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Do you really sleep?

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Editor’s note: After waking up after the night, the waking up still has no spirit, sleep very early but the quality is very low, the thinking has been active and excited and can’t sleep… If you have encountered the above situation, if you try Many methods still do not cure the symptoms, then you should look at this dry goods that can help you improve the quality of sleep, improve sleep from understanding sleep. The article was translated from Medium, author Nick Wignall, and the original title is 3 Common Bedtime Habits Destroying Your Sleep, I hope to help you.

Let me guess: You have read all the articles about sleep hygiene, turned off all the screens at night, drank a lot of hypnotic tea, but… still can’t sleep well.

• Maybe you struggle to “turn off your brain” and fall asleep.

• Maybe you wake up all night and can’t sleep anymore.

• Or you just think it’s a bad morning, no rest, no energy.

No matter what your sleep problem is, reading a list of sleep hygiene tips and tips is not the answer. If you have been sleeping badly, then the problem lies in your sleep habits.

As a psychologist specializing in insomnia and sleep problems, I work with my clients to study the underlying drivers and habits that cause sleep problems and how to correct them. Now I want to teach you to do the same thing.

In this article, we’ll discuss the three most common habits that lead to insomnia, as well as some very specific suggestions on how to break down these bad habits and build better habits.

I. You try to “get awakening” by sleeping late on weekends

One of the most common mistakes people make in sleep is to sleep late on weekends and try to “fill up” sleep to pay for “sleep debt.”

Try to rest for a few more hours on weekends or rest days to make up for the lack of sleep on weekdays. Although it seems reasonable on the surface, such attempts are unwise and basicallyIt is not worth paying such a price.

In contrast to the popular psychology we hear from the media, there is no scientific evidence that people really accumulate any form of meaningful long-term “sleep debt,” even after a significant reduction in normal sleep time.

Therefore, by taking a nap on Saturday and Sunday mornings to make up for lost sleep during the week, the benefits are minimal. But sleeping late and working hard has a serious negative impact.

The negative effects of sleeping late

Sleeping on the weekend has little long-term benefit, and it comes with several very obvious shortcomings:

1. Social time difference. When our body’s biological clock is inconsistent with the actual time of day, a habitual jet lag will occur. If you fly from San Francisco at 4 pm and arrive in Boston at 9 pm, the clock on the wall of the hotel room may show at 10 pm, suggesting that you should sleep. But your biological clock hasn’t had time to adjust – you still feel that you are in San Francisco time, that is, at 7 pm, it is too early to sleep.

When our biological clock does not match the actual time, we suffer from “social jet lag syndrome”, but the reason is poor sleep arrangements, not flying across time zones.

If you stay up late on Friday and Saturday nights 3 hours later than usual, and wake up 3 hours later than usual on Saturday and Sunday morning, in the next few days (when you return to your normal Time schedule), the social time difference you experience is like crossing three time zones.

Conclusion: Like a plane, sleeping late can also cause jet lag.

2. Low sleep driving force. The second problem with sensation and sleepiness is that it will exhaust your sleep drive.

Sleep driving is the body’s need for deep, restorative sleep. Staying awake and active during the day helps sleep, so when bedtime comes, your body has a strong need for deep sleep – it will make you fall asleep faster and make you sleep better all night.

But when you sleep in a day with only a small amount of time to establish sleep drive, this means you will: A. not sleepy during your normal bedtime, and B. more likely to wake up in the middle of the night, and very It is difficult to fall asleep again.

Conclusion: Low sleep drivers result in low sleep quality.

Solutions

The good news is that both of these issues—social jet lag and low sleep drivers—can be solved in a simple way: wake up at the same time every day. Even on weekends, holidays, and vacations, even if you didn’t sleep well the night before, or you’ve been nervous orA tired day.

When you keep your wake up time consistent, you first avoid getting yourself into a social jet, because your schedule is constant. You also give yourself plenty of time to build a day’s sleep drive so that when sleep time comes, you have enough sleepiness.

Unfortunately, although conceptually simple, for most people, getting up at the same time every day is often a big challenge.

Here are the three most common obstacles or resistances I’ve heard from people trying to adopt a uniform wake-up time, and some suggestions on how to think or solve them in different ways.

1) But it’s good to sleep late! Yes, but the happiness brought by sleep one or two hours a week can really offset the cost of long-term sleep deprivation?

2) As long as I sleep a little longer, I feel much better (the performance will be much better). The extent of your day off and your normal level of work depend almost entirely on how deep your sleep is, not how many hours you sleep. Almost all of our deep sleep occurs in the first three hours of sleep. Therefore, your sleep from 7 am to 8 am feels good, but it does not have a meaningful impact on your experience and performance throughout the day. It will also reduce your sleep drive, making it harder for you to fall asleep at night, and continue the vicious circle of lack of sleep.

