A Book on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia

Myths and Misconceptions About Treating Insomnia

A lot of the information out there about sleep is misleading, especially when it comes to treating insomnia disorder.

You’ve probably heard of “sleep hygiene” which involves optimizing your sleep environment (e.g., comfy pillows and mattresses), avoiding screens, using white noise, drinking herbal tea before bed, and so on. While these strategies can be helpful for general sleep improvement, they are not effective for chronic insomnia. Sleep hygiene is not recommended as a standalone treatment for insomnia.

Many people with insomnia try everything that the internet tells them to do:

• White noise machines
• Blackout curtains
• Supplements
• Relaxation apps

When none of it works for more than a few days, they understandably feel frustrated and discouraged. At that point, many may go to their doctors and get on sleeping medication. While medication can provide short-term relief, it’s often not something people want to rely on long-term due to side effects and risk of dependency.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is considered the gold standard treatment for chronic insomnia.

The good news is that CBT-I is becoming more widely available with more clinicians who are capable to provide this treatment. The challenge, however, is that:

• Access to trained providers is still limited in many areas
• Many clinicians do not have specialized training in insomnia (physicians only get a few hours of real sleep training)
• Therapy can be expensive and inaccessible for many people

CBT-I apps have emerged to try to fill this gap. And while they can be helpful, they often miss the important nuance and understanding necessary to provide tailored recommendations to people with insomnia.

Many apps tell you what to do, but not why it works. Moreover, the recommendations can be cookie-cutter and not formulated to the specific individual.

As a result:

• There’s less personalization and less efficacy, leading to higher burden and patient dropout.
• People don’t fully understand how to adapt strategies to their situation
• When things get difficult, it’s harder to stay consistent

Take sleep restriction therapy, for example. When applied without proper understanding, it can actually increase anxiety to spend less time in bed. People may feel worse before they feel better, assume the treatment isn’t working, and give up altogether.

This often leads to a painful conclusion:

I’ve tried everything. Nothing works

Turning You Into Your Own Insomnia Therapist

This is exactly the problem I wanted to solve.

I wrote The Insomnia Paradox to help you become your own insomnia therapist, not just someone who follows instructions, but someone who truly understands their sleep and can apply the skills in a way that is personalized to theemselves.

At the core of behavioral sleep medicine is a simple but powerful framework. Experts base their clinical decisions on three key systems:

• Sleep Drive (how much ‘pressure’ or ‘sleep appetite’ your body is building during the day to support sleep at night)
• Circadian Rhythm (your internal body clock)
• Hyperarousal (how activated or “on edge” your mind and body are)

When you understand these three factors, insomnia becomes a much more understandable condition and the strategies that initially seems counterintuitive begins to make more sense.

For example:

Stimulus control (getting out of bed when you can’t sleep) isn’t just a random suggestion. In fact, the primary purpose of this treatment is to reduce conditioned arousal.

Conditioned arousal is when your brain starts to associate the bed with wakefulness, frustration, or anxiety.

A common experience: You go to bed feeling sleepy… but the moment your head hits the pillow, you feel wide awake. If you have this experience, this is a learned pattern – the brain has associated the bed with tossing and turning, worrying all night – like Pavlov’s dog and the ringing of the bell.

If we know the sleep science, then we 1) understand what strategies to pick and 2) why the strategies work.

How You Can Learn to Become Your Own Therapist

If you want to find the right strategies for your specific insomnia, rather than blindly trying everything, this approach will resonate with you.

In The Insomnia Paradox, I guide you through:

• Understanding your unique insomnia pattern
• Identifying which mechanisms are driving your sleep difficulty
• Applying the right strategies in a targeted, flexible way

You already know yourself better than anyone else. What’s often missing is the sleep science and clinical framework to make sense of what’s happening.

This book bridges that gap – translating behavioral sleep medicine into something practical, clear, and usable in real life.

Other Resources

Of course, self-help isn’t the only path.

