Our thoughts play a huge role in keeping us awake, whether they are general worries or just frustration about not being able to fall asleep. These thoughts might sound like, “I’m never going to fall asleep,” or “Tomorrow is going to be a disaster.” Most of us are never taught to slow down and ask if our thoughts are actually true, so we just believe them. When we believe them completely, they feel urgent, like we must take action or find an answer right now. That sense of urgency keeps our minds busy and makes it very hard for our bodies to truly relax. 

We cannot just “turn off” our minds like a light switch, but once we see that thoughts are causing our sleeplessness, we can start to handle them differently. One way is to challenge the thought. Ask yourself if you know for sure that the worry is true. You can then try to replace an old thought, like “I’ll be useless tomorrow,” with a more balanced one, such as “I’ve managed to get through the day before even when I didn’t sleep perfectly.” 

Another strategy is to practice mindfulness. This means letting your thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky. You observe them without getting stuck in them. You might quietly tell yourself, “That’s just my worried mind talking,” and then focus on your breathing or what you can hear and feel around you. A third option is to write your thoughts down and schedule a “Worry Time” for the next day. This gets the ideas out of your head and onto paper with a plan to fix them tomorrow. The physical act of writing helps many people let go of the stress long enough to calm their minds. 

Instead of treating every thought as an emergency, try using one of these strategies. You can even try all of them to see which one works best for you. Over time and with practice, you can break the cycle of worry and give yourself a much better chance at a restful night. And if you want to learn more, our Insomnia program is a great place to start.  

Sleep is not just passive rest. A good night’s sleep allows active healing and restoration. During our hours of rest, our brain consolidates memories. Our immune system is strengthened. And our body repairs damaged tissue. If we are not able to get the sleep we need, our body and brain see the impact. We are not able to do the healing and restoration needed to keep us mentally and physically well. 

Now, one night of poor sleep is not going to disrupt your entire well-being. However, research shows that a chronic lack of sleep is linked to serious health conditions. This includes depression, anxiety, heart disease, and weakened immune function. So how can you improve your sleep to feel well-rested and keep your mind and body healthy? The research-backed single most impactful solution for Insomnia is CBT-i (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia). CBT-i has proven to be even more effective than sleep medications. Almost anyone who struggles with sleep can benefit from the tools that CBT-i offers, even those who do not suffer from clinical insomnia. 

Quick Tips for Restorative Sleep 

Check for Medical Conditions. It’s crucial to consult with a medical professional to rule out underlying medical conditions before you apply CBT-i strategies. This can help identify potential issues like sleep apnea or narcolepsy that might be disrupting your sleep. Ruling out medical conditions helps to know when CBT-i is a good next step. 

Wake up well. We all have a biological clock that regulates our sleep-wake cycle. Creating a regular wake up time signals your body that it’s time to start the day. Try to get active right away. And expose your eyes to bright daylight. Both are important in resetting your bio clock. 

Create a sleep-welcoming environment. You can tailor your bedroom to improve sleep conditions. This means creating complete darkness by blocking out all light sources. You will also want to remove or turn around clocks to prevent anxiety-inducing time-watching. And maintaining a cool room temperature helps too. 

Follow a few lifestyle guidelines. Lifestyle choices throughout the day can impact your nighttime sleep quality. Try to finish any exercise at least 1 hour before bedtime. Avoid caffeine at least 6 hours prior to sleep. And limit alcohol intake to 3 hours before bedtime. 

By understanding sleep’s impact on health and applying proven strategies, you can begin to reclaim not just your nights but your overall health and well-being too.  

• Struggling to fall asleep.  
• Waking up a lot in the middle of the night. 
• Waking up early and not being able to fall back asleep. 
• Having a hard time focusing in school or at work. 
• Feeling irritable.  
• Having low daytime energy. 

The good news is there are ways to help insomnia! One of the best is called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia or CBT-I. CBT-I teaches you new habits to help you sleep better. Some things CBT-I may have you work on are: 

• Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. 
• Making lifestyle changes to help your sleep.  
• Learning ways to calm your body and mind before bed. 
• Figuring out worries that keep you awake and how to deal with them. 

There are also practical tips that you can make right away to greatly improve sleep:   

• Keep your bedroom cool, dark, simple, and clean. 
• Don’t use technology at least 1 hour before bed. 
• Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco before bedtime. 
• Get regular exercise, but finish 1 hour before bedtime. 

CBT-I takes work, but it can really pay off. Studies have shown that CBT-I is more effective than sleep medicine as a solution for insomnia and the skills you learn last long after you finish CBT-I.  

By taking control of sleep, you take control of your emotional health too. Learn to Live’s Insomnia program uses the science of CBT-I to improve sleep by helping make long lasting changes, so you won’t have to dread bedtime anymore. 

Finding experienced providers of CBT-I services can be difficult but Learn to Live’s online Insomnia program makes access easy from any device. There are tools and strategies to help you manage any stressors that might be keeping you awake – learn how to harness your fatigue to help you sleep better.

Evidence-based tips to improve your sleep today:

• Limit or refrain from the use of alcohol and screens before bed. Both can interfere with the body’s sleep process.
• Calm your mind. Practice guided imagery by focusing your imagination and doing breathing exercises.
• Write it down. Jot down your to-do’s, brilliant ideas, and worries in a journal. Close it and give yourself permission to rest.
• Don’t lie in bed awake. It may sound surprising but lying in bed awake when we’re not asleep can make our sleep issues worse.

Here’s a recipe that too many people try:

• Add one part poor sleep environment,
• Two parts pressure to sleep,
• Three parts going to bed early to try to catch up on sleep.