3) The morning of the weekend is the only time I spend time with my spouse in bed or hug. If Saturday and Sunday mornings are really the only time you can find and hug and intimate, then maybe it’s time to re-adjust your priorities, not as much as the rest of the week. Take some time to physically and emotionally interact with your partner.

Conclusion: To avoid social jet lag and low sleep drivers, be sure to wake up at the same time every day.

Two. You slept too early

Being early in the morning before an important day comes to bed, is another aspect of the sensation. In both cases, in order to get a better sleep, you try to change your sleep habits, and eventually your sleep quality will deteriorate. When you go to bed early in the morning before an important day, you often wake up in bed instead of falling asleep.

For example, a large trial will begin tomorrow, and the outcome of the trial will determine whether you can become a partner. Or you are preparing to defend your paper, sell your startup to a group of venture capital firms, participate in tennis tournaments, or any other stressful, high-risk situation.

In the face of the tough challenges of tomorrow, many of us have made the mistake of sleeping in bed early this morning, trying to get more sleep, so we get a better rest and be able to perform the next day. good.

One of the key mistakes in this way of thinking is that your rest and maximum performance are not related to the amount of sleep time, but much more to your sleep quality.

Of course, in a perfect situation, we have enough and high quality sleep every night. Although these can happen occasionally due to the proliferation of positive factors, it is foolish to think that we can have them in bed in the morning.

I might think like this:

If you choose, are you willing to have 6 hours of quality sleep, or 8 hours of intermittent, restless sleep?

When you try to go to bed early before an important day, your body may not be ready to fall asleep, so the result is often more harmful than good. As a result, you can’t sleep in bed for a long time. This will expose you to two major sleep problems: sleep anxiety and problematic sleep regulation.

1. Sleep anxiety. You are lying in bed, turning off the lights, alone, nothing happens. Do not have any external stimuli, because you are very loyal to the rules of sleep hygiene (eye masks, earplugs and white noise machines, blackout curtains, etc.).

Let yourself be in a perfect world that will help you fall asleep. But unfortunately, your sleep world is not perfect, in part because you have a bed in the morning and the driving force for sleep is not high enough. As a result, you will lie in bed, nothing, only your cranky and lack of drowsiness. Inevitably, you start thinking about what to do tomorrow, important reports to be done at work next week, what you have promised to take care of, etc…

When you are in bed but not sleepy, your brain starts working – thinking, because there is no external work to do in this situation. Soon, this idea will increase your overall level of awakening and signal to your body that the driving force for sleep should be suppressed because it is time to work (think).

You will find yourself more awake and alert, rather than groggy into sleep. This can lead to an uncomfortable thought: “What if I can’t sleep? If I am groggy and mentally awkward, what will happen tomorrow? I need to fall asleep now!”

This starts the annoyance and anxiety of sleep, which brings the brain you have been awakened to a new awakening height (the challenge of the task list or presentation will cause a slight arousal, but the anxiety of lack of sleep will cause Severely awakened).

Conclusion: By worrying about the effects of being unable to sleep, you are creating a self-testing prophecy that will keep you awake. Everything is because you slept too early.

2. Problematic sleep adjustment. A problem with sleep regulation means that you train your brain to evoke activities and lie in bedThe behavior is linked. If every time you lie in bed, you start to look back at tomorrow’s task list, worry about your sleep quality, your bed will become a subconscious suggestion of anxiety and spiritual awakening, and thus inhibit sleep impulses.

In other words, lying in bed when you are not really sleepy is double-hazard: at that moment, there is a double anxiety of waking up and sleeping, making it harder for you to fall asleep. But over time, it also creates an unconscious connection between your bed and awakening, which is the worst thing about your bed, because it turns the behavior of going to bed into a sober signal. !

Conclusion: When you are not in bed, you will train your brain to connect the bed with sobriety.

Solutions

No matter how tired you are, if you are not particularly sleepy, you should not go to bed. If you do this, chances are you will: A. Start worrying, thinking about solving problems, this will usually activate yourself, B. You will create or strengthen various connections in the bed that will wake you up, all of which will interfere with you. Go to sleep.

Conclusion: Until you are really sleepy and go to bed, not just tired.

Why is it difficult

1. We made an old mistake and thought that the most important thing is the amount of sleep, not the quality of sleep. Remember: 6 hours of high quality sleep is better than 8 hours of low quality sleep. If you are worried about poor performance tomorrow, remind yourself that sleep quality is the most important thing. If anything, you should try to go to bed a little later than usual before an important day, as this will further boost your sleep drive and increase your chances of falling asleep and staying asleep.

