Want to Get a Good Night’s Sleep First of All, Stop Trying⁠↗

The problem is that when it comes to sleep, unlike almost every other area of life, effort is not rewarded. In fact, it is actively punished. The more you try, the less you are likely to succeed.

Slowing your breathing down from our regular 12–20 breaths per minute to four or five breaths per minute engages the parasympathetic nervous system which counteracts this arousal. To boost your chances of better sleep, consciously slow your breathing down for at least 10 minutes a day (breathe in for roughly five seconds and out for around seven seconds).

Introducing a breathing exercise every morning, for example, will not only help you to feel calmer during the day, it will also reduce the amount of hyperarousal you have to deal with at night.

And don’t take naps in the day – they take the edge off your appetite for sleep, like having a snack just before sitting down to a three-course meal.

It isn’t the blue light from the screen that is keeping you awake, it is anxiety about whether you will sleep or not. Doing something you enjoy is the best way to overrule this anxiety and will help you look forward to bedtime rather than dread it.

One of the things that perpetuates insomnia is a fear of being awake. This triggers the body’s fight or flight response, with its accompanying cocktail of stress hormones. To retrain your brain to not react this way, you need to make friends with being awake. Hard as this sounds, try to accept it as part of your night and instead of spending the time worrying and getting more anxious, do something that genuinely gives you pleasure like listening to a comedy podcast or an audiobook, watching old family videos or doing Wordle. Stay in bed if you can remain relaxed there, but, if not, get up and find a cosy spot elsewhere until you feel sleepy enough to go back.

try facing the fear of being awake head on by keeping your eyes open for as long as possible. Doing the exact opposite of what you want to happen reduces the pressure to fall asleep and stops you trying so hard. This is called paradoxical intention and it was developed by the Austrian neuroscientist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who said: “Sleep [is like] a dove which has landed near one’s hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it; if one attempts to grab it, it quickly flies away.” Trying to stay awake at night might just help you fall asleep.

A quick way to counteract stress hormones is to crack a smile. Smiling releases serotonin, dopamine and endorphins, all of which reduce hyperarousal and promote relaxation. As you turn the light out at night, try to think of something funny or imagine someone you love and smile to yourself in the dark. Likewise when you wake up in the middle of the night. It doesn’t have to be a genuine, heartfelt smile; even a fake smile is enough to send a message to the brain that reduces stress and lowers your heart rate.

But none of the researching, monitoring or analysing actually leads to better sleep. In fact, constantly looking for a solution is undoubtedly making things worse. So give sleep less of your attention. Make this the last article you read on the subject, then go and find something more interesting to think about.