How to "retrain" your brain for better sleep

Most people who struggle with sleep face a paradox:

The more they try to control their sleep, the worse their sleep gets.

This also leads to negative thoughts and behaviours affecting their daytime routine leading to more negative habits and therefore decreasing sleep quality.

They have conditioned their brains into believing that lying in bed = being awake and their natural rhythm is out of sync.

• So how can you "train" your brain to sleep better?

• How do you break the cycle of bad sleep?

There is no perfect routine or roadmap that works for everyone (otherwise we would all be sleeping well all the time and I would have no clients to coach) but here is where you can start:

1. Fix your morning routine

Yes, you need to focus on your morning first before you start fixing your bedtime routine.

Why? Because how you start your day will influence all of your behaviours and habits, your natural rhythm and your ability to fall asleep in the evening.

Even if you have the best bedtime routine and you do all the "right" things, there is a high chance you still won't be able to sleep if you are not paying attention to your mornings.

Pick a wake up time that works for you and your current lifestyle.

There is no point in getting up at 5am just because you read somewhere that you should in order to be "successful".

I suggest looking at your chronotype (see this article for more details) and aligning your schedule as close as you can to your natural preference.

Let's say your ideal wake up time is 6.30am - stick to this time as much as you can every single day. Even if you have a bad night, even on the weekends.

Build in a buffer and give yourself some flexibility (especially if you are sick) but keep within 30-60mins of this window every single day.

I know that this is difficult, especially if you are already struggling with sleep and you will be tempted to "catch up" on lost sleep by napping but don't fall into this trap!

Once you are up, go outside, get some sunlight for at least 10-15 minutes. This will help regulate your internal clock helping you fall asleep at night.

You can go for a walk or just sit or stand outside in your garden, on the balcony, anywhere. You don't need a complicated 10-step routine.

Just get up at the same time and get some sunlight. Simple - in theory :)

2. Challenge your sleep related thoughts and beliefs

   
   

As a sleep enthusiast and sleep coach, I often obsess over my own sleep even though I know exactly how counterproductive this can be.

But nobody is perfect and sleep is something that you cannot always control, no matter how much you try to.

I sometimes fall back into bad habits, staying up too late, scrolling on my phone or eating late.

This week was pretty stressful and on Saturday, I woke up exhausted.

All I wanted was to stay in bed a bit longer to "catch up" on my lost sleep.

The difference for me is that I have learnt to accept that my sleep will never be perfect, I will have days when I need a bit more rest but I now have the knowledge, experience and tools to manage these situations and I won't let them snowball into a long term issue.

Instead of giving in and sleeping in for too long, I gave myself a bit of extra time in bed and some flexibility but I also reminded myself that this feeling of exhaustion is just temporary and that once I'm up and have a bit of sunlight, fresh air and breakfast, I will feel much better.

I told myself that I really don't need another hour of sleep and by staying in bed, I'm going to mess with my rhythm and I'll find it much harder to get back into a good consistent routine for next week.

What I'm doing here is reframing my beliefs and thoughts about sleep and this is the foundation to good sleep.

We need to find a balance between prioritizing sleep in our life as a foundation of our health and at the same time not obsessing and constantly trying to optimize every part of our sleep routine.

We need to break the paradox of being unable to sleep despite trying everything to get to sleep.

You can find some of the most common myths and misconceptions about sleep in last week's post: Myths and unhelpful advice about sleep

For more information on how to reframe your own beliefs and thoughts, see my blog post from a few weeks ago: What really keeps you up at night

I have a bunch of free worksheets that can help you through this process so please reply if you're interested and I'll send them over to you.

3. Stimulus control + bedtime routine

Now that you have fixed your morning routine and have started to reframe your negative thoughts and worries about sleep, you will likely notice that you'll find it easier to get to sleep and to stay asleep at night but you might still struggle.

So what now?

Pay attention to what you do once you get into bed or whether you use your bed or your bedroom for any other activity other than sleep (or romantic relationships if you know what I mean ;))

Do you watch TV in bed? Do you scroll on your phone? Do you check messages or work emails?

These habits are telling your brain that the bed is not for sleeping but for being awake.

Breaking this habit can be difficult but it will make a huge difference.

Our brains are pattern recognition machines and many of your sleep issues are likely due to conditioning your brain over time that lying in bed = being awake and you need to break the pattern.

Set yourself a bedtime timer and start your routine about an hour before you actually want to get into bed.

That way, you can give yourself time to finish watching that episode on Netflix, wrap up any urgent work tasks or reply to messages.

So let's say you want to get into bed by 11pm, give yourself time and setup an alarm to start winding down and turning off your devices at 9.30 or 10pm. The more time your give yourself, the better so you can ease yourself into this process and it's not a sudden change.

Also, avoid going to bed too early. You might be worried about getting enough sleep but the truth is that by restricting your time spent in bed, you will increase your sleep drive and ability to fall and stay asleep.

By restricting your time spent in bed, you increase the quality of your sleep and your own confidence in your ability to sleep.

4. What to do when you wake up at night

You might think: this is all great advice but I've tried some of this and

I still wake up at 3am and I'm wide awake! What do I do?

First, you need to understand that it's completely normal to wake up at night and even multiple times. Our sleep cycles through different stages and each cycle ends in a very short awakening.

Most people who think they sleep through the night simply don't remember that they were awake for a short period of time.

Now the problem starts when you wake up and your brain thinks it has to be awake at this time.

This could be due to poor stimulus control (see previous point) and "conditioned arousal" where your brain has been conditioned to be awake at this time and/or because your body is going into fight or flight response.

Our bodies are wired for survival and often our lifestyle and poor stress management but also other factors like previous trauma can lead to our bodies triggering an inappropriate survival response when there is no actual danger.

There are multiple ways of addressing this issue depending on your individual situation but there are 2 very simple methods you can start with:

• breathing techniques

• getting out of bed

Breathing techniques:

Breathing is a complex topic and probably requires a separate deep dive but applying breathing techniques can be powerful in overcoming anxiety at night (and during the day!).

You can start with the very simple box breathing technique, also called 4-4-4 technique.

Simply breathe in for 4 seconds through your nose, hold your breath for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds.

This will force your body out of fight or flight response and back to a more neutral state.

Getting out of bed:

If you still can't sleep because your thoughts are racing or and you're tossing and turning for more than 20 minutes: get out of bed and go to another room.

Keep the lights dimmed and do something relaxing like reading a book, listening to some relaxing music, anything that works for you but avoid scrolling on your phone or anything more "stimulating".

After 20 minutes or so or once you start feeling sleepy, go back to bed and try again. This will signal to your brain that the bed is only for sleeping and improve stimulus control.

5. Optimize the rest of your routine

Once you have started fixing your morning and evening habits as well as your brain's conditioning, you can start worrying about other habits such as exercise, diet, caffeine and alcohol intake.

It's important to note that all of them can have an impact on your sleep quality.

But by only focussing on these areas, you are missing out on the biggest problem: years of conditioning, negative thoughts and behaviours that have led to poor sleep.

By focussing on retraining your brain and regulating your internal body clock, you are more likely to stick to healthier habits like exercising regularly and cutting out foods that lead to poor sleep.

By following this step-by-step roadmap, you are breaking the old negative patterns and creating a new positive cycle of healthy habits feeding each other and making your sleep more consistent and restful.

If you want to know more about how you can apply this to your unique situation and challenges, get in touch by replying to this email or book a free 30mins consultation:

https://tidycal.com/thesleepnerd/freeconsultation

Sleep well,

Anne - The Sleep Nerd 😴🌟🛌