If you’re looking for more personalized support, working with a trained professional in CBT-I can be incredibly effective.

If you live in Ontario, Canada and are interested in working with me, feel free to reach out for a free consultation.

Research suggests that nearly one in three adults struggle with sleep problems. Insomnia symptoms include difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and/or waking too early. For many, this isn’t just an occasional rough night. It becomes a persistent cycle that affects mood, concentration, productivity, and overall quality of life.

Why Common Approaches Often Fall Short

When insomnia shows up, most people do what seems reasonable when they are tired and can’t sleep. Unfortunately, the most common options don’t work – worse yet, they maintain insomnia.

Many individuals are advised to try sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene include strategies like avoiding caffeine late in the day, limiting screen time, or keeping a consistent bedtime. While these habits can support good sleep, on their own they are not considered an effective treatment for chronic insomnia.

Others are prescribed sleep medications. These can be helpful in the short term, but often come with:

• Side effects (e.g., grogginess, memory issues)
• Reduced effectiveness over time
• Risk of dependency

As a result, both clinicians and patients are often caught in a bind. They need relief, which sleep medication offers, but this is not a long-term solution.  

The Evidence-Based Solution: CBT-I

The gold standard treatment for chronic insomnia is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I).

CBT-I is a structured, evidence-based therapy that targets the underlying mechanisms that keep insomnia going, rather than just treating symptoms.

What makes CBT-I stand out:

• Strong evidence base across decades of research
• Comparable short-term effectiveness to medication
• Superior long-term outcomes, with benefits lasting up to 10 years after treatment
• No medication-related side effects

How Insomnia Becomes a Cycle

To understand why CBT-I works, it helps to understand how insomnia is maintained.

Many people with insomnia develop understandable but ultimately unhelpful patterns such as:

• Spending more time in bed trying to “catch up” on sleep
• Going to bed earlier or sleeping in later
• Becoming hyper-focused on sleep performance
• Worrying about the consequences of a poor night’s sleep

Common thoughts might include:

• “What if I can’t fall asleep tonight?”
• “I won’t be able to function tomorrow.”

These reactions increase mental and physical arousal, putting the body into a subtle “fight-or-flight” state, which is counterproductive to a relaxed state that is actually conducive to sleep.

Over time, the bed itself can become associated with wakefulness, frustration, and anxiety.

Core Components of CBT-I

CBT-I is a multi-component treatment grounded in sleep science. Each strategy works to target the factors that maintain chronic insomnia.

Sleep Restriction Therapy

Limits time in bed to more closely match actual sleep time, which:

• Builds stronger sleep pressure
• Consolidates sleep
• Reduces time spent lying awake

Stimulus Control

Retrains the brain to associate the bed with sleep by:

• Using the bed only for sleep
• Getting out of bed when unable to sleep and returning to bed only when sleepiness returns
• Maintaining a consistent wake-up time

Cognitive Therapy

Addresses unhelpful beliefs about sleep by:

• Identifying catastrophic thinking (“I won’t be able to function at all tomorrow”)
• Challenging overestimations of consequences
• Developing more balanced, flexible thoughts

Relaxation Training

Reduces physiological arousal through techniques such as:

• Breathing exercises
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Proper wind down

Sleep Hygiene (Supporting Role)

Optimizes environmental and behavioral factors (e.g., light, caffeine, routines) as a supporting but not primary treatment.

What to Expect from CBT-I

CBT-I is typically delivered over 4–8 weekly sessions, either individually or in a group format. Treatment goals are collaboratively developed by the therapist and the patient. You can expect the therapist to offer a nuanced treatment program that focuses on the specific factors that maintain your insomnia.

Accessing CBT-I in Ontario, Canada

Despite being the gold standard, CBT-I can be surprisingly hard to access, as relatively few clinicians are formally trained in this approach.

Fortunately, there are well-trained psychologists that have experience providing sleep therapy. If you’re interested in working with someone trained in CBT-I, you’re welcome to reach out to me directly to explore options for care in Ontario, Canada. I offer both hybrid and in-person options.

