Create a Sleep Routine That Improves Your Mood, Memory, and Decision-Making
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Rebecca Hunter, MSW: [00:00:00] Thanks for listening to Take Out Therapy, where you can improve your mental health, emotional stability, and life skills in less than 20 minutes a week. Simple, straightforward, authentic advice and education, right from a private practice therapist and anxiety expert. I'm Rebecca Hunter, and this is better mental health, delivered. Visit TakeOutTherapy. com for lots more resources to help you thrive.
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Hello there, Take Out Therapy listeners. Today, I want to talk to you about something very important that comes up in the therapy office all the time. Typically at the beginning of my relationship with somebody, we always talk about sleep and what we call sleep hygiene. So today on the podcast, I want to help you get some better sleep by teaching you about the importance of sleep in terms of good, healthy mental health.
and how the heck to get it because I think a lot of people have trouble sleeping and it's very common [00:02:00] problem and it has a spiral impact, doesn't it? I want to explore this connection between sleep and mental health and then I I'll give you some really practical information about how you can improve your sleep process all together.
So here's the deal. I'll start with the impact of sleep deprivation on mental health. Do I really need to explain this to you? A couple weeks ago, I was not sleeping well, and I generally have really decent sleep hygiene, which I'll get into, and I'm a good sleeper. I I just kept waking up in the middle of the night for no particular reason.
And then of course the brain machine clicks on and you know the story. I'm sure this happens to you from time to time. And when I chased it, I realized that it was my own lack of adhering to what I know is good practice around sleep. So I'd gotten a little harky jerky with my routine. [00:03:00] And when I snapped things back into place in a way that I was Felt good to me because your sleep routine has to feel good to you.
It can't be like fabricated by somebody else and given to you, right? It has to work with your life. And when I snapped back into my old sleep routine, lo and behold, I'm back to getting good sleep and the bags under my eyes are looking a little bit better now. Here's the thing. When we sleep, our body recovers from everything we do when we're not sleeping.
sleeping. And it really needs that time for what we would describe as like cellular regeneration, right? Like your body rebuilds itself from all day of you being active and eating food and running around like a chicken with your head cut off through your life, right? Your sleep is the only time when things can rest and rebuild.
Because when you're out and about in life, like all [00:04:00] systems are moving, right? So sleep is that moment where the body goes, okay, she's laying down people. Let's get to work with the re the reinvigoration process in very unscientific terms, we really need our body to do this. Because there's actually some rebuilding in the brain that happens.
There's a little repair going on in the nervous system where it can reset. So sleep has a huge role in things like our ability to recognize and I'm going to be talking about how to regulate our emotional responses, right? Have you ever gotten like a crappy week of sleep and then just been a bear and emotionally all over the map?
When I was not sleeping great a couple of weeks ago, my mood totally tanked. Like I felt Oh my gosh, I think I'm like having a little bit of a depressive moment. I'm like in a bad funk. As soon as I start getting sleep again, I was like, Oh, [00:05:00] life's good. I'm fine. So it really impacts our ability to it kind of messes with our ability to remember things.
Like when you walk into a room and you're thinking to yourself what am I doing here? I came in here for something. Poor sleep affects that type of memory system. And that's just annoying. And also can throw off our mood. And then the other thing that I want to mention, there's a lot, But poor sleep impacts our decision making process.
It impacts the part of our mind that helps us to decide things. And so I find this really annoying because when I'm not sleeping. Sleeping well, I can't really regulate my emotions very well and I can't make decisions for myself either. So it'll be like what do you want to have for dinner? And I just fly off the handle. I'm like, I don't know. Like it's just too overwhelming, right? So there's an impact here and [00:06:00] longterm kind of poor sleep and poor sleep habits. This can really raise our risk for an anxiety prop, falling into a depressive episode, which so many people do anyway. Why increase the risk?
And just feeling generally over reliant. stressed. Okay. It can mess with our ability to concentrate our memory and of course our mood. Like things like going to work and being productive and being a leader and being the person that's like the grown up in the office. Like that stuff tanks when we're not sleeping well, we can't be that person if we don't have the capacity to be that person and sleep gives us the capacity.
So here's, the most important thing that I want you to understand when we're getting good sleep, it improves our mood, it improves our [00:07:00] emotional stability, it improves our cognitive function, and therefore, overall, our well being. Good quality sleep. sleep. They say quality, actually over quantity.
Some people are like yeah, I sleep for six hours a night and I just sleep like a rock and I get up and I'm good to go the next day. Okay. If that's how you roll, that's great. Is your sleep high quality? Quality, right? Because some people lay in bed for nine hours a night and sleep for three of those hours.
So that's not good quality sleep. It's like you're in and out of sleep state and there's some irritability and frustration that happens. So we want to look at the whole spectrum of sleep and how it can really benefit our lives. You guys know, I'm an anxiety specialist.
