What you need for a good night’s sleep
Sleep, glorious, elusive sleep! Oh how we need you.
Some of us need slightly more or less than others. But it’s fair to say that without a decent (average 6-8 hours) amount of good quality, deeply restful sleep, we will begin to wear ourselves into the ground.
In a previous post, we spoke about the sex-gender-impact on our sleep. With this in mind, some of these suggestions may be applicable/appropriate for folks identifying as a certain gender and surrounded by certain gender contexts, so feel free to modify, pick and choose or develop your own unique tips and tricks.
Here are some of the creative sleep hygiene strategies I’ve accumulated from myself and clients over the years:
Play to your strengths. If you’re waking up early, get up and get things started. Do the meditation, exercise or extra work bits that you’ve been wanting to do. Utilise this time to your advantage. If you are finding it hard to settle and get to sleep at night, then that might be your productive time.
Map your sleep. By monitoring your sleep over a period of 1-3 months you might start to notice a timeline or pattern. It might be better or worse at different times. You might notice that you can start to bring a gentleness towards yourself at those times when you notice sleep is harder to obtain, knowing that it’s part of a pattern that will shift. Particularly if you are a person with a vagina, you may well notice this is linked to your menstruation monthly cycle. There are many resources on this around cycle awareness and the 4 distinct stages of the cycle. Sleeplessness is expected in at least one part of the cycle (middle/ovulation) when you are likely to be more high energy and active.
Ritual and Routine. Find ways that work for you about signalling to your mind and body that it is sleep time. These rituals might include a hot shower or bath, tea, scented products, relaxing music, going for a gentle walk, the way you go about the house, or quite literally saying “it’s time for bed”. Doing the same thing each night, or as many nights as you can remember in a week, will start to rewire your neural pathways to create habits and messages of consistency and safety for your body and mind to unwind.
Tech time off. It’s a common piece of advice because it is true. At least one hour before your intended sleep time, switch it all off. E-books and meditation apps are ok if you change the screen to nighttime mode and keep to strict use of these without getting distracted on other apps.
Crunch the numbers. Make space between your active day, your unwinding day and your sleeping day. The 24 hour day is broken up into 3 x 8hours for a reason. Many of us are finding are not keeping to this balance. Work might be 10 hours, sleep might be 6 hours and unwinding time is whatever is left over and taken up with chores, life admin or managing family commitments. Finding a way to make your modern life work for you within a 24 hour period is vital to your commitment to better sleep.
It’s the other hours. Sleep time is more about what is happening in the rest of your day and not just the part that is meant to be about sleep. Are you stressed or anxious throughout your day? Are you being creative in some way? Are you making time for playfulness? Are you able to move your body in some way? The body stores pent up energy and unused energy. If these energies are not having adequate outlets, guess what, our sleep will be affected. Find micro breaks - 5 minutes here and there scattered throughout the day - to decompress, deep breath, look at the sky, do 20 start jumps, walk around the block, etc. This will help dispose of the energies before it has had a chance to build up at the end of the day and we just expect our minds and bodies to be able to switch off like a light switch. It doesn’t work like that.
Exhaust your body. When was the last time you really exhausted your body? It could have been from a good cry. Or a good laugh. Or a run. Or playing sport. Or climbed a mountain. Or a really fast house clean. Or using the stairs at work instead of the lift. Whatever it is, do it and do it more. You might find that to break the cycle of poor sleep, you need to make a point of exhausting your body a few days in a row (an hour of solid cardio or really passionate sex!).
Focus on relaxing. The more pressure we put on our minds to sleep, the more resistant it can get. Finding ways to simply relax your system and deescalate your nervous system is key to accessing that parasympathetic state that is helpful to drift nonchalantly into sleep, without the mind even being too conscious of it. Try yoga nidra apps or classes to assist with this strategy.
Sleep is not the enemy. Don’t hate on sleep, or the lack thereof. This is often the symptom of other things that are going on beneath the surface, either physically, psychologically or emotionally. Be open and curious about what might be going on for you. You might do this with a therapist, a good friend, some other wellbeing practice or on your own. But the psychosomatic connection is real and a lack of sleep is simply your body’s way of talking to you. Listen.