Learn CBT-I on Your Own

If you prefer a self-guided approach, CBT-I principles can also be learned and applied independently with the right structure.

You can explore these strategies in my book: The Insomnia Paradox

This book is designed to:

• Help you understand why insomnia persists
• Teach you the core tools of CBT-I
• Guide you through applying these strategies in your daily life

A Final Note

Insomnia can feel incredibly frustrating, especially when it seems like nothing is working for years on end. But the encouraging reality is that effective, evidence-based treatment exists and they can work for you. Moreover, CBT-I doesn’t just help you sleep better in the short term. Instead, this treatment helps you rebuild a healthier, more resilient relationship with sleep over time.

Warmly,

Parky

Hey Friends:

I hope you are all having a great week!

Just wanted to let you know that I created a free insomnia self-help guide for anybody interested in learning about how to apply cognitive behavioral therapy – the frontline treatment for chronic insomnia – to their lives. The strategies discussed include time in bed restriction, stimulus control, relaxation therapies, and cognitive therapy, which are all powerful strategies that my patients have significantly benefited from during therapy.

If you’re interested, just shoot me a message at parkylau@simplymentalhealth.ca and I’ll send the document to you. You can also use the Contact Me page and just send a message there! Looking forward to hearing from you 🙂

Wishing you a fantastic rest of your day-

Warmly,

Parky

P.S. If you live in Ontario, Canada (Toronto, Milton, Mississauga), I provide CBT for Insomnia as part of my formal training as a Clinical Psychologist. Learn more here!

What does it take to get good sleep?

When we have insomnia or sleep is not coming easily, we become frustrated. Something that was once so effortless has turned into an entire ordeal.

The post provides the secret formula to increase the likelihood that sleep will take us away. I use this language because we can’t force sleep to happen. I’m sure you have tried to force sleep to happen, and it probably didn’t work. Sleep is ultimately an automatic process and it is largely uncontrollable in terms of falling asleep. However, we can set the stage for sleep to take us away if we understand the sleep principles.

I won’t waste your time. Here’s the secret formula:  

High Sleep Drive + Good Circadian Timing + Low Arousal = Great Sleep

That’s it. If we can make these three things happen, sleep is much more likely to come. Now, let’s talk about what these three things are and how do we optimize them to sleep well.

Getting High Sleep Drive

Sleep drive is our appetite for sleep. The more we are awake, the more our body’s system puts pressure on us to want to sleep. If we can build up a lot of sleep drive by the end of the night, we will be able to get higher quality consolidated sleep.

If we want to have high sleep drive, then we need to limit how much time we spend in bed. If we are sleeping 6 hours but spending 9 hours in bed, then our ability to build up sleep drive reduces. Instead, bring your time in bed to closer to how much time you are sleeping and spend the rest of the time up and active. Avoid naps. If you can stick to these strategies, you’ll have a lot of sleep drive at the end of the night to use for sleep.

Having Good Circadian Timing

Everybody’s biological clock is different. Some of us our night owls, others early birds, and some are in between. Going to bed at the time that your body desires is most helpful to reduce discomfort.

As well, it is important to keep our internal circadian clock nicely synced onto the clock on the wall. This means regularizing our schedules, getting sunlight in the morning, and keeping to a generally consistent sleep/wake period.

Reducing Arousal

Now that we have built up a high amount of sleep drive and kept to a consistent schedule to help with our circadian rhythm, we are well set for success.

However, anxiety can sometimes be the enemy of sleep. This makes evolutionary sense because we don’t want to be awake if there’s a threat around – like a bear. But if we want sleep to come more easily, we need to make sure that we are generally relaxed by the time it is bed time.

Relaxation exercises, winding down with an enjoyable activity, and not pressuring yourself to sleep can all be helpful strategies to reduce arousal. Remember that we cannot force sleep to happen, so trust in your body’s wisdom and simply let sleep unfold.

