Improving Sleep Starts in the Morning

Let’s talk about sleep! One of the top concerns I have found in my patients have been the inability to get to sleep, stay asleep, and feel rested. This has been a worry of many of my patients whether they are in the hospital, in a program, or are an outpatient. Many psychiatric conditions come with insomnia as one of the core symptoms. So how do we treat this from a holistic perspective? This question comes with several answers but I want to share one specifically with you in this blog posting. When we think about sleep in a general and simplified sense, the core of it is that we are asking our bodies to rest for the day. We live in a world that asks us to do things that are stimulating at all times. We drink coffee, we go for a run, we work hard, we are exposed to bright lights up until the second those lights go out and we are expected to automatically shut off! Is this even possible? This is why one of my top recommendations is to teach your body what you want it to do. Save your most energetic activities for the morning, then through the day slowly transition into practicing slower activities in the evening. This gives your body time to adjust. What would this look like day to day? Maybe you wake up, go for a run, drink a cup of coffee, answer those emails, engage in work that requires a bright computer screen, in the afternoon start to slow down on work, turn off those bright screens 1-2 hours before bed, sit down for a meal with loved ones, stretch, meditate, read a book, dim the lights and then lay down to try to sleep. Does this sound like the typical day for most of us? Maybe more like drinking coffee at 5pm to keep working that 10, 12, or 16 hour day with bright screens, eating a quick meal, getting back to it, and then realizing it is midnight or later and turning off that computer, lay in bed and hope you can get 4-5 hours before having to wake up and go right back into work. In a typical work week maybe, this pattern goes on for 5 days before a weekend comes. You may be thinking this is not something you can change overnight. Consider making small changes over time. Small changes, lead to big changes. Maybe your preferred waking up and winding down activities are different than those listed above. I encourage you to think about it. What are your favorite morning and evening activities and are they encouraging your body to wake up or slow down? Can you do the exact same tasks daily but just change the order in which you do them? Are you looking to add a new practice to your daily life? Are you looking to simplify your daily routine? Any of these options could lead to better sleep, today, tomorrow, next year! Try it, your body will be grateful. Thank you for reading and stay rooted.