Lack of sleep is a frustrating, perplexing, and sometimes debilitating challenge.
As a personal coach, I’m constantly encouraging my clients to practice self-care, especially in fraught times when our emotions can be triggered daily, if not hourly. Possibly the single most important aspect of self-care is sleep hygiene. How many hours do you sleep, how deeply asleep are you, do you wake rested?
Getting enough sleep is an essential part of maintaining our resilience. Without it, our cushions of patience become very thin indeed. Our thinking is foggy, our emotional control is ragged. In fact, your sleep deficit can take such a toll that you face the same effects as being drunk.
So, how can we improve our sleep habits?
Let’s talk about adolescents first. In adolescence, our circadian rhythms aren’t in line with the world’s expectations. Due to our physical growth, our brain development, our hormones, our screen time, and many other factors in and out of our control (mostly out), adolescents naturally wind down at night and gear up in the morning much later than younger and older individuals. This leads us to want to go to bed later and get up later than either our responsibilities or our parents demand.
Even more complicated, to consolidate our learning, to process the myriad of experiences we have every day, to support rapid brain development, to flush toxins, and for several other reasons, adolescents need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep every day.
The reality for an adolescent is that they go to school all day; they want to play a sport, be part of a show, go to an arts club after school, join a band; they have hours of homework to do; they need a social life; they need family time (whether they think they do or not); they want to practice an instrument; they’ve got to take a shower and brush their teeth; it’s fun to take in some entertainment; they’ve gotta have down time; AND they need 9 1/4 hours of sleep?! Guess what’s gonna give.
Now, how about non-adolescents? Notice I don’t say adults, because we know that adolescence lasts into our mid-twenties, so someone who is technically an adult may still be in their adolescence.
Sleep needs vary once we’re out of adolescence. The rule of thumb is that we need 6-8 hours; however, that’s an average. In other words, that range isn’t meant to indicate a single person, but all people. One person may function perfectly on 6 hours a day; another may need 8 or even 9. Those numbers may decrease as we age or they may not. Each individual must be the judge of how much sleep they need. The trick here is to be honest with ourselves. We can proudly tell ourselves we need only 6 hours and then wonder why we’re always irritated, frazzled, or unfocused, why we fall asleep in meetings or while trying to read that entertaining book we’ve been looking forward to.
Just as for adolescents, older folks physically and mentally need sleep to process our million daily experiences, to consolidate the life-learning we’ve done, and to flush toxins. During sleep, fluid fills our brains, sweeps through the nooks and crannies, scoops up the beta-amyloids that have accumulated through daily living, and flushes them down our biological drainpipes. To offer you a little incentive to get sleep, research shows that an overabundance of beta-amyloids in the brain links directly to dementia and Alheimzer’s.
And what’s the reality of an older person’s life? We work our 8 (or more) hours a day; we fit in a workout for health and longevity (and stress relief); if we’re parents we pick up our children, ferry them to their activities, help them with their homework, deeply and compassionately communicate with them, and prep their meals. We’d love to have couple’s time, entertainment time, down time. Once again, what’s gonna give? Work hours, life hours, or sleep hours?
Despite the natural tendency, I advocate for keeping sleep hours sacrosanct. So what can we do to get sleep?
Here are some suggestions I’ve gleaned from specialists over the years:
😴 Plan carefully. Start with acknowledging the social expectations for your waking hours. That means recognizing what time society (eg., your boss, your work responsibilities, school) expects you to show up. Calculate how much time, honestly, you need to get ready. Maybe you need only 15 minutes if you wear pajamas to work or school, but we can’t always get away with that. And it’s a nice gesture to your colleagues and schoolmates to brush your teeth. Maybe even wash your face. And, really, breakfast is an important meal. How long does your commute take? Once you’ve established these non-negotiables, calculate back from your show-up time. That’s what time you need to get up. Now, calculate back 8 hours (or the sleep time you need) and you have your fall-asleep time. If you know you want to listen to an audiobook or read or whatever before you fall asleep, account for that. Now you have your bedtime. The hard fact of life is that the remaining time is all you’ve got as disposable time (just like budgeting and calculating your disposable income). You may have to prioritize. You may have to ask yourself what can go. You may have to make temporary sacrifices to meet your priorities. A coach can help with all of that.
Here’s an example:
Show up time, 9 a.m.
prep time 45 minutes
commute time 30 minutes
=wakeup time of (9-1.25 hours) 7:45 a.m.
7:45 minus 8 hours (if that’s what you need)
=fall asleep time of 11:45 p.m.
😴 Keep a consistent sleep schedule. One scenario: you go to bed at 1 a.m. on weeknights and get up at 6 a.m. On weekends, you stretch bedtime to 2 or 3 a.m. because you can sleep in until 1 p.m. The whiplash moment happens on Sunday night when you try to go to bed at 11 p.m. to get a decent night’s sleep before Monday morning. Ain’t gonna happen. You lie awake staring at the ceiling. Sleep specialists recommend keeping a consistent bedtime and wakeup time all week long. I know. I find it a challenge, too.
😴 Use your bed for sleeping and only sleeping. Like Pavlov’s dogs, we can be trained to associate a stimulus with an outcome. If your bed is an entertainment center or workplace, that’s what you’ll associate it with. No business, homework, watching videos, texting with friends, or anything else in, on, or near the bed. Bed=sleepy time. For couples, there’s one obvious exception to this rule. I’ll leave that for you to figure out.
😴 Spray a lovely scent on your pillow. Aim for something organic. Try an essential oil, though it’s best to avoid peppy smells like eucalyptus, peppermint, or tea tree oil. Go instead for something warm and mellow like mugwort (said to bring on psychic dreams), lavender, oakmoss, or anything that makes you feel calm and dreamy.
😴 Power down all screens an hour before bedtime. The rapidly flickering blue light of any screen stimulates the brain. Experiment with apps or phone settings which gradually remove the blue from your screen after sunset. It makes for an odd color, but it really is gentler on tired eyes.
😴 For deeper sleep or to fall asleep more easily, avoid caffeinated substances (coffee, tea, chai, sodas, chocolate, energy drinks, No-Doz, espresso beans) after dinner. If you have trouble falling asleep, avoid them after 4 p.m. If that doesn’t help, try nothing after noon.
😴 Deal with your electronic devices that accept texts, messages, notifications, calls, etc.
Best: turn off your phone and leave it outside the bedroom.
Okay: put your phone on airplane mode, nighttime mode, Do Not Disturb, or some other mode that blocks all notifications for the night.
Big mistake: leave your phone on and take every text, notification, or call that comes through. All night long.
😴 If you’re prone to rumination once you’re in bed, that is, dwelling on something that happened in the past or worrying about something that will happen in the future, remind yourself that you can’t take care of anything now. If you must, make a note (ideally on a piece of paper, not on your phone) to remind yourself to deal with it tomorrow. Suggest to yourself that the past is past and the future hasn’t come yet, so pay attention only to the present. Breathe. Meditate. Imagine yourself in a beautiful spot in nature; try to picture everything you can—smell the smells, hear the sounds, touch what’s there. Breathe. Meditate.
Happy sleeping! It’s one of your most important to-dos every day. It’s self-care that improves the lives of everyone you encounter. Win-win! How often do we get to say that about a daily occurrence?