Best wishes,

P

Each of us a unique chronotype – our body’s preference for when we prefer to wake up and go to sleep. That’s why we have terms like night owls and early birds.

Having different chronotypes is typically not a problem. But sometimes, our body’s preference for when we wake up and go to bed might not be a good match with needing to go work in the morning. For example, a night owl might prefer to go to bed at 2:00 am and wake up at 10:00 am, but they have to get up at 7:00 am for work. When this mismatch causes problems in our lives, we can be diagnosed with delayed sleep phase disorder.

There are a lot of night owls out there who want to sleep earlier and adjust their schedule. My first recommendation is to see if there’s a way we can accommodate our night owl lifestyle. It’s easier to follow our body’s clock rather than fight it. For example, you might get your clothes out and breakfast set up before sleeping so you don’t have to wake up as early.

If that’s not possible, there’s a way to shift our schedule little earlier so that we can get up and out of bed earlier based on sleep science.

Below, I discuss six strategies to shift your internal clock earlier and turn yourself from a night owl to an early bird (or at least closer to one).  

Strategies to fall asleep and get out of bed earlier

1. Get up earlier with an alarm: Super obvious but we can’t get to bed earlier if we don’t wake up earlier. By getting out of bed early, you’ll build up more appetite for sleep because you’ll be a little bit sleep deprived. It’ll be hard at first, but do your best to get out of bed at your desired time using an alarm. You can set an alarm further away which forces you to get up. Afterwards, do something activating to get your body going (take a walk, splash yourself with cold water, listen to music, call a friend/family member).

2. Get some sunlight: Getting light early in the morning signals to our brain and circadian rhythm that it is time to get up. If we do this on a consistent basis, our brain will start sending alerting signals earlier in the day, which makes us feel more comfortable waking up early.

3. Avoid naps: Naps are a like a sleep snack and will take away some of our appetite for sleep. If we take a daytime nap because we are sleepy, it makes it much harder to fall asleep later at night. If you’re feeling sleepy, try your best to stay the course (unless there are safety risks).

4. Plan a winddown period at night: It’s important to make a distinct break between work time and resting time. For an hour or two before your planned bed time, it’s helpful to keep the lights a little dimmer and do something relaxing and enjoyable. This can be whatever you enjoy, such as watching re-runs, doing crossword puzzles, or yoga.

5. Address obstacles that could get in the way: For some people, they constantly have something else that needs to be done. By the time they are ready for bed, it’s already 1:00 am which will make it hard to wake up the next morning early. Therefore, it’s helpful to think about what would get in the way of going to bed and getting out of bed at the desired time. Think about how to plan your life so that you can keep to your new schedule.

6.  Don’t go to bed if you’re not sleepy: It’s a little counterintuitive, but we don’t want to go to bed early if it means going to bed when you’re not sleepy. Otherwise, we end up in a situation where we might start associating the bed with being awake. Instead, it’s helpful to wait until you are sleepy before going to bed at night (though you should still try to keep to the desired wake-up time with an alarm).

Best wishes,

P

Nobody wants to hear the alarm ring at 7:00 am when you’re deep in your favorite dream or cozying up in the delicious warmth of your bedcovers. However, you have to get to work, or you promised yourself that you would go hit the gym before school starts. So you can’t be missing your alarm or hitting the snooze button 15 times before you finally roll out of bed.

This post helps to provide some strategies to avoid sleeping through the alarm clock or snoozing until noon.

Following Alarms: The Motivational Side

Before going into problem-solving, it’s important to know why you are wanting to set the goal in the first place.

It’s possible that your internal body clock operates on a night owl time and you prefer to go to bed and get out of bed a little later than most folks. Ask yourself: “if I could sleep in a little, would that be helpful?” If the answer is yes, I’d make a vote towards following your internal clock because it’s easier to ride with it than to fight against it.

That being said, some folks need to get out of bed early for work. And others find that the snoozing isn’t helpful and only keeps them feeling crappy in the morning.

