Bottom line: if you’re doing a bunch of activities that give you excitement, adrenaline or stress, cortisol will be up and you won’t have enough sleep hormone (melatonin) to have good sleep quality.
If you’re processing information like informative books, chat conversations, your social media feed, movies, impulses from outside activities … Your brain has a lot to think about, to interpret, to process, and you can’t enter a state of true relaxation.
A classic symptom of high cortisol and low melatonin at night is when you wake up at 2 am and you just can’t seem to fall back asleep until 4-5 am. This is because you literally don’t have enough sleep hormone to stay asleep.
And so with that theory lesson, let’s see how we can balance our hormones, balance our daily rhythm, and sleep like a baby, shall we?
Before you download my FREE 4-Step Bedtime Routine, I’d like to bring your attention to 5 key aspects to fix your sleep schedule:
1 - Create A Morning Routine
Creating some kind of routine in the morning can help you sleep better at night. Say what?
Yes, did you know that getting sunlight in (even just by watching out the window) will increase cortisol levels which will actually help you have LOWER cortisol levels in the evening so you can sleep better? Your morning routine will affect your sleep on that day, so let’s start there.
I know most of you don’t have the time to take an hour for yoga, meditation, journaling and feeling grateful for this new day. You don’t have to take it that far. A morning routine can be very short and simple. There are just a couple of aspects you need to have in mind:
- You need to create a sequence that’s the same every day so that you don’t have to think about it anymore. This way your brain can wake up slowly and you can use your brain energy for truly important mental tasks.
- You need to get some sunlight in, even if it’s just watching out the window from your living room for 2 minutes while you’re having your cup of coffee.
- Your brain needs to be in a state of calmness so that you can prime your brain for the rest of the day. If you wake up rushing to work, your whole day feels kind of off, doesn’t it? That’s because the first 20 minutes of the day, your brain is going from the calm delta brain waves to beta or even gamma: high alertness and productivity. During this transition, it’s important you don’t feel scattered and rushed, but calm, balanced and positive.
2 - Turn Off Your Social Media
By now you’ll know why I’m telling you why you shouldn’t use social media in your night routine. There’s too much information on the feed and in messages for your brain to process late in the evening. Your brain has done enough work for the day and you deserve to disconnect. Disconnecting may feel weird at first when you have the habit of being available all the time, but you’ll soon start enjoying the lack of interruptions from notifications and fully engage in something that truly relaxes you.
Apart from your brain feeling scattered, the blue light of your screen literally blocks melatonin production and increases cortisol. Not something you want to be doing before going to sleep. If you really need to check your phone, install a blue light filter so that your screen looks a bit red-ish and it doesn’t affect your hormones that much.
3 - Optimize Your Bedroom
Your brain associates places and situations with habits and feelings. That’s just the way it works, so you should use this in your advantage.
Your bed should only be for sleep and sex. Nothing else. No movies, no phone, no working on your laptop, no reading … If you like to read in your bedroom, have a separate cozy chair as your reading spot, so that your brain can associate that spot with reading and processing information.
If you can’t fall asleep, just get up, go to the living room, and try again after 15 minutes. This way, you can train your brain that once you enter the bed, it’s time for sleep.
You also want to check the sleep conditions of your bedroom: is it dark enough? Is the temperature right? Is it not too humid? (If it is, consider buying an air filter), are your bedsheets of good quality so that your body can breathe? Did you invest in a good-quality mattress?
When you download The 4-Step Bedtime Routine below, you will receive a little extra freebie to optimize your sleep + bedroom conditions!
4 - Fix Your Sleep Schedule
Training your internal clock and sticking to a sleep schedule will also help your body and your brain to fall asleep quickly and wake up feeling well-rested. Even when you go out and sleep quite late, try to wake up at the same time every day so your body can create the habit of getting ready to tackle the day. It’s better to wake up early and do a little siesta in the afternoon, than to sleep until noon.
If you’re not sure what your sleep schedule should look like, take the Power of When Quiz and see if your sleep chronotype resonates with you. There’s also tons of interesting information on when to exercise, or when to drink alcohol or coffee.
5 - Lower Your Stress Levels
My last KEY aspect to improving sleep quality shouldn’t surprise you: actively bring down cortisol by lowering your stress levels.
The more you engage in relaxation techniques, the more your whole system will be trained to quickly switch from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest. Look at it as some sort of switch that you can train to be stronger and make the switch more easily.
If you can’t sleep because you’re feeling very stressed or you find yourself overthinking, definitely have a look at the Give Your Brain A Break audio series to learn different relaxation techniques that will help you feel more relaxed in just 5 minutes a day, or download the Overthinking Emergency Kit and follow the 10 steps to stop overthinking right away.
Your Next Steps
- Download - Test out your night routine for one evening this week with The FREE 4-Step Bedtime Routine
- Take action - As you go through the other key aspects of this blog post, start with one change, schedule a moment for it, and truly commit
- Personalize - Then, ask yourself: how did that feel? How can I personalize this to make it mine?
- Make it a habit - Decide when it can naturally fit into your day and do it every single day, even if it’s just for 1 minute so that your brain can create the habit and automatically engage in this activity even when you’re having a busy day.
And with that, I’m wishing you a great night’s sleep!
Maya
