly seems to improve sleep. They were specifically looking at people who struggled with their mental health, and analyzed 21 randomized controlled trials with over 1,600 participants. They found that those who engaged in some form of exercise had significant improvements in their sleep.
There are a few other things that stand out to me about their findings. First, the benefits applied to those who engaged in low, moderate, or vigorous exercise. Second, they looked at four types of exercise: aerobic, mind-body, resistance, and multicomponent. All four had positive effects, with aerobic exercise having the greatest effect. Finally, duration was something else they assessed, looking at the effects of exercise that lasted less than 30 minutes or more than 30 minutes. They found that both had positive effects, with exercise that lasted more than 30 minutes having a slightly better impact on sleep.
All that said, remember that any exercise is going to be good, and will likely help your sleep. For some people, they prefer to work out in the morning, others find that the afternoon works better, and for some, the evening is the best time. See what works best for you!
Here’s a bonus tip! When it comes to trying to improve our sleep, we don’t want to change a bunch of things all at once. Change can actually be something that will disrupt our sleep or reduce the quality of sleep—that’s part of the reason we want to try to stick to a consistent sleep schedule, even on weekends.
If you decide to implement any of the tips, it can be helpful to remember the phrase low and slow. Meaning, we want to pick a low number of things to change—honestly just one or two. Then we want to be consistent with those changes for two weeks before we make any other changes.
Free Resource
Don’t forget, if you want more tips and tricks to help with your sleep, check out this free resource! Click here to get a free resource!
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