There are a few reasons why snoozing the alarm might actually lead to poorer sleep. First, the constant ringing of the alarm is artificially breaking up your sleep. You are essentially poking holes into the sleep by constantly being awoken by the alarm. If your goal is better sleep, it may make sense to either 1) set the alarm a little later until when you actually have to wake up or 2) get out of bed at the first alarm. The first option allows you more uninterrupted sleep and the second option allows you to get out of bed to build up more appetite for deep sleep the next night.

A second benefit of keeping to an alarm is to regularize your schedule. When we have very different wake up times every day, we create symptoms of jet lag, which actually makes us feel worse on a daily basis. Getting up at the same time (and getting some sunlight) keeps our circadian rhythm regular and us feeling good.

Finally, staying in bed and snoozing can make us feel groggier. Just like an object in motion will stay in motion, Newton’s law also applies to our sleep – if we stay in bed, we will continue to feel the inertia to continue staying in bed. Therefore, it is helpful to get out of bed and start your day to feel more energetic faster.

Following Alarms: The Problem-Solving Side

Now that you have considered the pros and cons of getting out of bed, we can figure out some solutions to your alarm problem.

A simple tip that works well is to simply make the alarm louder and move the alarm further away from you. If it’s louder, it’ll wake you up. If it’s further away, it’ll make you have to get out of bed to turn it off.

Once you get out of bed, you are starting to break the inertia. Follow that momentum by doing something more activating. For example, taking a walk, drinking some water, and getting some sunlight.

If you notice the urge to get back into bed, try to remind yourself of the benefits of staying out of bed. And make it easy to do so – for example, just sitting upright on the couch is better than lying back down in bed. Treat yourself to something that you look forward to, like a coffee or a nice cup of tea.

Finally, if you’re a social butterfly, sometimes it’s a lot easier to follow the plan if there is someone to hold you accountable. Perhaps plan a breakfast with a friend or a call with mom.

Best wishes,

P

For some people, insomnia feels all-consuming – it pervades through every inch of their lives and they feel helpless to stop their sleep struggles. They lie at night wide awake, counting down the minutes until they have to wake up wishing for sleep to take them away even for a moment. But sleep never seems within reach.

Insomnia is an incredibly difficult disorder to handle. Nights are frustrating and days are exhausting. However, insomnia doesn’t have to ruin your life. In this post, I provide some insights on dealing with insomnia differently to reduce insomnia symptoms and change your relationship with sleep.

Understanding the effects of insomnia on performance

People often worry a lot about how insomnia affects their day-to-day functioning. Surprisingly, the research suggests that people with insomnia tend to perform reasonably well in most conditions. In fact, when there are monetary incentives, people with insomnia do just as well as people without insomnia. This suggests that people with insomnia are very exhausted, so they typically don’t have the motivation to do extra work, but they can absolutely get the important work done.

If I had to choose between two people to drive me for an hour: somebody who was sleep deprived and somebody who had insomnia, I’d actually choose the person with insomnia. This is because people with insomnia are experts at being tired and their arousal levels are high, which means that they are unlikely to fall asleep at the wheel. The sleep deprived person on the other hand – that’s a different story. I would encourage you to think about your performance since you have been struggling with insomnia. My guess is that you get the most important things done – likely pretty well. I would also imagine it’s much tougher, and you don’t have a lot of bandwidth to add much else on your plate. However, it’s important to know that your life is not going to go sideways because of insomnia. You’re likely an expert on dealing with insomnia.

Sleep state misperception: Why you might be sleeping more than you think

As discussed, people with insomnia are wracked with anxiety about sleep and are in a hyperaroused state. Because of high arousal, sleep becomes lighter and sometimes it can feel like you didn’t sleep at all throughout the night. This is called sleep state misperception.

People with insomnia tend to have more awakenings in the middle of the night. Because of high arousal, the brain readily encodes these awakenings as memory. However, the brain doesn’t remember what happens in between awakenings and fills in the gap. The result is a feeling that we were awake the entire time.  

