Broch says we can all get in the habit of better sleep, even now that our lives are dramatically different. “Sleep hygiene is basically principles, backed by science, that we understand help people sleep better.”
For starters, stick to the same daily bedtimes and wake times. They don’t need to be at the crack of dawn the way they may have been when we had to get children out to the door to school or to commute to the office, but regular for us, Broch advises.
Avoid doing things that require you to be awake in bed—that means working and eating. “When people associate the bed with other things besides sleep, then they begin to associate the bed with wakefulness,” Broch says.
Get some sun, even if it’s just through the window. Exposure to sunlight reduces levels of melatonin—the hormone that induces sleepiness—during the day, increasing wakefulness, and supports your body’s natural sleep and wake cycles.
Put down your phone. Disconnecting from the frantic news cycle when you’re naturally beginning to feel sleepy will help the brain transition from wakefulness. Exposure to artificial light can also disrupt the normal surge of melatonin at night, keeping you awake longer.
An important addition to good sleep hygiene, Broch emphasizes, is mindfulness. Become more conscious of relaxing your body by taking deep breaths and by doing progressive muscle relaxation that instructs you to tense and then release tension in different parts of the body. Don’t fret about how much sleep you aren’t getting or on checking everything on the sleep hygiene list.
“It’s not a time to make ourselves feel guilty about what we are or are not doing,” Broch says. “It’s more an opportunity to take better care of ourselves.”
