Establishing Sleep Routines
Hi all,
Today I want to talk to you about how to establish healthy sleep routines. I am certainly not a sleep expert but, since this is something I’ve struggled with, I think that I’ll be able to give you some good tips.
The first tip I have is to adjust the brightness on your devices to change a few hours before you go to bed. iPhones have a Night Shift mode which is supposed to help with sleep. I didn’t believe this would help much but was getting desperate and decided to give it a go. I have it set between 7pm and 8am. I don’t know how much good it truly does, but it gives the screen a nice warm hue between these hours. I found that, when studying a very full on degree and struggling to sleep, anything helps!
My second tip is to go to bed only when you feel tired. This may sound self explanatory, but hear me out. I find that if I try to go to sleep before I’m tired, I end up just lying there thinking. I have a really difficult time trying to get my brain to switch off, especially during term time. I feel like if you just lie there prior to falling asleep, you end up having a worse quality of sleep than if you had just drifted off straight away. Going to bed when you’re at your most tried certainly cuts out the middle man!
My final tip is to try listening to some sleep content. I really love the Sleepcasts that are available on the Headspace app. They last 45 minutes and really help me to sleep when my mind is racing. The first 20 minutes (there or there abouts) involve the narrator guiding you through a short meditation and then describing a scene. Along with the narrator’s description, there is also some ambient sound that is relevant to the Sleepcast. For the last 20 minutes or so, the ambient sound is all you here. My favourite Sleepcasts are:
Rainday Antiques 1
Rainday Antiques 2
Raindrop Soaps
Salon Nights
Midnight Laundrette
Pooch Palace
Loch Dormant
There is a fee to access Headspace, but personally I think it’s worth it.
I also find certain types of ASMR videos to be beneficial to my sleep routine. I don’t get the tingles that some people speak of, but they still help me to drift off. Another good thing about these videos is that there are many of them freely available on YouTube. However- here is a quick warning – some ASMR can be really weird/inappropriate. If you want recommendations for some wholesome ASMRtists, I can suggest:
Goodnight Moon (various whispered role plays that are more like works of art- the Babblebrook series is a particular favourite!)
SouthernASMRSounds (whispered and soft spoken readings of catalogues, hauls and craft tutorials)
Library of Whispers (whispered readings of catalogues and fiction/non-fiction books).
Personally, I find whispered readings of catalogues really useful when trying to go to sleep. I think it’s because the content of such videos is unrelated to anything that I would be worrying about.
I hope that this post has been helpful. Let me know down below what you do to ensure a good nights sleep!
