How to Squeeze More Sleep into Your Busy Life

There are so many things that pull on our time and may cause us to feel guilty about the time we spend sleeping. But sleep is an essential and critical part in maintaining your health and well being.

In short here are my top tips for squeezing more sleep into your busy life:

And if you are having trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep then here are some ways you can troubleshoot your way to a great nights sleep:

• Too many thoughts racing through your head – Keep a journal to write down your thoughts and empty your brain
• The wrong sleeping conditions for you – adjust the environment before you try falling asleep
• Needing the bathroom – stop drinking fluids a while before bedtime

If you want to learn more about why sleep is such an important part of living a healthy life then check out our previous blog post.

But for this post, we’re going to focus on how you actually get the sleep you need when life is so hectic and you have so much you need to do. Hopefully, I can give you some simple strategies for how to add some much-needed sleep into your life and help you get a little healthier at the same time.

Avoid burning the candle at both ends

We can all agree that life is busy. But you really do yourself a disservice by not getting enough sleep. Burning the candle at both ends of your sleep cycle can quite easily shave unintended hours off the time you get to sleep.

So decide what commitments do you definitely need to be awake for and when those are. Knowing these elements of when you need to be awake and therefore when you should be asleep will help you.

For example, if you start work at 8 am, and you have a morning routine plus an hour commute, then you have to be up at 6:30 am. This allows you to have enough time in the morning to get everything done that you need to do to start your morning right. Which means that to get enough sleep you can’t be regularly staying up til midnight watching movies. And to get about eight hours of sleep per night you would want to be in bed if not already asleep by 10:30 pm.

So, ask yourself the question do I need to be up later at night? Or up early in the morning? What are my can’t move responsibilities? And how can I work around those in order to get a bit more sleep?

Figuring which side of the sleep cycle you can add more z’s will help you not only be a happier version of yourself, but also more efficient and productive.

Determine what doesn’t need to be in your busy life

Yes, your life is busy, but perhaps it is busier than it needs to be. This is probably the case if you are consistently not making enough time to get the sleep your body needs to function.

So now may be a good time to take a bit of a pause on the to-do list and just decide whether you are spending your time. Figure out where you could carve out an extra half an hour to reallocate to getting a good solid night of sleep.

Give yourself some time to wind down

After a busy day, it’s easy to push yourself until the last minute, squeezing something at the last minute before your head hits the pillow. But ask yourself, do you fall straight to sleep when you get into bed?

If the answer is generally a no, maybe you need to allocate a bit of time to allow your body and your mind to wind down from the day you’ve had.

Some ways to do this are:

• listen to relaxing music
• read (something light nothing too gripping that’ll make you want to stay up)
• take a shower or a bath to relax and wash away the day and signal to yourself that you are slowing down for the night.

Things that you can avoid that will not help you to relax are:

• screens (phones, tv, computers etc) because the bright light is a sign to your brain that it is awake time. Rather put the technology aside and find other ways to slow down for the night.
• Caffeine – if you’re using caffeine to stay awake during the day it can affect whether you are ready for bed when the time comes

Finish your day by recording your accomplishments

I like to end my day thinking about all the good things that happened in my day. Whether it was something I accomplished or something nice that happened to me I write down these “good things” in a journal.

This way I realize that I have actually accomplished a lot over the hours I’ve been awake and I don’t need to feel guilty about going to bed.

Enjoy sleep

Sleep is a necessary part of life and it isn’t optional when it comes to having good health. When you’re in bed allow yourself the luxury to relax, remember tomorrow is another day. Remind yourself that this sleep matters to your health and is as important as eating right, or doing exercise, or the plethora of other things that lead to a healthy mind and body.

Sleep troubleshooting

So, you’ve decided what time you need to be in bed in order to wake up when you need to to be fully refreshed and ready to take on a new day. But, there are a few more problems that may be standing in the way of really getting that sleep you’ve finally realized you need to allocate time for.

Once you get into bed you really want to be maximizing the sleep you’re getting but you may have difficulty falling or staying asleep. So, here are a few quick tips to help troubleshoot your restless nights and bring you back to better sleep despite your busy life.

Difficulty falling asleep

Too many thoughts racing through your head

As you attempt to fall asleep there may be a million thoughts racing through your head as you lie in bed waiting for sleep to take you away to dreamland. If this is you the best thing to do is get a pen and piece of paper and empty your head of everything that is keeping you awake. This may be things you need to do tomorrow or items that are worrying you.

I actually keep a journal next to my bed to do this and pour my brain out onto the page. Sometimes I find it useful to do this before bedtime, and other times I use it when I can’t fall asleep. Either way, writing down what you’re thinking it’s a great way of intercepting the loop of thoughts that is keeping you awake and helping you to settle down before bed.

The wrong sleeping conditions for you

So, you’re in bed but something isn’t right. Maybe you like to sleep when the air around you is a little cooler but it’s a warm night, chances are this is why you are having some trouble falling asleep.

A good way to deal with this is to try and deal with the environment you are sleeping in before you head to bed. That way you won’t have to toss and turn trying to work out why you can’t sleep. If you’re too hot switch on a fan and if you’re too cold grab a blanket. If there’s too much noise from your next door neighbor having a party try earplugs or putting on some relaxing background music to distract you. Trying to anticipate your needs for a good nights sleep will help you relax and fall asleep with less difficulty.

Difficulty staying asleep

Needing the bathroom

If you’re waking up several times in the night to go to the bathroom you really are impacting the amount of sleep you’re actually getting (now you may not be able to completely eliminate the late night use of the bathroom) but there is a solution. Limiting your intake of fluids a few hours before bedtime can help. It may not always be easy to say no to that last cup of tea or warm milk before bed, but if you want to get a decent night’s sleep then maybe this is something you need to consider trying.

By being conscious of when you last drink fluids then you can minimize the midnight breaks in your sleep and make the most of the time you are spending in bed.

Squeezing more sleep out of your busy life is easier than you think

Although there are many reasons why you need to be getting enough sleep the question is always how! How when life is so busy can I sleep more?!

Sometimes this simple life-sustaining requirement seems like a task in an of itself. If you typically have a difficult time getting enough sleep you can end up putting enormous amounts of pressure on yourself to try and fall asleep at the drop of a penny.

But really getting more sleep isn’t that difficult. It’s all about allocating the block of time and setting yourself up for success. Because there is nothing more frustrating than lying in bed knowing that you really need to sleep but not being able to do so.

So, this month why not try to set your sleep life up for success and let the benefits follow you into your awake life. Because if you allow yourself to get some good quality sleep then you will wake up more alive be more efficient and energized. If you want to know more about why you need so much sleep check out this blog post.

And if you want to start tracking your change in sleep habits and get healthier this month then click here and get your free guide to a healthy you.