I’ve never been a great sleeper. On average, I get somewhere between 3-6 hours a night. I try to sleep in on the weekends when I can, but that’s not always feasible.
Generally, I can be a pretty high functioning person on that amount of sleep – when I’m taking care of myself and eating right and exercising etc etc. But if I’m recovering from an illness, learning new things, or just generally stressed out and sub-optimal, not being able to get enough sleep can be pretty detrimental. I often make the joke that I’m not a night owl and I’m not an early bird, rather, I’m some form of permanently exhausted pigeon.
According to the Statistics Canada Health Report on the duration and quality of sleep among Canadians aged 18-79, I’m not alone. About one third of Canadians are getting less than the recommended 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night, and about 43% of men and 55% of women aged 18 to 64 reported having trouble going to sleep or staying asleep “sometimes/most of the time/all of the time”.
This is important because a lack of quality sleep impacts not only our mood, productivity, and mental health, but it also puts us at risk for health problems like heart disease, diabetes and obesity.
So how can you get more of the good stuff?
Knowing what’s causing your sleep troubles is step 1. Your doctor or nurse practitioner can run some tests to see if there’s anything underlying your sleep trouble. They may schedule you an appointment with a sleep clinic to try to figure out if you have an underlying sleep apnea problem or similar condition.
Done all of that and you’re still having trouble?
There are some other things you can try:
1. Use blue light filters on your electronics, or cut them out entirely 2 hours before bed. The light emitted from electronics can disrupt melatonin production – the hormone that helps you fall asleep. Can’t do 2 hours? Cutting out electronic light even half an hour before bed will help. If you still feel like you need something to help you wind down from your day, try switching to a good, old-fashioned, paperback book for your evening entertainment.
2. Melatonin supplements can help if your problem is falling asleep, but in general they aren’t a good long-term solution as there haven’t been many studies done to evaluate their long-term risk. If you find that they do help you, you might have a general underlying hormone imbalance problem that your doctor might be able to help solve, so it might be worth scheduling an appointment just be to sure.
3. If you find that melatonin doesn’t help you at all, you might want to try booking a physical therapy appointment with an osteopath. Sometimes the culprit behind sleep problems is nerve compression in the neck, either at the base of the skull or along the path of the vagus nerve. Since this nerve is responsible for your ability to turn off your stress response, cervical compression can create over-stimulation of your sympathetic nervous system, leading to difficulties with both falling and staying asleep. If stress is your issue, you might find regular relaxation massage helpful.
4. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has been found to be more effective at treating chronic insomnia than prescription sleep medication. It can help you change the thoughts and behaviours around sleep that might be contributing to your sleep problems.
5. White noise machines or switching to a different mattress can help if you find that every little noise wakes you up or you’re having trouble getting comfortable enough to fall and stay asleep.
6. Have a bedtime ritual. Don’t knock the power of routine. Having a bedtime routine will help you body switch into ‘oh, it’s time for sleep’ mode.
The other thing I find super helpful is keeping a sleep journal beside the bed. If there are things that are keeping me awake, I take a second and jot them down. This can be anything from a to-do list for the next day or coming week, feelings I might be having, things I wish I said or did better, etc etc. Whatever might be swirling around in your head, oftentimes having it down in physical form can relieve your mind of the burden of having to carry it for you. It’s also handy if you want to write down your dreams as soon as you wake up so that you’ll remember them better. If you sleep beside someone and don’t want to wake them up to scribble in a journal, you can get a small reading light at a bookstore or online that illuminates the page but not the room.
What about you? Any tips or tricks that help you sleep?