Get an alarm clock and other ways to snooze more soundly

Sleep is extremely important for our well-being, both emotional and physical. Most adults generally need between 7-9 hours/night. What happens if you do not get enough sleep? As shown in many studies, lack of sleep can cause a variety of issues. For example, people who do not get enough sleep tend to gain weight and eat less healthy. It can also cause difficulties in both learning and memory. 
 
Additionally, sleep is intimately related to our mental well-being. For instance, a recent study showed that people who don’t get enough sleep have higher levels of anxiety and/or depression. There seems to be something protective about getting enough sleep, as if it calms or diminishes our anxiety and improves our mood. Similarly, another recent study revealed that people who get 6 or fewer hours of sleep a night are as mentally impaired as if they were drunk; yet, these folks but think they are operating normally! 
 
I can go on and on about the benefits of sleep. I work with people to improve their sleep quite often and have identified 4 important behaviors to help you have a better night’s sleep. This is definitely not an exhaustive list but includes behaviors that I think are extremely important.
 

1. Downtime. It’s imperative that you have at least 30-60 minutes of downtime before you go to bed. This means NOT ON A SCREEN- SPECIFICALLY YOUR COMPUTER OR PHONE. Read, color, draw, do sudoku, listen to relaxing music, etc.  We need to prepare our body for sleep and allow it to transition from our daily activity level to a more quiet, still place. We can’t finish our work or doing something active and hop into bed, expecting to easily fall asleep.
   
2. Exercise. Being active during the day helps us sleep more soundly.  Exercise is best if it’s in the morning or afternoon. Because many people need a few hours to calm down after exercise, it may be a good practice not to exercise 3-4 hours before bedtime.
3. Limit your caffeine. Caffeine stays in your system for a minimum of 6 hours actively and 19 hours inactively. In other words, if you have your last sip of caffeine at 4pm, it’s still probably affecting you at 10pm or possibly even 11pm. Take-home message: don’t have caffeine after 12pm or 1pm.  Also, keep track of how many servings you are consuming. 8 oz. is one serving of caffeine, so if you’re having a 20-oz coffee, you’re having 2.5 servings. Some people are extremely sensitive to caffeine. I’ve had clients who were only having one small coffee in the morning, but when they abstained from coffee for as little as 2 weeks, they were able to sleep much better.
4. Use an alarm clock. If you don’t have one, get an alarm clock! I work with a lot of young adults and have come to realize that many young (and not-so-young) adults use their phone for an alarm clock. This is bad for a few important reasons. First, because the light of a phone is really bright, it can disrupt your sleep when you check the time. Second, when you check your phone (clock), you may see your notifications (e.g., texts, emails, and social media) and decide to respond to these notifications. Working or responding to emails and texts in the middle of the night is really awful for sound sleep and a quiet mind. Even if you don’t respond, their existence may cause some anxiety and limit your ability to soundly sleep. Please don’t do this! Third, our phones represent what we have to do, our activity, our to-do lists. Having your phone with you in bed is not restful, and it brings this energy into your bedroom when you want your bed to be safe and calm. For all these reasons, I strongly recommend that everyone use an actual alarm clock. Leave your phone off and put it in another room where you won’t be tempted or influenced by its energy.

 
Try all these suggestions, and you will have a more restful, peaceful sleep. If you have other things that have helped you sleep better, please leave them in the comments.