Sleep state misperception is also shown in research. Studies show that people with insomnia tend to code lighter stages of sleep as being awake more than good sleepers. Therefore, they often underestimate how much sleep they are getting.

One strategy I use to emphasize this point is through a hypothetical situation: Imagine you are at a doctor’s appointment. Your doctor tells you that they need to go a meeting before seeing you. They ask you to sit on a chair without a phone for the next 4 hours before they come back. What would that experience be like for you? I would imagine it would be pretty hard to bear.  

This silly hypothetical situation shows how unlikely it is that we are truly lying in bed for 8 hours without sleeping a wink. Is it really possible that you were awake the whole time? Possibly – but it’s also possible that there was a little bit of sleep state misperception.

Okay, so how do I improve sleep?

Okay so it’s great to know that you are sleeping. But the sleep is still not particularly refreshing. So how do we deal with this and get the deep sleep that we need? Below are three strategies to get better sleep:

1. Increase your sleep appetite. People with insomnia will often spend extra time in bed to catch up on sleep. Counterproductively, this reduces our appetite for sleep and leads to less refreshing sleep. It’s like having only 6 inches of sleep dough and stretching it out into a 9-inch pan. Similarly, your body might only be able to sleep 6 hours but you are spending 9 hours in bed. The result is light sleep with lots of awakenings. Try your best to stay active throughout the day, avoid naps, and spend less time in bed. This will make our appetite for sleep very large before you get into bed for sleep.

2. Keep to a consistent schedule. Each person has a circadian rhythm that tells us when we are sleepy and when we are awake. It’s important to keep our circadian rhythm aligned with the clock on the wall. The best way to do that is keep to a regular wake time (with an alarm if necessary) and then get some sunlight. If we are constantly getting up at different times and staying in bed, we end up with symptoms similar to when we travel to different time zones (like jet lag).

3. Reduce hyperarousal: There are many ways to reduce our arousal levels during the day and at night, and I have written a number of posts on these strategies. For example, you can use relaxation exercises, worry logs, planning a winddown, and other cognitive strategies. A particularly effective strategy is stimulus control, which is a way to break the association between the bed and wakefulness by only using the bed for sleep.  

Enjoying the night a little more

When it feels like insomnia is ruining our life, it is hard to let go. However, the paradox of insomnia is that the more we try to wrestle with it, the harder sleep comes. It’s like the Chinese finger trap where we get anxious and pull as hard as we can (which only makes us more stuck). The use of acceptance to allow yourself to be awake can be helpful. Take the wakefulness as a place of opportunity rather than of distress. With that different framing, you might be surprised that sleep will come for you a little more easily.

If this post has been helpful, and you’re still looking for a solution, take another step to ridding your insomnia by purchasing the book The Insomnia Paradox.

Best wishes,

P

For many people who struggle with insomnia and sleep, blue light is often a huge concern. They worry that exposure to blue light, such as through the TV or phone, can interfere with their sleep. Consequently, they avoid blue light like the plague.

But is blue light really something to be feared?

Overall, the research suggests that there can be a relationship between blue light exposure and impacting our circadian rhythm. For example, light exposure in the evening can sometimes push our bedtimes into a little later at night.

However, the research tends to be a little overstated and requires a fair amount of nuance. Let’s get into this a little more deeply.

Issues with the research on blue light and sleep

There are a number of limitations with the research on blue light and sleep. Most studies investigating this relationship tends to be limited in sample size and done in an artificial setting. For example, having participants stare at a bright light for hours. Consequently, the results of these studies may not be very applicable to real life situations.

As well, there’s a fair amount of research that may have never been published because they did not find significant results. This can skew findings to make it seem like the effects of blue light on sleep are stronger than they might really be.

Special considerations about blue light

Still there are some considerations when dealing with blue light.

