How good was it this weekend to get that extra hour in bed with the clocks going back?
We know how important it is getting a good night sleep, but sleep doesn’t always come easy!. We also know how it feels when you get up and feel like you have barely slept - dragging yourself into the kitchen for a coffee to waken you up for the day and wondering how you are going to get through the day. I wonder how often we stop and think about our sleep before we actually get into bed and give thought to what might be affecting it.
We just think of sleeping as something that happens when we crawl into bed and close our eyes. This is true, but our habits, routines and behaviours play a part in how well we sleep too. This is what we call sleep hygiene.
What Exactly Is Sleep Hygiene?
Sleep hygiene is a term that we hear thrown around - but basically just means the habits, behaviours, thoughts and routines that help us create the best conditions to have a good and restful sleep. Things like - how long are we watching TV or looking at our phones before bedtime. Are we having caffeine or alcohol too late at night? Did we lie in too long in the morning, did we take a nap in the afternoon? All of these things affect the quality of sleep we will have.
What Are The Benefits Of A Good Sleep
Improves mood and emotional wellbeing
Reduces stress and irritability
Improves memory and concentration
Strengthens the immune system
Increases energy and motivation
Helps us manage everyday challenges
How Does CBT Therapy Help Me With My Sleep?
CBT helps us look at the relationships between our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. When It comes to sleep we often fall into patterns that are unhelpful. Last night we had a poor night sleep and instinctively start feeling frustrated about it. We then start worrying if we will have a good sleep tonight. Bedtime is approaching and we tell ourselves “I must sleep tonight, I can’t face another day exhausted.” So we go to bed early and determined to get a full 8 hours of sleep - however the sleepy feeling just isn’t coming. We look at the time on our phone and then again. We get more frustrated, irritable and anxious and before we know it hours have passed. The problem now is no longer simply that we are not sleeping. We are now anxious about not sleeping, and that anxiety can make it even harder to settle.
In CBT, we look at how our thoughts and behaviours can contribute to cycles like this. The aim isn't to convince ourselves that sleep doesn't matter. Of course it matters. It's about recognising when our response to a problem might actually be making it worse.
Making Small Changes to Our Sleep Routine
One of the useful things about looking at sleep hygiene is that it gives us an opportunity to consider what we can realistically change. There's no use in creating an amazing bedtime routine which looks good on paper - but we are just unable to do as it doesn’t tie in with how we actually live. For most of us, it’s more helpful if we can start with a few small and manageable changes. Such as -
Keeping a consistent waking up time can help our bodies get into a more regular pattern. That doesn't mean we have to live by the clock every minute of the day, but getting up at roughly the same time each day can be useful.
Paying attention to what we are eating or drinking before bed is another good place to start. If we're struggling with sleep, it might be worth considering whether that after dinner coffee or glass of wine is doing us any favours.
Giving ourselves time to wind down can also make a difference. We can't always go straight from texts, watching an exciting programme or dealing with family responsibilities to feeling completely relaxed.
Making the bedroom comfortable is important too. A room that's reasonably dark, quiet and cool can help create an environment that's more suited to sleep.
I'm not saying that we need to have a perfect routine. But small, consistent changes can sometimes make more of a difference than we expect.
What Are We Telling Ourselves About Sleep?
Sleep hygiene focuses on our habits, but CBT encourages us to look at our thinking as well.
In CBT, we might look at the evidence for that thought. Have we managed a difficult day after a poor night's sleep before? Could tomorrow be tiring without being completely unmanageable? It's not about pretending that being exhausted is pleasant. It's about being realistic rather than automatically assuming the worst. And sometimes, reducing the pressure we put on ourselves can help us approach bedtime with a little less anxiety.
It's Not About Getting Everything Right
We can sometimes make the mistake of turning healthy habits into another list of things we feel we have to do perfectly and if we don’t do it perfectly we can be hard on ourselves. When we fail to do what we set out to do - we get frustrated and this all contributes to the cycle of negative thoughts we can often have.
The aim of sleep hygiene isn't to create a set of rigid rules that we feel guilty about breaking. It's to become more aware of the habits that might be helping or hindering us, and to make changes where they seem useful. CBT can support that process by helping us recognise unhelpful thoughts, understand our behaviours and develop more balanced ways of responding when things don't go quite as planned.