[00:00] When people can't fall asleep or they struggle with insomnia, they often look for bedtime routines to help them. And while sleep hygiene can be helpful, it's kind of like waiting until you retire to plan for retirement. It's kind of too late a bedtime to really create this optimal sleep situation.
[00:16] So in this video, I'm going to share four essential routines that can actually help you fall asleep quickly and sleep better. Okay, so there's a ton of advice out there about sleep
[00:30] and some of it's just wrong and will definitely make your sleep worse, especially if you have insomnia. The chief among these is that you have to go to bed at the same time each night. Now, what this does is if you go to bed before you're sleepy,
[00:42] you're going to feel frustrated and anxious about not being able to fall asleep and how badly you need to sleep and how important to the next day is and all the other bad advice out there about how you need X number of hours of sleep,
[00:54] to a boy brain damage and whatever. And what you actually end up doing is that your anxiety makes it harder to fall asleep and you train your brain that bedtime is a time to worry and to get anxious and upset.
[01:09] So according to sleep expert Martin Reid, one of the essential conditions to sleeping well is what he calls sleep drive. Your sleep drive is the need for sleep that your body builds up the longer you're awake.
[01:21] So when you sleep in late or take long naps during the day, that essentially drains your sleep drive and makes it much harder to fall asleep the next night. Instead, a much better strategy than going to bed at the same time each night
[01:35] is to wake up each morning at the same time. And yes, this doesn't include weekends. But each night, because you've got sleep drive built up, you're going to be able to fall asleep relatively quickly.
[01:48] So that's why waking up at the same time each day is the first essential routine to sleeping better. It's much more important than going to bed at the same time each night.
[02:00] Okay, number two, you're going to use early morning light and evening dimness to help set your circadian rhythm. So you can see on this chart, the humans typically have pretty drastic changes in their hormone levels
[02:12] throughout the day. In the morning, we get a large dump of cortisol, which is a stress hormone to get us moving, also gets our bubbles moving. And by evening, our melatonin is rising. This is the natural sleepiness hormone.
[02:24] This is the thing that sets the timing of these natural hormone changes is light. So if you flew to the other side of the world and your system was off by 12 hours with jet lag, eventually it would reset itself to the new time by using daylight cues to know when to wake up
[02:40] and when to fall asleep. But the cool thing is if you're having a hard time falling asleep at night, it might be because you aren't getting enough early light exposure, whether it's winter and you work in Alaska or you just work indoors with no windows and stare at a screen all day.
[02:53] Now, the ideal solution is that we all get a little sunlight in the mornings, but you can also use morning light therapy with a light box. So light therapy can help you feel more alert and energized in the morning, but this also advances your circadian rhythm so that you can release more melatonin
[03:10] earlier in the evening. Now, again, in the evenings, the ideal is that you don't have light from screens within 90 minutes of when you want to fall asleep. But if you are going to be looking at
[03:23] a screen, it can be helpful to limit blue light or bright lights at night by choosing dark mode on your devices or wearing blue light blocking glasses to help your body start to produce melatonin. Okay, number three. Two little activity can lead to your body feeling like it's not ready to rest.
[03:39] So if you sit for most of your day, if you don't get much physical movement in, if you don't exercise, you're simply not going to sleep as well because there's nothing to rest from. So this is a common problem with office workers and seniors. So I mean, you can focus on sleep hygiene
[03:54] all you want, but if your body isn't tired, you're not going to sleep as well. So if you don't have an exercise routine, you could just try to plan in some walks or some dancing
[04:06] or some physical chores throughout your day. And I promise it's not going to hurt your sleep. How already is recommended that you don't do strenuous exercise right before bedtime? Okay, number four. Do you lay your head down on the pillow? You're exhausted from the day,
[04:20] only to find that your mind is filled with racing thoughts about all of your responsibilities. Maybe you worry about an upcoming presentation or you fret about something you said and you wonder if everyone hates you now or you try to remember if you responded to that text or you put that
[04:36] birthday on your calendar. So this is super common and it can feel like an impossible trap to get out of. And a lot of people try meditation, mindfulness, distraction or other techniques at night to try
[04:48] to make this go away. But that's never going to be as effective as managing it during the day. So here's what's happened. Because you're so busy or distracted during the day, your brain doesn't have a chance to process through these thoughts and worries while you're awake. So your brain is actually
[05:04] really good at working through worries if you give it a chance to face them. But when you keep too busy during the day, your brain doesn't get the chance. It's like your computer asking you to do an update over and over again, but you keep saying, ask me later, ask me later. So pretty soon your computer is
[05:19] going to try to force that update right in the middle of something important. Your brain doesn't trust you that you're going to work through those worries or those to-dos during the day. So it brings them up with you at night. Meditation, mindfulness and distractions are all another way of telling your
[05:35] brain that you're just going to keep trying to avoid thinking about it. So your brain is going to nag you more. It's going to increase the volume. And this can feel really impossible to escape, but the solution is actually quite simple. It's called scheduled worry. So you schedule a time each day
[05:51] to worry on purpose. I recommend after 12, but before 7 p.m. and you're going to choose 15 to 30 minutes to sit down and write down your worries. And it's really important that you do this on paper
[06:03] or some sort of task management app. And I would just say, like, never worry in your head. Just do it on paper. And this will teach your brain that you will, that you are trustworthy, that you'll face your worries and you'll capture all those things that you need to do so that it doesn't have to remind you
[06:19] of them at night. This is one of the most effective treatments for general anxiety disorder. And it can really help you fall asleep and stay asleep. It's also helpful to take time during the day
[06:31] to let your mind wander, to not be so busy all the time. And that lets your brain process information in the background so that it doesn't have to do it right when you put your head on your pillow. Okay, so there you have it, four essential routines to help you sleep better. You can see how
[06:47] you can't wait to do them at bedtime. You've got to do them in the morning or during your day to help regulate your sleep cycles and sleep more clearly. Get out of bed at the same time each day, use light to your advantage, exercise and schedule worry. Now if you'd like to learn more skills on how
[07:04] to sleep better, you can check out my interview with sleep coach Martin Reed or you can check out my playlist how to sleep better. Okay, hope that's helpful. Thank you for watching and take care.