As I’ve written numerous times before, I not only give sleep a ton of credit for helping me heal from my major Ulcerative Colitis flare, but I believe it is an integral part of the success I’ve had in staying healed.
When I was recovering, I slept about 10 hours per night, as my body needed every minute of that time to focus on repairing, restoring, and reinvigorating; all things that led to healing. In the years since, I have continued to make sleep a huge priority, though for more like 8 ½ hours per night instead of 10, as 10 is thankfully no longer necessary. But it’s not just about the time we lay our heads on the pillow, it’s about how much of that time we are actually asleep.
Even when we aren’t battling a disease or experiencing any serious health issues, good sleep is essential for maintaining wellness. Poor quality sleep contributes to inflammation, disease risk, weight gain, and depression, and decreases the immune system and cognitive function.
Not to mention the fact that not getting enough sleep just generally makes us feel crappy and crabby and reduces our overall quality of life!
It’s a fact that to live a life of healing and staying healed, our body needs that time desperately. So how do we get better at sleeping better? Here are 8 things I’ve learned that have been a huge help in prioritizing sleep.
1. PROTECT YOUR SLEEP TIME! - it sounds silly, but in order to make something a priority, you’ve got to actually prioritize it! Even if that means adjusting your lifestyle so that events and activities you participate in are early enough in the evening that they won’t keep you out past your bedtime. The older I get, the more I notice that even just one night of going to bed too late takes me at least two days to recover from. Hopefully without sounding too lame, I’ll say that I’ve definitely reached the age where a good night’s sleep trumps a late night out! And even on nights when we are home with no good excuse for staying up too late, many of us fall prey to distractions including the “watching just one more episode of something on Netflix” phenomenon. Protecting our sleep means making ourselves go to bed on time, just like those of us who are parents make our kids go to bed on time!
2. MEDITATE/CLEAR YOUR MIND - If you have trouble falling asleep or getting back to sleep after waking up in the night, it’s important to prevent your brain from getting all fired up. I’ve noticed if I start to let my thoughts run wild, my body will tense up and sleep will become more and more elusive. I try to use those times to practice focusing on my breathing through meditation, and just being in the present moment in order to keep my brain in check and get my body relaxed. If this is not your thing, then I’ve found doing some light “day dreaming”, where I just allow myself to think of very light-hearted things works pretty well too - and there’s definitely something to the old adage of counting sheep!
3. SUNSHINE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE - I keep reading how going outside, even just for a few minutes, as soon after waking up as possible is key to getting our “daytime clocks ticking” and circadian rhythms functioning properly. This helps us to be more wide awake during the daytime, and then shifts us toward tiredness in the evening, and thus, helps us to fall asleep easier at night. I mean, the concept really just seems like common sense, yet it’s not something most of us naturally think to do. I’ve been trying this out for myself and on the days when I do it, I really do feel like it helps me be more ready for bedtime at night.
4. SLEEPING TOOLS - Here I go again showing that I may no longer be a spring chicken, but I must say that I adore my white noise machine, ear plugs, and sleeping mask. Living on a busy street in an urban neighborhood means lots of glow from street lights penetrating my curtains, and also lots of noise from sirens, buses, and the occasional person screaming for no apparent reason. So my sleeping tools are vital. I have definitely gotten to the point where I sleep extremely well with them, and can’t sleep well at all without them!
5. FLUIDS - We all know that drinking too much of anything at night means getting up to pee numerous times, and clearly that’s no good for sleep quality, so we should limit all fluids later in the evening. It’s also well known that having caffeine too close to bedtime is not good for sleep. Some people think that they can get away with some evening caffeine if they are still able to fall asleep okay, but the fact of the matter is that caffeine in the PM will still mess with our circadian rhythms and thus mess with the quality of our sleep. And then there is alcohol, which is a big yet often ignored sleep offender. Being that it’s a depressant, we may think that it actually helps us sleep better since it can put us to sleep fast, but like caffeine, it messes with our circadian rhythm big-time as it reduces melatonin and REM sleep.
6. NO SNOOZING! - Whether you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock a dozen times or only just once, you will be increasing your levels of disorientation and grogginess that come along at wakey wakey time. A nice trick I’ve found to be very effective in preventing the temptation to hit snooze is setting the alarm on my cell phone and putting my phone across the room on my dresser. This requires me to get my butt up and out of bed to turn off the alarm, and in doing so I’m much more awake much faster and much less likely to hit snooze and crawl back in bed. Sometimes we want to keep sleeping just because we don’t want to leave the comfort of our warm, cozy beds, but feeling the need to repeatedly hit snooze can be a big indicator that we’re not going to bed early enough and/or that our sleep quality is pretty poor.
7. MENTAL INPUT/OUTPUT - When it comes to pre-bedtime input, being on screens before bedtime exposes us to a ton of blue light, which stimulates our brain and suppresses melatonin production. I’ve certainly found that it’s much easier to feel tired and ready for bed when I read a book at night instead of having my face in my phone. Avoiding watching or reading the news right before bed is of course a good idea too, especially these days when the news is often the stuff nightmares are made of. Regarding pre-bedtime output, taking a few minutes to journal about the day or jot down notes of whatever is on our minds can be super effective in helping our brains to relax and “power down” for the night.
8. EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE - While this is easier said than done for a lot of us, including myself, the science shows that going to bed early and waking up early is better for sleep quality. I am soooo not naturally a morning person, so this is a challenge for me, but I’ve found that a reasonable expectation for myself, at least for right now, is to go to bed around 10:30/11:00, and wake up around 7:30. This way I’m not trying to force myself to go to bed too early, but also not staying up too late, and vice versa for my waking up time. This has been working well for me personally, though I remain a bit envious of all the early birds out there who get to greet the sunrise every day. When my schedule changes in the fall, I will be moving towards getting up earlier, so I may achieve early bird status yet!
When it comes to improving sleep, a great place to start is simply by paying attention to your personal sleep situation - when you start to feel tired vs. when you go to bed, how many times you wake up during the night, what is waking you up, how groggy you do or do not feel when you wake up in the morning, etc. Once you’ve done a good assessment on your general sleep habits and problem areas, it will be easier to determine what next steps to take in order to improve your sleep.
Better sleep means better health, and with that, I wish you sweet dreams tonight, my friends!
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