5 strategies for getting better sleep

Sleep is an essential ingredient in the good mental health soup. Some of the most obvious signs that you might not be sleeping well is waking up tired, feeling burnt out, difficulty focusing, irritability, unstable mood, low motivation... etc. And getting poor sleep might not just effect you that same day. Many experience these symptoms for a day or several days after an unrestful night. So what can be done?

Outside of medical and mental health complications that can contribute to poor sleep (which you should investigate with your doctor), our sleep quality can largely be influenced by our habits around sleep. That means, changing what we do before and after sleeping can impact how restful our night is. Consider what your habits look like right now:

☐ What time do you aim to bed and wake up?

☐ What kind of food and beverage are you consuming before bed?

☐ What activities are you engaging in before bed?

Once you have a good idea of what might be contributing to a poor nights rest, you can start to consider areas where you'd like to start building new habits. Here are 5 strategies to help you get started.

No screens before bed.

This might sound like a painful adjustment, but the stimulation and light from your looking at your phone or TV can be a huge contributor to why it's so difficult to fall and stay asleep. A simple adjustment might to be to passively listen to music or a podcast on your phone or view the TV from a distance, while watching a relaxing and less stimulating show. Not as exciting as TikTok and reels, I know, but that's the point.

Stick to a sleep schedule.

This might seem obvious. But I still find that very few of my clients that express difficulty sleeping have a routine sleep schedule. This if often because they're trying to adjust to a schedule that doesn't fit their bodies natural desire or their work/school schedule. If you're like me, and are a creature of the night, creating a sleep schedule that allows you to stay up later and sleep later in the morning might fit you better, as long as it doesn't conflict with your responsibilities and you're able to get a full night sleep. Listen to your body, and build habits around what comes naturally.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed.

Certain substances can have a huge impact how well we sleep. Even the ones that make it easier to fall asleep initially. The two more common culprits are caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine is a stimulant which can disrupt sleep stages even in situations where falling asleep wasn't initially difficult, which generally isn't the case, as caffeine makes falling asleep a lot more difficult for most people. And while some find that drinking alcohol helps them fall asleep, it often can cause fragmented sleep later in the night and significantly reduce REM sleep.

Engage in low stimulus activities before bed.

A low stimulus activity can be anything that's calming or engages our senses minimally. Examples of this might be reading, journaling, knitting, doing a puzzle, meditating, showing. Activities like these can help reduce the natural sensory overload and physical tension we experience throughout the day from our responsibilities and devices.

Try listening to music for sleep.

If you have a mind that's in a constant thought frenzy like mine, you might find that listening to calming music can help (which I do almost every night). The music gives my mind something to focus on that's also helping me relax. Check out this music on my YouTube channel. It contains delta waves, which some find it helps them feel relaxed and fall asleep. Let me know if you give it a listen!

This post is not intended to diagnose, give medical advice or replace mental health treatment.