The Coping Club: Sleep Hygiene

Topic: Sleep Hygiene

The Stress Bucket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KYC5SsJjx8

Sleep Hygiene

Refers to healthy habits, behaviours, and environmental factors that can be adjusted to help you have a good night's sleep.

Why is sleep important?

Obtaining healthy sleep is important for both physical and mental health, improving productivity and overall quality of life.

Sleep helps maintain cognitive skills (such as attention, learning, and memory), boosts mood, reduces inflammation, stabilizes blood sugar, reduces risk of stroke and heart disease. Helps to regulate our emotions and manage stress

Coping with the 'Sunday Scaries'/Ruminating Thoughts

• Practice mindfulness - focus on the present
• Schedule your morning to be stress-free (prepare clothing, pack your lunch, don't over schedule yourself)
• Challenge your thinking - come up with helpful, kind, accurate thoughts
• Identify thinking errors - eg. catastrophizing, black and white thinking

Cultivate Healthy Daily Habits

• Get Daylight Exposure
• Be Physically Active
• Cut down on smoking, alcohol and caffeine
• Don’t Dine Late

Keep Your Routine Consistent

• Budget 30 Minutes For Winding Down: Take advantage of whatever puts you in a state of calm such as soft music, light stretching, reading, and/or relax
• Dim Your Lights
• Unplug From Electronics
• Use Relaxation techniques (eg. PMR)
• Don’t Toss and Turn
• If after 20 mins you haven’t gotten to sleep, get up and stretch, read, or do something else calming in low light before trying to fall asleep again

Optimize Your Bedroom

• Have a Comfortable Mattress and Pillow
• Set a Cool Yet Comfortable Temperature
• Block Out Light (eg. black out curtains)
• Drown Out Noise (eg. use ear plugs, white noise, fan)
• Try Calming Scents
• Clean and de-clutter bedroom

Strategies to Promote Relaxation

• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Body scan exercise
• Calming music (eg. waves, noise machine)
• Deep breathing
• Mindfulness based activity

Sleep Hygiene for Night Shifts

• Creating a morning bedtime routine to prep the body for sleep.
• Blocking out light in the bedroom with dark shades or a sleep mask.
• Wearing sunglasses in the morning before falling asleep.
• Limiting the use of electronics before falling asleep.
• Using a white noise machine while sleeping during the day to block out daytime noise.
• Rather than immediately going to bed, some shift workers prefer to stay up for a few hours after arriving home. This way, they can wake up closer to the time when they start their next night shift.
• For others, a split-nap schedule is more effective.
• This involves napping for a few hours after getting home in the morning and then sleeping for longer in the hours leading up to the next shift’s start

Sleep Hygiene for Kids

• Set up a bedtime routine that encourages good sleep habits.
• Eg. washing up and brushing teeth, reading a book, or listening to quiet music.
• Allow kids to have control over parts of the routine, such as picking out pj's, which book they read
• Stick to a regular bedtime. You can give your kids a heads-up 30 minutes and then 10 minutes beforehand.
• Turn off all screens (TV, computers, phones, tablets, and video games) at least 1 hour before bedtime
• Your child's bedroom should be comfortable, quiet, and dark.
• Avoiding caffeine, large meals, and sugary treats before bedtime, opting for a healthy bedtime snack if necessary