How to Create Daytime Habits to Support Sleep
Ever wonder why you have a great sleep one night and then a less than stellar sleep another night? Do you struggle to get even a decent night’s sleep? Have you got your bedroom optimized and your bedtime routine down and you’re still struggling?
What you do during the day has a profound effect on how well you sleep each night!
If you don’t have your bedroom optimized, check out part one of this sleep series here and if you haven’t got your bedtime routine down, you can read part two of this sleep series here.
Mornings Matter
Having a set wake up time helps your body learn the circadian rhythm (aka the sleep/wake rhythm) you want to follow. This includes both weekdays and weekends!
Learning to get up at a certain time will help you to start to feel tired around the same time every night. The only caveat to this is if you need a little extra sleep for a particular reason.
Reasons to get more sleep might include:
Having a busier than normal day
If you’re fighting a bug
You might have a cold or flu that you don’t have symptoms for yet. Sleep is your body’s first line of immune boosting defence!
If you’ve gotten a lot of sun
You’ve started a new medication
And more!
Honour how your body is feeling and let your body rest!
Break up with your snooze button!
The worst thing you can do in the morning is hit your snooze button! While it’s hard at first, breaking the habit of hitting snooze will make your mornings so much easier.
I say this from experience! I used to set my alarm 45 minutes before I needed to get up so I could hit the snooze button for 45 minutes. 45 minutes!! I realized that by doing this, I was actually making myself more tired, more groggy and struggling through my day more than I had to. Instead, I used Mel Robbins 5 Second Rule to break this habit.
I’ll go into more detail about the evils of the snooze button in another article later; just know that it’s disrupting some of the most restful sleep we get in a night and isn’t worth it.
Throw open those curtains
Getting sunlight first thing in the morning can help you further reinforce that it’s time to get up and help your brain to actually wake up faster.
While no one likes turning on bright lights first thing in the morning (especially in winter), it really does help your brain and your body kick into gear faster. This will leave you feeling more alert and ready to start your day.
This is even better if you can get outside for a couple of minutes first thing in the morning and add some fresh air to the sunlight.
Breakfast - it really is the most important meal of the day
Did you know that skipping breakfast can lead to sugar cravings and blood sugar crashes later in the day?
By balancing your blood sugar with a great breakfast that includes protein, healthy fats and carbohydrates (veg and/or fruit + grains), you’re setting yourself up for fewer mood swings, fewer cravings, fewer moments of feeling exhausted, drinking less coffee and having more energy.
Hit pause on that coffee
I know this won’t be popular and I know that I was resistant too. I LOVE coffee, so I don’t say this lightly.
Wait at least 30-45 minutes to have your first cup of coffee in the morning.
Coffee is an appetite suppressant. While coffee is amazing in all the wonderful benefits it gives us, it is an appetite suppressant. So, if you’re someone who’s never hungry in the morning, hit pause on your coffee for 1 week and see what happens.
You may notice that your stomach starts to tell you that it’s actually hungry in the morning.
Taking the time to notice your habits in the morning can have a powerful effect on the rest of your day. This is one small tweak that will help you sleep better this evening.
While you’re waiting that first 30-45 minutes, start your morning with a 16oz glass of room temperature or warm water. You can add lemon and/or ginger to this if you like. This will give your body a boost of hydration first thing in the morning.
Afternoon Respite
Napping
I love a good nap, especially on a lazy Saturday or Sunday! Heck, I’ve been known to nap mid week if I want to.
Here’s the thing about naps… They can disrupt your sleep at night and also leave you feeling groggier than before you took the nap. Ideally, a nap is 20-30 minutes tops. If it’s any more than that, it’s not a nap - you’re sleeping in the middle of your day because you’re exhausted!
It’s also important not to nap after 2-3pm so you’ll still be able to get a great night's sleep.
A trick I use occasionally (very occasionally now) is a coffee nap. Yup - you read that right - a coffee nap. I drink a cup of coffee and then lay down and have a nap. It typically takes caffeine 15-20 minutes to kick in, which means I wake up after my nap ready to go. (You can read more about coffee naps in this post I wrote)
Ideally, if you’re getting the nutrients you need and the sleep you need, naps aren’t necessary. If you’re napping multiple times throughout the week or on the weekends, consider getting more sleep at night to help you avoid naps.
Late Night Snacking
Let me ask you this - is your body asking for food or sleep? Evening snacking, especially around 830-10pm, is often your body asking for sleep. If you’re tired and you’re choosing to stay up because it’s your only ‘me time’, your body is going to insist on calories to keep going if you’re not going to give it sleep.
If you’re choosing to forgo sleep in favour of staying up and you’re finding yourself reaching for chips, chocolate, ice cream or other snack foods, your body is looking for high fat/high sugar foods to give it easy energy to keep going.
If I’m feeling like a snack in the evening, I’ll often ask myself - do I need food or sleep? Depending on the time (aka later evening / after 8pm) and if I’ve had dinner, the answer is usually sleep. On those nights, I choose to go to bed a little earlier.
Evenings
Evenings and evening routines have their own article in this series - you can read it here.
A Few Other Things to Limit or Avoid
Even things that are good for us can be detrimental after a certain point in the day.
B Vitamins: Avoid taking any/all B vitamin supplements after 3pm. If you’re very sensitive to B vitamins, avoid taking them after 11am. If you’re pregnant and in your third trimester, ignore this! Your body needs those B vitamins.
Exercise: While exercise will help you sleep, avoid anything that gets your heart rate up within 3 hours of sleep. Midday is a great time to get your heart rate up and taking time to wind down with restorative or yin yoga, gentle stretching or a gentle walk in the evening is a great way to end your day.
Eating Late: I love a late lingering dinner at a fabulous restaurant, however, eating a heavy meal within 3 hours of trying to sleep can negatively affect the quality of your sleep. It takes about 3 hours for your body to digest a full meal. Airm to eat no later than 6:30pm if you’re going to bed at 10pm.
Smoking: Nicotine stimulates the body which will disrupt sleep.
Alcohol: While it may seem like it’s easier to fall asleep after having several drinks, always the case. The other effect of that much alcohol is that it can disrupt sleep later in the night as well.
Having a drink with dinner or just after dinner won’t have too much of an effect, but notice if this is a daily habit or if it’s an occasional thing. Take time to notice how you sleep on nights you have a drink and how that differs from nights you don’t have a drink.
Caffeine: Caffeine is a stimulant! Avoid having caffeine within 12 hours of when you want to sleep. This can be coffee, tea, chocolate, dark sodas, energy drinks or any other number of caffeinated foods and/or drinks.
It takes 5 hours to clear 50% of the caffeine from your body if your body has all the nutrients it needs for optimal liver function.
If you’re sitting there thinking that you can have a shot of espresso and go straight to sleep and you’re convinced that caffeine doesn’t affect your sleep, try skipping the caffeine after 1pm for 1 week*.
*Note: if you do try this, wean yourself off the caffeine slowly for a few days to a week first so you’re not going into withdrawal and feeling worse before you feel better.
How our Habits Help
Our choices throughout the day and in the evenings have a huge impact on our ability to sleep and sleep well. Creating great habits little by little should help to improve the overall quality of sleep and the amount of sleep you’re getting.
If you have great habits that you like and are working for you, keep those! Use these habits to add other small actions that you want to make into habits. This is called Habit Stacking. It’s a great way to help build new habits in a short amount of time and make it easier.
Andrea
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