One of the important findings about the impact of evening light on sleep is that it depends on how much light you get during the day. It’s the relative amount of light that really impacts sleep. For example, if you have been outside during the day and got some sunlight (which can be up to 100,000 lux– lux being a measure of light intensity), the amount of light you get from a phone screen (10 lux) is very minimal by comparison.

The nugget of wisdom here is that evening light from screens is unlikely to impact sleep if you have gotten a decent amount of sunlight during the day. However, if you haven’t had a chance to get much sunlight, it is possible that the light from screens could affect your sleep and delay your rhythm. One thing I would encourage is to avoid too much light if you are awake in the middle of the night. This is because we have habituated to the darkness and the light becomes relatively stronger compared to the dead of night.

Another important factor is distance from the light. The further we are from the light source, the less impact it has on our sleep. In this case, if we are watching TV, the amount of blue light that reaches our eyes is inconsequential. But if we are putting our phone very close to our eyes, this may more impact on our sleep.

Finally, not all effects of blue light on people’s sleep is equal. If we are more of an early bird, and we go to bed usually pretty early, it may not be too big of a deal for our sleep to be slightly delayed. In some cases, it might even be preferred!

On the other hand, night owls might benefit from a longer winddown period and less exposure to evening light if they want to be able to go to bed a little earlier.  

Amount of light vs content of the screen

Perhaps more important than the amount of light on the screen on our sleep is actually the content on the screen. For example, if we are reading a very exciting book on our Kindle or watching a spooky movie on Netflix, this likely will impact sleep more than the light exposure itself. We may be too interested to put the book down or too anxious after the scary movie to sleep well.

Therefore, while it’s not a terrible to use screens in the evening, I would encourage something light and relaxing – like a nice rerun of Friends or a nice book that you know you can put down.

Do’s and Don’ts of Blue Light

Here are some recommendations that may be helpful to limit the impact of screens on our sleep:

• Do try get some sunlight during the day to reduce the relative impact of screens on sleep
• Don’t use your screens to watch anything too alerting before bed
• Do try to include a winddown period and limit screen time especially if you are a night owl  
• Don’t be too frightened about blue light!

Best wishes,

P

In order to set the stage for sleep, it is important to be in a fairly relaxed state. One question that some folks have is: “How do we plan our evening to increase the changes that sleep will take us away when we finally go to bed?” This is where winddown periods come into play.

Winddowns are a way to let our body and brain know that we are transitioning from the busy-ness of our day into the calmer parts of the evening. This tells the brain that it is time to send less alerting signals so that we can start feeling sleepier.

This post provides some information on how to set your winddown in a way that is likely to be most effective.

Creating a break between work and relaxation

There are some people who continue to engage in activating behaviors throughout the evening. They may continue to respond to emails, watch scary movies, or do heavy exercise before bed. Although these activities may not be a huge problem for some people, the excess arousal from these activities may affect our sleep.

Therefore, it can be helpful sometimes to set a time where create a break between work and winding down. For example, you might place away all your work material and dim the lights so you know this is a time to unwind and relax.

You can choose the time that works best for your life. For example, if you typically sleep at 11:00pm, you might consider starting this process a couple hours before so you can enjoy a more relaxing evening.

Scheduling a worry time

Worrying in bed is very common, but this worry can be tricky because it can get in the way of sleep. Moreover, it’s usually not particularly helpful because we just think about the same idea over and over again.

Scheduling a worry time in the early evening can be a nice way to get down all the worries that might plague you at night. You might write down the main things you expect to worry about and a possible solution to resolve the issue. In the case where there is no particular solution, you can still journal it down. By writing through your worries, you can process the information and that can lead to less emotional distress.

If the worries come back at night, then you can remember that you already wrote all this down earlier and rest assured.

Make the winddown period enjoyable

People sometimes feel compelled to do a winddown period for the sake of sleep. However, forcing sleep never goes well. Instead, the winddown period should not be intentionally for trying to fall asleep, it should just be something you enjoy.

