Our guide for all night owls: How self-talk and small changes can help you get better sleep.

If there is one thing the healthcare industry has taught us in recent years, it is that sleep is of utmost importance for our physical and mental well-being. We now know that sleep improves short-term memory, promotes muscle recovery, and is generally associated with a lower incidence of certain chronic diseases.

With so much emphasis on the importance of sleep, however, we have put ourselves in a strange position – what to do when falling asleep is difficult?

Sleep is something much harder to control than, for example, a diet or regular exercise.

And so one finds oneself in the vicious cycle of insomnia faster than expected. We know we need sleep for optimal health. When we go through phases of insomnia, we quickly become stressed, philosophize about the reasons why we cannot fall asleep, and count the hours until the alarm clock rings us awake again.

One falls into a cycle characterized by chronic insomnia. It is then important to find resources that help to relativize the sleep problems and introduce healthy thought patterns and behaviors to improve sleep again.

The first step for this is to recognize irrational thoughts about sleep:

Just like anxiety, insomnia is due to disproportionately negative thought patterns. The best way to start combating insomnia is to question some of the negative thoughts you have about sleep or lack of sleep. These include some common thought patterns that may include the following sentences:

"Tonight will be another sleepless night." Or "It will take forever to fall asleep tonight and my day will be ruined tomorrow."

When these thoughts creep in, it is important to question them.

Take the last example: "My day will be ruined tomorrow if I cannot sleep." There have been countless cases where one has slept poorly and still had extremely productive days at work and very pleasant evenings with friends. And so it often turns out that there is little truth to this negative thought.

So put positive sleep thoughts first:

For every negative sleep thought you have, try to internalize a positive thought about sleep: "Sleep is relaxing and restorative. It is a reward for all the energy I have spent during the day."

Your bed and bedroom should be perceived as a happy place for you. It is the retreat after long days where there is no room for negativity. Anxious and stressful thoughts do not belong there.

If you wake up at night, you can then quickly and easily fall asleep again.

Every person is born with the ability to fall asleep quickly and easily.

This last point is very important to keep in mind: Humans are made for sleeping – remember how easy sleep was for you as a baby or when you were younger. If you stop stressing about it, it will come naturally.

Modify negative sleep behavior and introduce positive sleep routines:

For those of you who like easy-to-implement instructions, this part should be simple. There are some very tactical changes you can make to your sleep habits to fall asleep faster.

Start a sleep routine one hour before going to bed:

If you have ever worked on your laptop until just before bedtime to answer emails, it is likely that you found it difficult to calm your mind and fall asleep.

For this reason, you should try to get used to a relaxation routine about an hour before going to bed. Take a warm shower, play some music, put your smartphone aside, and try light stretching or yoga.

If you cannot sleep, do not lie down in bed!

By lying awake, after about 15-30 minutes of inner restlessness, you have conditioned your body to associate the bed with insomnia.

So if you cannot sleep after 15-30 minutes, get up and read a little, or listen to some calming music for a while, and then go back to bed.

Do not look at the clock: If you look at the clock, you only stress yourself and fall into old thought patterns. Looking at the clock does not change how late it is, and it does not help you fall asleep faster.

Another important point is the situation in your bedroom.

Your bedroom should be a bright, friendly place, and of all the rooms where you can save costs, your bedroom should not be one of them.

Invest in a good mattress and in a weighted blanket that, adjusted to your body weight, helps you return to a better sleep routine.

Yes, our therapy blankets are more expensive than the heavy blankets you can buy on Amazon, but they are also repeatedly rated as the best weighted blanket on the market.

Our therapy blankets adapt their weight to your own body weight and thus support the production of the sleep hormone melatonin. Falling asleep and staying asleep becomes easier again and you wake up refreshed and relaxed the next morning.

More information about the effect of the therapy blanket can be found here.