It's no secret that a lack of sleep can cause depression. Ask any new mom how she's feeling, and right after she tells you what a joyful time it is, she might just burst into tears. If you've ever gone through a period of sleep deprivation or if you've suffered from a sleep disorder you know it's true: lack of sleep messes with your mind.
The link between depression and sleep disorders is cyclical: loose too much sleep and you may start to feel depressed; feelings of fatigue and worthlessness make us less likely to get up on time, exercise, eat right and take our vitamins; the resulting poor health can make it even harder to sleep.
Breaking the cycle can be tough, but it's oh-so-worth it. And the good news is, the other five steps in this program can really help--especially the sun lamp and the exercise. The sun lamp gets your circadian rhythms synced up so that you're awake during the day and sleepy at night. And exercise can significantly improve sleep patterns.
In his book, The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression Without Drugs Dr. Ilardi shares some great tips for sleeping better at night. Here they are, with my commentary:
1. Use the bed only for sleeping. This doesn't mean you need to kick your spouse out of bed. ;) Actually there is a study showing that sex can help you sleep better--but that's the only exception to the rule. This means that the more time we spend awake in bed, the weaker the associative link our brain has between bed and sleep. So if you're in the habit of reading in bed, your brain won't do that great Pavlovian thing it's supposed to do when your head hits the pillow. Read in the living room, then go to bed when you're sleepy, and then if you can't sleep after about fifteen minutes, get up and do some more reading. This will help you program your brain to shut down as soon as you lie down.
2. Get up at the same time every day. This one can be brutal if you feel you're getting your best sleep right when you're "supposed" to be getting up. And the temptation to catch up on sleep on weekends can be huge if you're sleep deprived. But science is clear here. Discipline yourself. Use an alarm clock and especially use your sun lamp first thing when you wake up! After just a few days, you'll find it easy to get up on time...and especially, go to sleep on time.
3. Avoid napping. Again, it's counterintuitive to give up sleep if you're dying for it. But when you really think about it, you're lying awake at night because your body thinks you've had enough. Full disclosure, I nap most days of the week, but I always do it before three pm and always less than forty-five minutes. And during bouts of insomnia, I start skipping naps until things are normal again.
4. Avoid bright light at night. Remember we're trying to condition the brain here, so this is one more trick. Dim the lights before bedtime, make sure you don't have hall lights or night lights through the night, even wear a sleeping mask if you have to.
5. Avoid caffeine and other simulants. There are times when I love being a Mormon girl. This is one of them.
6. Avoid alcohol at night. Ditto.
7. Keep the same bedtime every night. I struggle to be consistent here, so I can't tell you from personal experience how well it works. But our body is a programmable clock. So it makes sense that what we habitually do, is what our body will expect and go for.
8. Turn down your thermostat at night. Dr. Ilardi sites studies that we do sleep better when temperatures are just about five degrees cooler than we like it during the day. We started doing this early in our marriage and it's been wonderful. There's nothing like snuggling under the covers when it's just chilly enough to need covers.
9. Avoid taking your problems to bed with you. This one has been huge for me. I almost always hop on the computer after the kids are in bed and try to get a little work done, but it's important to turn it off about an hour before bed and start to unwind and disconnect. After that, it's mindless activities only, such as reading a novel or taking a shower. If there are still things bothering my mind when we turn in, I tell TJ about them and let him convince me that everything is going to be okay. Making a conscious effort to shelve your troubles before you go to bed helps you avoid worrying through the night.
10. Don't try to fall asleep. I first struggled with insomnia when I was a teen, right around the same time I got my first Indiglo watch. I could look at it right before I drifted off, and anytime I was awake during the night I could figure out how much sleep I was missing and worry about it. This turned out to be terrible for my sleep patterns. After struggling with insomnia into my twenties, I decided to ditch the clock--which by this time had morphed into a night stand alarm clock. Every night I set the alarm and then turned the face down. It took self-control through the night not to check the time over and over, but I soon found myself sleeping better. Don't psyche yourself out about sleep. The more we stress about it, the less we'll be able to sleep well--so let it go. If you're not sleeping, get up and read until you feel tired. If you never do feel tired again until morning, be strong and get up anyway. The second night after a sleepless one usually goes better if you can avoid the temptation the sleep in or nap.
Are you starting to see how the six steps of this program tie together? You'll find that hard work in one area will have a ripple effect on the other ones, making it easier to use them all. Sleep researcher Nancy Hamilton is quoted in The Depression Cure as saying of falling asleep, "All it takes is a tired body and a quiet mind."
Sweet dreams, my friends!
This is the fifth of seven posts on beating depression without meds, based heavily on Stephen S. Ilardi's The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beating Depression Without Drugs. I highly recommend you read the whole book to learn how best to implement this revolutionary program. Come back next week and learn how to combat depression by avoiding rumination.
And just so you know... I'm not getting anything from NatureBright or from the publishers of The Depression Cure. I just get a kick out of helping others beat depression. Somehow it makes what I go through worthwhile. Almost. ;)
3 comments:
Great tips! I've read repeatedly that computer and phone screens emit a light that's particularly bad for getting to sleep, so turning them off an hour or two before bed serves more than one purpose!
Shared on Facebook and pinterest!
The lack of sleep in the hardest part for me. Max is 20 months old and often still up multiple times in the night. I've tried everything under the moon and nothing works. I feel like half of myself when I don't sleep. Shared this one too.
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