You can absolutely watch TV, listen to music, do crossword puzzles – whatever feels right for you. If you have gotten some sunlight during the day, I would not worry about the effects of blue light. Typically the research suggests that blue light from screens are not likely to significantly affect your sleep (unless you are a night owl who has been inside all day). If you prefer dimmer lights, that can be a nice cue for your brain to know it is time to sleep.  

For those of you who are night owls who want to sleep a little earlier, it’s best to start your winddown period an hour or two before bed and engage in behaviors that are fairly enjoyable and relaxing.

Go to bed when sleepy

Try not to get into bed just because you feel like it’s time to sleep. This can lead to feeling frustrated in bed because we are not able to sleep, and over time our bed can become a place filled with wakefulness and distress. Instead, I encourage you to follow your body’s sleep cues. Notice when you are starting to nod off and then that’s your cue to head to bed.  

I wish you a great and relaxing winddown this evening! If you’re looking for a permanent solution for stress and anxiety at night, here is a book that I wrote on treating insomnia: The Insomnia Paradox.

Best wishes,

P

People are often attached to the magic 8-hour number when it comes to sleep needs. In reality, there are individual differences in how much sleep each person needs – some folks are 9-hour sleepers, others are 6-hour sleepers – and some are another number entirely.  

In fact, trying to get 8 hours of sleep when our body needs less than that amount can lead to insomnia symptoms. This is because we end up overspending time in bed, which can stretch out our sleep and make it lighter. For example, if we spend 9 hours in bed but only sleep for 6 hours, it’s kind of like making a pizza with a large pan but only having a small amount of dough. If you try to stretch the dough into the large pan, it becomes thin and little rips start to form. As you can see, spending extra time in bed is doing to your sleep artificially creates insomnia!

At the end of the day, your sleep needs are totally your own and there is no magic number.  

Changes in sleep during older adulthood

As we get older, there are some consistent changes that we see in our sleep. First, we typically see that there is usually a change in our ‘circadian rhythm,’ and we become more early birds. For example, we might have used to prefer sleeping at midnight as teenagers, but then we start feeling sleepy closer to 10:00pm when we get older.

Besides changes in circadian rhythm, older adults may also start sleeping a little less in terms of their duration and get less deep sleep. There are a few possible reasons for this change. First, unlike when we were young, we are no longer growing as much physically in older age. We can still grow in other ways during our twilight years (like learning new languages!) but we aren’t going through the same growth spurt as when we were teenagers. Therefore, we may need less recovery sleep.

A second possibility is that older folks tend to reduce activities because of medical conditions, like chronic pain and heart issues, or because of retirement. The reduction of activities can reduce our build-up of sleep appetite that can reduce how much deep sleep we get.

Recommendations for best sleep practices in older adults

First, I would encourage you to follow your body’s rhythms. If you’re noticing that you are a bit more of an early bird, I would encourage you to go to bed at a time when you are sleepy and wake up when your internal clock starts sending sleepy signals. For some older adults, this might mean going to bed at 10:00pm and waking up closer to 5 or 6am even if they used to sleep and wake up a little later. I wouldn’t go to bed too early though – unless you want to wake up super early. if you’re having trouble staying awake, I would encourage some enjoyable light activities

Examples can be:

• Listen to music
• Work on a puzzle
• Read a book
• Watch a TV show
• Play solitaire

Next, I encourage folks to stick to a fairly regular bed and rise time even if you are retired. This can help to keep our rhythm regular and reduce feelings of jet lag, which can happen if we have a variable schedule.

Because older folks tend to get slightly less slow wave sleep (the sleep that makes us feel refreshed), it is often helpful to get out of bed when we do not need to sleep anymore and continue engaging in physical activity that is enjoyable and meaningful. For example, going on walks or hikes, engaging in sports, or yoga – whatever you enjoy.

Summary

Sleep certainly changes throughout our lifespan. We may never sleep like we did when we were teenagers. However, we can roll with these changes and continue with best practices to keep our sleep as healthy as possible!

Best wishes,

P