My 5 Tips for a Better Sleep

Recently, I was chatting with a client about their sleep struggles. They had all the motivation to sleep and knew that sleep was important, but they still struggled every single night to get a good sleep. Both falling asleep and staying asleep were a struggle. And then in the mornings, they would struggle to feel awake and refreshed.

I don’t think this is an uncommon experience. Think about your own experiences. How often have you gotten into bed at a reasonable hour, fully intending to get a good night’s rest, only to find yourself at midnight or the early morning hours wondering why this isn’t working?

It can feel like a battle. A constant struggle to force yourself to feel sleepy and stay asleep. It’s as if the second your head hits the pillow, you think of a hundred different things you could be doing right now and your brain decided this is a great time to bring up every heavy and challenging thought it possibly could to keep you awake.

And maybe it’s not only frustrating, it’s scary. Anxiety starts to build up as you not only feel the pressure to fall asleep, knowing that you really need to, but also your brain is running wild, bringing up every anxious thought or worry from the day before, if not the week or year before.

I don’t want you to feel that any more. I don’t want the idea of bedtime to fill you with dread and anxiety. So let’s work together to create a safe and soothing bedtime routine to help you get into a better headspace about sleep and help you get a good night’s sleep. Finally.

Magnesium

Okay, maybe you’ve heard this one before. But it’s worth repeating. Magnesium is so often depleted in us when we’re facing stress and strain in our lives. Whether it’s work, family, business, or study, life has a plethora of ways to use up our magnesium stores. And we need that magnesium to get a good night’s sleep.

Now, I’m not a nutrition specialist or anyone with a great deal of knowledge about magnesium, so if this is something you’d like to dive more into, click here to learn more about it. I have found magnesium to be an amazing help in my sleep quality. And it’s not going to break the bank. You can buy magnesium supplements at most supermarkets for a reasonable price.

Take the supplements during the early evening to help you fall asleep. Don’t give up hope if it doesn’t work immediately. Stick at it for more than a week and see how it helps!

Sleep Hygeine

This is a phrase used in the psychology world to discuss the associations your brain has around your bedroom and specifically your bed. Sleep hygeine refers to the idea of keeping our bed separated from any other activities than sleep and other bed-related activities.

By keeping our bed for sleeping only, we’re training our brains to associate the bed with sleeping and resting. So, put away that laptop and phone and keep only light reading near the bed.

This way, when we are consistent with keeping up our sleep hygeine, we will eventually teach our brain that when we get into bed, it’s sleepy time. And that’ll start making that battle a little easier.

Smells

Even if you’ve never noticed a difference in your energy levels around lavender, you can still use lavender oil to begin training your brain to start winding down.

When it’s time for bed, get some lavender oil going, whether that be through a diffuser or simple a bowl of warm water by your bed. By doing this, we are beginning to train our brains to understand that when that smell is detected, it’s sleepy time.

The same way smelling fries makes you crave junk food, or the way a perfume makes you remember a certain person, smells can also be used to teach your brain to associate that scent with feeling sleepy.

Warm, Low Light

Another great trick is to turn on your lamp about an hour before bed and to stop looking at bright screens. This is because our melatonin production is closely related to our exposure to light. Melatonin is a hormone our brain produces to begin slowing down and prepare for sleep.

When we turn down the lighting, we are signalling to our brain that it’s nighttime and therefore time to sleep. Then it begins releasing melatonin to help us get sleepy.

So instead of scrolling your phone until you crash, try turning off the main lights, turning on a good quality, warm light lamp, and picking up a book to read. This way you are effortlessly helping your brain begin to slow down while just enjoying a good book after a long day. Also, it’s a pretty great power-saving hack and who doesn’t need a way to save a couple of bucks at the moment?

Stop Fighting and Start Cooperating

Often, it’s not our brain’s fault that we’re not falling asleep, it’s the result of a myriad of external factors. So instead of trying to fight your brain and force yourself to fall asleep, how about we start working with and for our brain? By implementing these habits and being curious and mindful of what our brain and body is telling us, we can all begin to build personal sleep routines that work for us.

If this is something you struggle with, and you’d like help figuring it out, please reach out to me and let’s get that conversation going. These tips are just examples of some of the ways we can fix a struggle with sleep and I’d love the chance to share more with you and create a tailored plan for how we can get one of the most important areas of your life sorted.