Is anybody getting enough regular sleep? After a few years of hearing from my psychotherapy clients that they have problems getting to sleep, staying asleep, and getting enough hours of sleep, I put together this brief sleep primer to help them make a few small adjustments to get enough rest.

1. Have a regular bedtime. Your body adapts to regularity. If you consistently go to bed at the same time each night, your body adapts to the schedule and will more easily fall into sleep mode at that time.

2. Take time to wind down. When parents help their young children to get ready for bedtime, they often have a before-bed routine to ease the child into sleepiness (bath, pajamas, read a story, warm milk, etc.). Adults can profit from the same approach. Take a bath. Read. Listen to soothing music. Help yourself wind down with a pre-bed ritual.

3. Turn off the TV. Log off the computer. Help your mind to quiet down by choosing low stimulation activities before you head for bed. Its hard to calm a mind that is racing with information or fast-paced images.

4. Make sure your sleeping room is dark enough. Too much light can disrupt your sleep cycles. Keep the room as dark as possible.

5. Keep the temperature at a comfortable level. Your goal is comfort. Your body will more likely respond to your efforts to relax if you are not too hot or too cold.

6. Keep it quiet. If noises are likely to disturb you, test out ways to keep the noise from becoming bothersome. Experiment with sound absorbing materials (curtains, rugs, etc.). There are various types of earplugs available. Experiment until you find ones that work for you.

7. Avoid alcoholic beverages. Too much alcohol in your system is likely to disrupt your sleep cycles and prevent you from getting deep and restful sleep.

8. Give yourself enough time to sleep. We each need a certain amount of sleep in each 24-hour period. It might be 7 hours and 12 minutes or 8 hours and 3 minutes. Go to bed early enough so that you can get the precise amount of sleep you need. If you do not know how much sleep you need each night, try this experiment. For two weeks, arrange your schedule to allow yourself to get nine hours of sleep each night. At some point you will recognize that you naturally wake at a particular time, without prompting. This is your natural sleep clock. Allow yourself to get this amount of sleep each night.

9. Keep your thoughts at bay. Does this sound like you? You wake up with thoughts racing through your head and you cant turn them off. Sometimes sitting up and writing the thoughts down on a pad of paper helps. As you write, be aware of putting the thoughts out of your mind and down on the paper, where they can stay for later reference, if need be.

10. Get a medical evaluation. Your doctor can recommend a course of action. There are sleep medications available that are effective. You may benefit from a sleep evaluation (called a sleep study) to see of there are physical conditions which are contributing to your sleeplessness.

Recommended reading:

The Promise of Sleep by William Dement, MD, PhD, and Christopher Vaughan (1999)

The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook by Martha Davis, PhD, Elizabeth Eshelman, MSW, and Matthew McKay, PhD. (5th Edition, 2000)