What’s the result? A big batch of insomnia!

An Underused Tool for Insomnia

Insomnia is widespread. Studies show that more than 30% of us have markers for insomnia at least some of the time. One of the best kept secrets in insomnia and health care is that there is an entirely natural solution. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) has been proven effective in numerous peer reviewed studies. It can help you create a new recipe for sleep.

Rethinking Your Methods

Let’s start with the idea of going to bed early to try to catch up on sleep. If you struggle with insomnia, CBTi teaches that you may benefit from going to bed extra late each night for a period of time, but getting up at the same time. All this runs counter to what insomnia sufferers reflexively choose.

After a bad night’s sleep, it’s natural to want to go to bed EARLY the next night to try to catch up on sleep. When that fails, you may try to sleep in the next morning. The problem is that our bodies are expecting to stay awake for a certain number of hours after we wake up. So going to bed early the next night will probably result in lying in bed, unable to sleep.

So When Should You Go To Bed?

A CBTi best practice is to record your sleep tracker data. You’ll then know the amount of sleep you are getting each night. Once you know how much sleep you are actually getting, now you can figure out what time to go to bed based on your own data.

Often that initial go-to-bed time is much later than many are used to. So it’s understandable when people doing CBTi have misgivings:

• Don’t I need more sleep not less?
• Will this just ruin my day tomorrow?

Keep in mind that the CBTi go-to-bed time still allows a person to get just as much sleep as they’ve been getting anyway. Now it’s just in a more condensed way with fewer interruptions (at least after a few nights). We really can tolerate some bad nights of sleep and still make it through the day. Even if it takes a couple of nights for the new sleep schedule to have an impact, the price is temporary and it will be worth it.

Studies show that this is the single most impactful thing we can do for our sleep. It’s more powerful than the best sleep medications for long term benefits.

In our Insomnia program, the sleep scheduling tool is combined with key information about how to think about sleep and better prepare for it. Once you take the pressure off yourself and improve your sleep environments, you’ll be have the ingredients for success.

So if you have more of an appetite for sleep, then CBTi for insomnia might be a recipe you want to try.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)

While medication has proven helpful for short-term sleep issues, the strategies of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), like those built into our program, have an even greater long-term impact on insomnia.  Using CBT-I to manage insomnia can improve symptoms of depression and anxiety or prevent it altogether.

Recent research published in JAMA Psychiatry  confirms the positive impact of CBT-I on major depressive disorder (MDD). The clinical trial looked at whether CBT-I could prevent the development of MDD in adults over 60 and found that there was a “nearly 60% reduction in likelihood of depression.” In his February 16 Harvard Health article, “Can we prevent depression in older adults by treating insomnia?”, Eric Zhou, PhD, summarizes key findings from this trial and other recent research to show that CBT-I, when proactively used to address insomnia, may also prevent depression.

CBT-I packs a multi-pronged punch. It helps us learn new ways to explore our thought patterns and adopt sleep-promoting behaviors. Using CBT-I strategies to manage insomnia can reverse the ripple effect and make us less vulnerable to depression. For example, when I feel well-rested, I am more likely to actively engage in the world around me. And what is the single most powerful strategy for depression? To actively re-engage in the world around me.

Preventing Depression

In general, people are more likely to seek help for insomnia than depression. Of the 10% of U.S. adults who suffer from depression each year, most will not seek help in large part due to social stigma. The good news is that of the 30% of U.S. adults who experience symptoms of insomnia about 75% will seek help. This is important because insomnia sufferers are 10 times more likely to develop depression than people who get a good night’s sleep.

If you or a loved one are experience symptoms of insomnia—trouble falling or staying asleep, drowsiness and irritability, lack of focus and ability to concentrate—try one or more of the following to see if it helps:

• Turn off screens at least one hour before bedtime
• Avoid caffeine at least 6 hours before bedtime
• Do a calming activity like journaling
• Sleep in a dark, quiet room
• Use white noise
• Try Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) by tensing and relaxing your muscles one group at a time

One of the many important things I recommend to people struggling with insomnia is to put away their phone. I don’t tell people this just because their phone is a distraction, though it often is—rather I tell people this because the light emitted from their phone’s screen at bedtime is tricking their brain into thinking it’s daytime.

Our computer and phone screens use a light technology called blue light, which makes them both bright and clear. The blue end of the light spectrum is the light that helps establish our circadian rhythms or sleep routine. Blue light in the morning helps to wake us up through several processes, including suppressing the production of melatonin. During daylight hours, it increases our alertness, speeds up our reaction times and strengthens our attention span. At the right time, it helps keep us on a healthy rest-wake cycle.

But at the end of the day, as we lie in bed, that same blue light can prevent us from getting the rest we need. In the evening, with the blue light from the sun gone, our bodies start to prepare for sleep. Our heart slows. Our bodies produce more melatonin and the body’s temperature begins to drop. Blue light from our devices block these healthy sleep steps by tricking our brains into thinking that it’s still the day—resulting in a longer wait before we can fall asleep, shortened sleep times, and poor sleep quality.

So how can we regulate our exposure to blue light? There is plenty of advice out there, including carotenoid supplements (to strengthen our eyes’ natural ability to block blue light) or blue-light blocking software and apps. But here’s a very quick and easy thing to do leave your screens out of the bedroom. 

There’s a second benefit to this approach—by leaving your screens out of your bedroom—and that includes, phones, tablets, laptops, and TV’s—you’re telling your mind and body that the bedroom is associated with sleep. Each time you enter the bedroom at night, your body will understand that it’s time to start or continue the wind-down process in preparation for sleep—and establishing a healthy pattern of sleep and wake cycles.