People come to see me and they're typically really driven, kind of [00:08:00] change maker, bad ass people who are suffering with feeling anxious, which, it's hard to be bad ass when you're feeling anxious all the time. So those are the type of people that I help. And we get into sleep early. Real quickly, because what's really important with sleep is something that we call sleep hygiene and people with anxiety do really well when they have good sleep hygiene, it lessens their anxiety.
I'll tell you just frankly, it lessens their anxiety. To have their sleep program kind of nailed down. Okay. So sleep hygiene, what is that? It's such a funny term. I don't even know who came up with it, but it's basically yes, it's sleep, but it's all the stuff that you do around. going to bed as well.
So it's not just looking at I slept from midnight to six. Isn't that fine? I still feel like crap. It's looking at all [00:09:00] the factors that go into making a good night's sleep. Okay. So sleep hygiene it, it consists of things like dealing with your sleep environment. So I'm going to go through these and you can maybe jot down things that you feel like are relevant to your situation.
But let's just start with the environment. Okay. Your bedroom is a very important place. And some people like to call it their sanctuary. And I love that word because sanctuary really expresses like, this is a very special place. specifically used space for peace and calm, right? For relaxation or I would say like pleasure, right?
But the bedroom is not an office. The bedroom is a place that needs to be cool. The temperature needs to be lower than what you would typically have your house at [00:10:00] during the day. It needs to be a quiet place and you can create quiet by doing things within your routine if your room isn't environmentally quiet, right?
And it needs to be dark, which means things that have lights on them have got to go, including technology, right? Like the phone, the iPad, the computer, the modem. All the stuff that we run in our houses, a lot of that can leave the bedroom and it will help optimize your sleep. Okay? So that's what I mean about the environment.
And the other thing that I want to say about the environment is that some people can't sleep in a messy room. And if that's you that's totally normal. And then create a room that's not cluttered so that when you go to bed at night, you feel peace and calm is what I would [00:11:00] say. Like people are always like isn't this weird?
You know, I need my room to be perfectly clean before I go to sleep. And the answer is no, it's not weird. That's you expressing yourself and noticing what it is you need. You gotta go with that, friend. It's information. It's data. Who cares if it's quote unquote normal? We're all super quirky and your quirks are different than mine, you know?
So pay attention to the environment of your sleeping room and see how it feels to you and if you can get some better symmetry with a better sleep and sleep hygiene and the way that you like to keep your bedroom. Okay. And then in sleep hygiene, we want to talk about consistency. So people hate this part of the conversation because, I, I know people that are like sometimes I'm a night owl.
If my husband's out of town, I just, get on my computer and I work in my bed [00:12:00] at night. And sometimes I go to bed really early if I'm super tired. And what I would say is if you want to clean up your sleep hygiene, you've got to create a regular. Sleep schedule. So like I go to bed around this time within like half hour, a little bit of a time frame and I generally get up around this time.
Does this mean you can't stay up late when you go to an awesome show and dance your face off? No, that's not what it means. It means you might not sleep great that night though. And so if the rest of the time you maintain a regular sleep schedule, you're good to go baby. Go to the show, dance your face off.
Like it's all about creating a percentage of sleep that is better than the percentage of crappy sleep. And that's what sleep hygiene and creating a consistent sleep schedule will do for you. So a lot of my clients They'll like when they're getting into this, it's pretty hard. It's a project.
You set a little timer [00:13:00] an hour before your quote unquote bedtime, right? So that you can do your routine, which is another part of sleep hygiene is like what do you do to get ready for bed? Remember when we were kids and we'd take our bath and brush our teeth? Or if you had kids, that bedtime routine is hell on earth, isn't it?
Anywho, we do all this stuff, for little kids before they go to bed. No, you can't watch TV, or we're going to sit down and calmly read a book, or we're going to sing a little lullaby, right? You got to treat yourself with kid gloves around establishing a routine of Bedtime, okay, and it seems really silly that a full grown adult would need a bedtime But that is exactly what we need.
We need a bedtime and a bedtime routine Just like a kid and so think of three or four things That would be just really interesting It's so lovely in creating this chill, [00:14:00] calm, sleepy time environment for yourself. It's so funny. People are always saying Oh, I tried to read a bedtime, but I can't because I fall asleep and I'm like, awesome.
And they're like, but I want to read, but I want to read the book. And I'm like, but you are reading the book for five minutes before you go to bed. And it's helping you get into sleep. If you're one of these people that's reading makes me fall asleep, awesome! Get a book that you read just before you go to bed.
That's not your, maybe your novel that you're actively reading, during the day on a Sunday out in your hammock. But, it's your thing. It's your bedtime book. It's your bedtime story, right? And if you'd spend some time before bed reading and that works for you, incorporate it in, right? One thing that one of my clients started doing, which I thought was really lovely, was she would light a candle and they were these special little candles that only burn for 30 minutes.
