Many of us who’ve struggled with insomnia already know the basics of ‘sleep hygiene’: make sure your bedroom is dark, keep a regular bedtime, only use the bed for sleep and sex… But you’ve probably also found those tips aren’t enough. That’s because sleep gets sabotaged by what psychologists call an ‘ironic effect’: the harder you try to nod off, the more diffcult it gets. To avoid this, you need to reduce your emphasis on sleep, which calls for craftier techniques.
Decide on a ‘safety thought’. It’s easy to feel that insomnia is a disaster that will ruin the following day – and the ensuing panic makes sleep more elusive still. Sasha Stephens, author of The E.ortless Sleep Method (Dark Moon, £11.99), suggests memorising a more accurate thought, such as: ‘It’s never as bad as I think it’s going to be.’ Commit it to memory during the day, so you can talk yourself off the psychological ledge at night.
Reduce your time in bed. Surprising as it sounds, research suggests that too much time spent in bed makes insomnia worse. Subconsciously, you associate your bedroom with tossing and turning and, should you lie in, in an effort to catch up, you’ll be insuficiently tired when your next bedtime rolls round, which means another sleepless night. Instead, try limiting time in bed. If you need seven hours’ sleep to feel refreshed, try getting up exactly seven hours after going to bed. The first few days will be tiring, but you should soon find that you’re spending more of those seven hours asleep.