2. Tiredness and sleepiness are two things. Tired is a broad term that refers to fatigue or exhaustion, and sleepiness is a very specific term that points to your body ready to fall asleep. When people run through the marathon’s finish line, they are usually tired, but I have never heard of someone falling asleep at the finish line. Similarly, after a day of work, physical, mental and emotional stress, you may feel very tired, but this usually has nothing to do with sleepiness. The easiest way to know when you are really sleepy, not just tired, is to judge whether you are pulling your eyelids. In the evening, try to pay attention to the difference between fatigue and drowsiness, so that you can avoid bed in the morning more effectively.

Conclusion: Go to bed only when you are really sleepy, not just tired.

Three. Your “sleep track” is too short

Many people are frustrated with their bad sleep because heThey expect their brains to shut down and go to sleep once they decide to go to bed. But the brain doesn’t work like this.

You may be active and energetic throughout the day so that you can be more efficient, solve problems, and complete tasks. Wouldn’t it be unrealistic to think that all of these features can be turned off immediately when you want to turn it off and immediately go into sleep mode?

The thinking before you go to bed is like what a plane looks like before landing: the bigger and stronger the plane, the longer it takes to land the runway and then stop completely. In other words, the more active and excited your day’s thinking, the more time you need to slow down your thinking before going to sleep at night.

If you have a common problem, that is, your brain will be troubled by various thoughts, troubles, things to do and memories after going to bed. This may be because you have not given your brain enough time to The state of alertness and excitement transitions to a state of relaxation and drowsiness.

Solutions

To get to sleep fast in bed, you need a transitional relaxation to bridge the gap between work and rest. Specifically, if you want to fall asleep easily and easily, your brain needs some time to switch from a problem-solving mode to a relaxed rest mode. This time dedicated to relaxing the brain is called the sleep track.

Let your brain slowly and systematically enter a state of relaxation that promotes sleep by consciously creating a relaxing space and time before going to bed. If you haven’t already done so, you may need to think carefully and add a plan. By implementing and adhering to a continuous sleep track, you will also create reliable and powerful clues for sleep as a sign of the subconscious, that is, your brain is time to sleep. This will make the actual action of falling asleep easier and easier.

In order to create an effective sleep track, schedule an hour or so of total time before your expected bedtime. The term “work” is broad in this context—of course, you should not email your customers or view data sheets, and you should avoid any goal-oriented or effort-oriented activities as much as possible. Anything that might signal you will take some mental work.

For example, reading news is a great way to subtly get your mind into work mode. But unfortunately, after all, by definition, news is a series of problems and crises, and your brain will naturally respond in a way that concerns and solves problems. When you start to worry or think about solving problems, the brain enters a working mode that awakens and suppresses your sleep drive and increases sleep anxiety.

Why is it difficult

We are good at working and solving problems, and we do this often, so thinking about and implementing some non-work and non-wake activities on our sleep track is actually achallenge.

The key to developing a good sleep runway activity is to think about interesting or enjoyable things that just catch your attention, but don’t be too exciting to get your strong interest.

Reading is usually a good choice, and fiction is often better than non-fiction. A good way to do this is to reread your favorite novel or story. This tends to hit interesting and enjoyable “sweet spots”, but it doesn’t strongly wake you up because you read it before, so there are no surprises. (Note: “Sweet spot” is a golf term, which refers to an optimal placement point when hitting the ball. It can strike the most “sweet” feeling with the ball.)

Other good sleep track activities include:

• TV shows. Many people use the natural documentary such as “Planet Earth” or the old sitcom like “Happy Bar” and “Song Fei Zheng Chuan” to successfully hypnotize. Don’t worry about “Blu-ray” affecting your sleep. Scientific research in this area can be said to be untenable. Even though some studies have shown that blue light has a negative impact on sleep, the impact is usually small – for example, its impact is far less than the fear and anxiety that comes from going to bed without sleep.

• Stretching or yoga.

• Meditation or formal relaxation exercises such as progressive muscle relaxation or abdominal breathing.

• Guessing or other uncompetitive games.

• Some hobbies may not be irritating and are therefore suitable for sleeping track activities. For example, sketching a new watercolor, or just listening to music, doing nothing.

Conclusion: To get to sleep quickly and easily, you need to create a sleep track that lasts an hour or more. During this time, you don’t need to do anything that excites you or is goal-oriented.

Information Summary

If you have a bad night’s sleep, implementing standard sleep hygiene tips is not enough to improve the situation. You must first identify and correct potential sleep habits that cause poor sleep.

The three most common but counterintuitive habits can interfere with our sleep:

1. Sleeping late on weekends and the resulting social time difference.

2. After the bed in the morning, the awake and the bed are established.

3. The sleep track is not long enough.

If you can solve these problematic sleep habits, you will find that continuous good sleep is easier than you think.

To thoroughly improve your sleep quality, keep the following in mind:

1. Wake up at the same time every day.

2. Don’t lieIn bed, unless you are sleepy (eyelids are heavy), not just tired.

3. Keep at least one hour of sleep on the runway before going to bed, don’t work, or even have a clear goal.

Translator: Yoyo_J