And so she would light the candle and while [00:15:00] the candle was burning, she would brush her teeth and get a little drink of water and use the restroom and do her face routine. And then by the time the candle was done burning, she would be laying peacefully in her bed, either listening to a book on tape or meditation or reading her book.
So those are another couple of things that you might be able to throw into your sleep routine, which is reading, not reading a book, which is meditation. Or doing little ritual based things to create an environment that feels really good to you. Meditation at bed. People are like, what? Like I'm going to sit on a cushion and like meditate before I go to bed.
Let me make this way easier for you. There's a great app. It's called Insight Timer. Insight Timer is a free app. You're welcome, Insight Timer. I'm now your walking advertisement. Everyone that comes to see me in one on one therapy [00:16:00] gets the link to Insight Timer. It's the app that we use in our, my therapy practice to help people learn certain skill sets.
And one of the things that you can use Insight Timer for is meditations. And they have sleep as a whole category. And I used to always listen to these yoga, knee draw, body scan, like sleepy time, relax your body, get into the mode of calm, calm Zen land. Now I just listened to insight timers music.
They have sleeping music and I'm telling you, man, that stuff puts me to sleep so fast. So think of three or four things that you want to do as your. bedtime routine that you can put in about half an hour before you go to bed to just take care of yourself friend you can stretch you can right like you can roll on a foam roller Do things that help you feel [00:17:00] connected to yourself, like you're down regulating your jacked up nervous system from a long day of running around, right?
Create some calm in your body and also in your mind. Because the thing is that when we have a lot going on during the day, it can bleed into nighttime. So when we start to create consistency and have a good environment and put a little routine in place, things vastly improve. And here's a couple more tips for you that you may or may not like.
And of course, you've already heard these things, which is both caffeine. And alcohol jack us up. And even though sometimes like people think like I'm drinking a couple glasses of wine like, Oh, it relaxes me so much and helps me fall asleep. Yeah. Right up until you wake up at 3 a. m. Because alcohol, whether you understand it or not, [00:18:00] meaning without your comprehension or with your comprehension messes up your sleep.
So even though you might be like, no, Rebecca, I drink, three beers and then I'm like, sleep through the night and I'm good to go. In the background of that, your sleep is messed up. Like you might not know it, but it is. And so you have to be really careful about what you're consuming before you go to bed.
A heavy meal will do the same thing. It will interrupt your sleep. Your sleep process, because you're basically putting stuff into the machine, your body, right? And your machine has to work. Your machine has to be like, Oh, we got to get this over here and move this over here. But all systems go right.
The machine is processing what you've put in. It's time for the machine to be resting and regenerating, not processing all the crap you put in there right before you went to bed. And I'm totally guilty. I'm a big fan of eating [00:19:00] popcorn in my bed which does get a little messy by the way. I don't recommend it.
But I do it anyway, whatever. But if you're going to eat something before bed, just give some thought to okay, so is my body going to be able to like process this effectively so that it can then get its rest and its regeneration time? Because when half of the systems are running, There's not a lot of regeneration that's going to be happening during your sleep.
I hope that makes sense to you in a way that you can comprehend. And then my last tip for you is like the distractions. The cell phone in the bedroom, it's got to go, you guys. We can't sit on our computer and then close it and put it beside our bed and expect to go to sleep. Like it just doesn't work like that.
that. And it does. And it, and what I'll say is some people would push back and say, that works for me, Rebecca. And I would say again, yeah, it might work for you, but it's disrupting your sleep and leaving you a little less regenerated. in the [00:20:00] morning. Okay. So absolutely reduce your screen time before bed and get your phone out of your room at night.
When you wake up in the night and you check your cell phone, you've just released a whole bunch of dopamine, friend, which will fight your sleep every day of the week. So we just want to keep in mind these four little things. as you go. And then you can go off and create your own sleep hygiene plan, but it has to be consistent.
The environment has to be right for sleep, appropriate for sleep. There has to be a little bit of a routine at bedtime, just like a little kid. And you want to limit the amount of disruptions that you have in your environment, in your mind. right? And then what I hope for you is that you can get a little bit better sleep.
And if it remains elusive, come see me, let's have a session. And I can help you figure out what is that, what's the hitch in the [00:21:00] giddyup, as we say in the Hunter house. So hopefully this podcast helps you a little bit. Understand the really important connection between your mental health and your sleep, and give you some ideas about how to just make some quick adjustments to your routine and your environment to get better sleep.
Because here's the thing, it's going to help you out in the end, then you won't fly off the handle and feel like little decisions are giant decisions. You'll be able to navigate life with just a little more peace and calm. Which is what we all want, isn't it? Okay. I'll see you again next week. Take good care of yourself.
Thanks so much for joining me today. To support this free resource, subscribe, review, and pass an episode along to a friend in need. And always, please get the level of support that you need for your situation. Want a full session? Just reach out. I'm here to help. Head to TakeOutTherapy. [00:22:00] com for lots more resources and to join my community.
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