Awake Against Your Will: 6 Steps to Better Sleep

If you are struggling to get better sleep, you’re certainly not alone. We live in an age of sleep deprivation. Between screen time, overworking, stress, and constant opportunity for brain stimulation, a good night’s sleep often evades us. Here’s an eye-opening question to ask yourself: When was the last time you got a great week of sleep, outside of vacation? Many of us can’t remember when that last happened!

According to health.com, sleep has been shown to

• Improve memory
• Extend life
• Curb inflammation (reduces chance of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc.)
• Spur creativity
• Increase winning
• Improve job performance
• Sharpen attention
• Facilitate losing more fat (and giving your body more opportunity to recover)
• Lower stress and anxiety
• Reduce accidents (anything from tripping in your house to totalling your car)
• Lower chances of becoming depressed

If you’re able to keep a healthy sleep schedule, you may find yourself feeling happier, more confident, more productive (in less time!), more prone to listen well and engage, function with less stress and anxiety, and read people better.

Getting better sleep is sabotaged by two things: Sleep deprivation and sleep insufficiency. Sleep deprivation is getting less than the needed amount of sleep (which, for grown adults, is recommended as a full 7-9 hours asleep). Lesser known, but equally important, is sleep insufficiency, which is the quality of sleep you’re getting. Both how long you and how well you sleep affects your quality of life.

Here are 6 steps to get better sleep and the most out of your snooze!

1. Create a Sleep Ready Room

Think of times you slept really well, then ask yourself what physical environment each situation had in common. Do you sleep better when you’re cool, or warm? Are fluffy pillows relaxing? Perhaps a more firm option lulls you to sleep the best. What kind of noise (or lack of it) enables your brain to relax and rest? 

Sleep is serious business – our health depends on it – so you should prioritize it! Here are some suggestions for a calm, relaxing sleep-ready room: 

• If you sleep better in a cool environment, start by turning the A/C down or turning a fan on before you go to bed, and allow the room to cool.
• Pick a mattress firmness you love (many brands allow you to try them out!) and a pillow that suits the way you sleep and your comfort level. 
• Remove stimulants like your clock and your phone. 
• Use a sound machine to emulate a calming environment – maybe you like the bustle of a city street, or maybe a burbling creek washes your worries away!
• Use blackout curtains to block out any light that could wake your brain up

2. Work Out Four Hours Prior to Falling Asleep

For those who find themselves dozing off just fine but then waking up just a couple of hours later (and a few hours too early), working out can help. Studies have shown that if you want to stay asleep longer, you should do a strenuous workout about four hours before you want to fall asleep. For many this has not only increased the amount that they sleep, but also improved the quality of their rest.

3. No Screens 2-3 Hours Before Sleep

Before the advent of screens and blue light, circadian rhythms kept our sleep routines on the clock. Now, while they help our productivity and work life, all our artificial light sources – namely phones, computers, and other sources of blue light – can severely stunt those rhythms. 

Prepare your brain for sleep by cutting out as much screen time as possible in the 2-3 hours before you sleep. While eliminating blue light sources entirely may not be realistic, consider picking up a book instead of watching tv, or listening to an audiobook or podcast instead of scrolling to put yourself to sleep.

4. Develop a Bedtime Routine

Believe it or not, you can train your brain and body to fall asleep fast – even if you’re an insomniac. Repeating the same routine before bed has incredible benefits, including reducing stimulation and slowing you down, making it easier to think about and plan for the next day’s schedule, and calming an overactive mind so you don’t lay in bed with a brain that runs in circles for hours. 

In as short as 30 minutes, a routine is easier to develop than you think. Try doing things like: 

• Putting on a comfy pair of slippers 
• Brushing your teeth 
• Folding today’s clothes and laying out clothes for tomorrow 
• Washing your face (and/or showering) 
• Brushing your hair 
• Listening to calming music
• Etc. 

Think of things that need to be done each night, and things that calm your mind, and implement them into the same time each night to form your routine.

5. Breathing Technique

For those who can’t seem to fall asleep quickly or easily, breathing can be a key tool to a quick and restful snooze. You may have heard of the 4-7-8 breathing technique – a natural trick that can elicit a sense of relaxation and calm, and can help with anxiety, a busy mind, and sleep. 

1. To start, sit up straight or lay in a straight position. 
2. Exhale from your mouth entirely – it should make a whooshing sound as you do so. 
3. Count to four as you take a deep, quiet breath in through your nose. 
4. Hold your breath for 7 seconds. 
5. Then, breathe out completely through your mouth for eight seconds, in a similar fashion to step 2. 
6. Repeat these steps three times.

6. Don’t Stimulate Your Brain if You Wake Up

If you’re a midnight waker – or anyone who doesn’t sleep as long as they’d like – it can be so easy to glance at your clock or phone when you wake up and get discouraged, especially if your alarm is hours away from ringing. 

When you look at the clock or your phone in the middle of the night, whether it’s caused by excitement over a sporting event in a different time zone, eagerness to wake up on Christmas morning, stress over the next day’s travel, or a pattern that your brain follows, looking at your clock can trigger your brain to start ticking – which means you will have a harder time going back to sleep. Try to avoid looking at any devices if you happen to wake up. You might also consider using a manual clock set across the room set to your goal rising time, so your body knows exactly when it’s supposed to be waking.

A Last Tip for Business Leaders

Are your team members getting enough quality sleep? It may be a good time to prioritize proper rest among your employees (sending out information like what you see here can be a great first step!). 

Looking at the tips above, what will you do in the future to encourage better sleep for your team?