When you sleep well, everything feels a little bit better. I can tell a drastic difference in how I feel after a five hour sleep vs. an eight hour sleep. When I enjoy a good night’s sleep, I feel happier, have more clarity, and I’m in a better mood with more daytime energy. I also experience less pain, and things don’t bother me as much as they do when I’m under slept.
Sleep researcher and author of Why We Sleep, The New Science of Sleep And Dreams, Matthew Walker says, “Sleep is probably the single most effective thing that you can do to reset both your brain [and] your body’s health. I don’t say that flippantly against the notions of diet and exercise — both of those are fundamentally critical — but if I were to deprive you of sleep for 24 hours, deprive you of food for 24 hours, or deprive you of water or exercise for 24 hours, and then I were to map the brain and body impairment you would suffer after each one of those four — hands down a lack of sleep will implode your brain and body far more significantly.”
Sleep Well By Letting Go Of These 7 Things
We’ve all heard the traditional recommendations to sleep well. The Mayo Clinic shares these recommendations: stick to a sleep schedule, pay attention to what you eat and drink (especially caffeine and alcohol), and create a restful environment. I’d like to add a few simplicity-inspired recommendations and encourage you to let go of the following 7 things to sleep well, or at least so you can experience better sleep. There are so many things that can affect our overall sleep quality. The trick to good sleep is eliminating some of those “things” so there isn’t so much to juggle.
1. If you want to sleep well, let go of Revenge Bedtime Procrastination.
“We value productivity so much that we pack our days,” says Lauren Whitehurst, a cognitive neuroscientist and sleep researcher at the University of Kentucky. She says that “Revenge bedtime procrastination is really a kind of commentary on [our lack of down time.]” It’s not about the inability to sleep; it’s about delaying sleep in an effort to assert some kind of control over your time. It is possible that your restless nights start with your refusal to go to bed in the first place.
2. Let go of worrying about things outside of your control (for a little while).
Generally, worries are made-up stories we tell ourselves about something that hasn’t happened yet. But even though we know it hasn’t happened, our bodies absorb our feelings about the worries as if they were happening right now. Any of us who’ve laid in bed and watched one of our own worry movies, will have experienced this. All of that fear, angst and stress wraps around our bones. If worry helped us take action and solve problems, maybe it would be worth it. But does it ever? Worry keeps us up at night, weighs us down in the day, and makes us tired, cranky, and scared. It doesn’t fix anything. Worry is a trap. Getting out of the worry trap doesn’t mean we’ll never worry. We just won’t stay for the whole movie. Instead, schedule some worry time for tomorrow so your brain can rest tonight.
3. Let go of your to-do list for the night.
It’s so easy to start running through everything you have to do or all the things that have been left un-done. Instead, simply replay your day. Leo Babauta has a method for falling asleep. He says, “Get comfortable and close your eyes, and then replay your day in your head, in every detail possible, from the moment you woke up. Start from the moment your eyes opened, and replay every movement — getting out of bed, starting the coffeemaker, going to the bathroom, washing your hands, or whatever. Don’t summarize — leave nothing out.” I’ve tried this many times and I almost always fall asleep before I reach the end of my day.
4. When you let go of schedule shaming you can sleep well.
If you are hung up on the to-do list and your calendar, feeling bad about not doing enough, schedule shaming has to go! In an interview with The Washington Post, Author Brené Brown said, “The expectations of what we can get done, and how well we can do it, are beyond human scale.” Most of the expectation setting we do is an inside job. Our focus is on getting as much done as possible instead of getting anything done well, or finding joy in what we are doing. When we try to juggle everything, we can’t enjoy anything.
5. Let go of your resistance to doing nothing.
As the saying goes, we are human beings not human doings yet we feel guilty and frustrated when we decide to do nothing. As we relax into nothingness, our brains are in constant search for more to-do’s. It scans your inbox, your text messages and all of the lists. Instead of enjoying doing nothing, you stress about everything. Logically you might thing that wearing yourself out all day will help you sleep well but resting and being gentle helps more. Slowing down and doing nothing is a chance to find rest, delight and the way back to you.
6. Being bothered and frustrated keeps us up at night.
How do you respond when things don’t go the way you want them to go? Being upset and frustrated takes a lot of energy. Before you fall into a frustration spiral that turns into stress and anxiety, check in. Ask yourself what’s really bothering you. Then make a list of potential solutions, people who can help and what you might be able to do in order to let the air out of the frustration balloon. When you feel frustrated or disappointed, could you find some relief in accepting the reality of the situation and moving on? This “check-in” will require a pause and a look at what you are contributing to any situation. As Byron Katie says, “It’s not the problem that causes our suffering; it’s our thinking about the problem.”
7. Let go of phone-first mornings.
You may have tried to limit your screen time / blue light exposure before bed but what about when you wake up? Phone-first mornings remove you from how you want to feel and what you want to care about during the day. Instead you immediately fill yourself with the news, or requests in email, or opinions on social media. Unless there is something on your phone that is truly urgent, imagine how you might create more ease by checking your phone after you’ve spent some time waking up and taking care of you. Take a deep breath and set your phone to Do Not Disturb until an hour or two after you wake up. You can sleep well when you know you are waking up to what you want.
When it comes to sleeping well, there isn’t just one cure. Healthy sleep habits help. Numerous studies show that when your body’s sleep-wake cycle is consistent you can expect to sleep well. Like any big change, it might take 100s of tiny steps but they are worth it.
Because I’m not a medical professional, I’m steering clear of recommending dietary supplements and other medically related suggestions. If you struggle with insomnia, sleep apnea or another sleep disorder, talk to a healthcare provider you trust. While these ideas were all about letting go or subtracting things to move away from poor sleep, you can add a few things for restful sleep too. Things like meditation or other relaxation techniques, adding a wind down section to your daily routine and a place to hide your devices at night can contribute to quality sleep.