Message To Self: Go To Sleep! Please! Now!

“I made it an intention and created an identity around it: ‘I am the kind of person who gets in bed by midnight,’” Otsuka says. (Admittedly still late, but she says 11 p.m. isn’t feasible for her naturally energetic personality and night owl circadian rhythm.) She began setting multiple Apple Watch alarms leading up to her new curfew, plus an 11:50 p.m. Alexa alarm that announces, “Cinderella, you have 10 minutes to get into bed or you will turn into a pumpkin.” The combination of humor and beat-the-clock challenge is enough to get her into bed. Her focus and mood improved as she racked up more hours of sleep. She now likens sleep to “free therapy.” Sort of like all that late-night British reality TV, only it won’t kill you.

Track your sleep responsibly.

One in three Americans has used a watch, ring or other device to monitor their sleep. These trackers measure movement and use it to estimate how long and how well you’ve slept. They can be incredibly motivating — when I first started wearing my Oura ring, it revealed a distinct dip in sleep quality on nights I’d drunk wine, even though it was just one glass at 7 p.m. That was enough to convince me to cut back to one or two nights a week.

As with most technology, it’s easy to get hooked on your device. “People get overly fixated on achieving ‘perfect’ sleep as measured by their trackers,” says Shelby Harris, Psy.D., director of sleep health at Sleepopolis and author of The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia. “This pressure can stress you out, making it tougher to drift off. The more you stress, the worse your sleep becomes,” she says, then the cycle continues.

Researchers have named the sleep tracker obsession: Orthosomnia.

Studies have shown that these devices tend to overestimate total time asleep and are imprecise in detecting sleep stages. Instead of taking every bit of data as gospel, Harris recommends viewing your sleep tracker as a helpful tool to tweak your sleep habits. For instance, if your tracker indicates you're logging less sleep than usual, pay less attention to the exact number of minutes you’ve lost and reflect on your recent habits instead. Working late? More stressed than usual? “The goal is to use the data to inform smarter sleep habits,” she says, “without letting it drive you crazy aiming for perfect numbers.”

Treat yourself to a soothing bedtime routine.

You can’t swing a sound machine without hitting a sleep expert espousing the benefits of a calming, consistent bedtime routine. It sends a powerful “time to wind down” signal to both body and mind. Sometimes, this message is conveyed via hormones, like when we commit to unplugging from screens an hour before bedtime. (Smartphones and other screens radiate stimulating blue light, which enters your eyes and brain, turning off sleep-inducing melatonin and prompting the release of energizing cortisol.)

Other times, cultivating a sacred bedtime routine sends a more explicit “you deserve to rest” message to the brain that, like the manifestation process, can help turn your wish into reality.

Lara Smith, founder of Lusomé, a sleepwear brand that uses moisture management technology to ease night sweats, started a new bedtime routine last summer. At 9 p.m., she turns on a santal-scented diffuser, slips into her favorite pajamas and starts her skincare routine, including a recently upgraded facial cream. “It's something I look forward to and it triggers a response that gets my system ready to shut down for bed.”

If it’s in your budget, treat yourself to comfy sheets and “at least one set of PJs that make you feel fabulous.” Smith believes doing so makes you feel “worthy of luxuries — and of prioritizing sleep.”

Sleep well, Girlfriends!

Do any of you have trouble sleeping? What do you do about it? Let us know in the comments below.