Chapter 16

Mindfulness to Help You Sleep

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Thich Nhat Hanh (1990, 29)

The American Academy of Pediatrics (2014) recommends that teens get eight and a half to nine and a half hours of sleep every night. How much sleep do you get most nights? If you’re like most teens, you are chronically sleep-deprived and tired. Getting enough sleep is critical for you to function and learn well and for you to be able to bounce back from stress. The irony is that being too stressed can disrupt your sleep and keep you awake at night, which then makes it more difficult for you to handle stress the next day. Fortunately, mindfulness can help you let go of stress in your mind and body, allowing you to get restful and restorative sleep so that you can handle the next day with confidence.

Your Brain and Body Need Sleep

Have you noticed that when you haven’t slept well, you can’t think as clearly and you feel grumpy and irritable? Have you noticed that you can’t learn as well, concentrate as well, or remember things as well as usual when you’re tired? This is because your brain needs good sleep in order to process and remember what you’ve learned that day and to recover from stress. Sleep deprivation that goes on for weeks, months, or years also puts you at higher risk for mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.

Lack of sleep has huge effects on just about every organ in your body, not just your brain. When you haven’t slept well, your energy and strength are lower. This is why professional athletes make a point of getting lots of sleep the night before a big game. Sleep deprivation also affects your immune system, making you more likely to get sick. Missing too much sleep for months or years at a time can even put you at higher risk for all kinds of major health problems, such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. So sleeping well is crucial for your health and resilience.

There may be many reasons why you’re not getting enough sleep. Maybe you stay up late at night doing homework or hanging out with friends. Maybe you have to get up early in the morning for school or sports practice. Answer the following questions to see whether you are getting enough sleep and whether lack of sleep is affecting your life.

• Do you get less than eight and a half hours of sleep most nights?
• Does it take you more than an hour to get out of bed most mornings?
• Do you feel sleepy during the daytime?
• Do you fall asleep during the day without meaning to, like in class or on the bus?
• Are you often grumpy or irritable when you haven’t slept well?
• Do you have difficulty concentrating, remembering, or learning at school because you’re so tired?
• Do you often have difficulty falling asleep?
• Does stress or anxiety often keep you awake at night?
• Do you often stay awake at night just lying in bed and thinking about things?
• Do you think that you may be sleep-deprived?

If you answered yes to several of these questions, it could be a sign that you aren’t sleeping enough or getting a good quality of sleep. If that’s the case, ask yourself: Do I want to get more sleep? How might getting more sleep benefit me? What is getting in the way of my sleep?

Maybe you’re having difficulty falling asleep. If you lie awake in bed at night, what is it that keeps you up? Is it your own mind—stressful thinking about the past, worrying about the future? Are you simply too stressed out to sleep sometimes?

If so, practicing the body scan at bedtime can help. Although the purpose of the body scan is to help you tune in to your body just the way it is, I’ve found that good sleep is often a nice “side effect.” Practicing the body scan can help you let go of rumination, as well as let go of stress and tension in your body. This then will allow your body to fall asleep by itself, naturally.

Teen Voices: Paige

“Through mindfulness, I learned all about being present…, and [I] found the five-minute body scan particularly helpful. It also helped me fall asleep at night when I couldn’t relax.”

Try This! The Body Scan at Bedtime

Do this mindfulness practice with the help of the recording (track 4 or 11) available at http://www.newharbinger.com/30802.

Every night for the next two weeks, practice a guided body scan at bedtime, as you lie down to sleep. Try a short body scan (track 4), or a longer body scan (track 11) if you have time, like on weekends. Get comfortable in bed, with your head on your pillow, under the covers if you like. Close your eyes and play the track. Allow your attention to rest on your breath, on your body, and on the words of the guided meditation. You may notice feelings, thoughts, and stress arising in your body and mind as you do the guided meditation. That’s okay. Simply allow them to come and go, as if they were clouds in the sky, and then gently bring your attention back to your breath and to your body. This will allow your body to release some of the stress that it has been holding. If you fall asleep during the meditation, great. If not, that’s okay too—after the track ends, check in with your body and your breath. Has anything changed? If you’re feeling more relaxed, just enjoy that. If you’re still feeling tense and stressed, just notice that without judgment. You don’t need to “force” yourself to sleep. Remember that the purpose of doing the body scan isn’t necessarily to relax or fall asleep—simply being present with yourself, just as you are, can be healing. It may make a difference for your sleep that night and for your mood and energy the next day.

Lexi’s Story

Lexi suffered from chronic stress and anxiety, which kept her awake at night. She told us that sometimes she would stay up for hours in the middle of the night, ruminating about her day, with the result that she was extremely tired the next day. That made it hard for her to pay attention in school, she said, which led to more stress and anxiety.

Lexi later shared that she started listening to guided meditations at night. “It took a while, but after a few days, I was able to go to sleep a lot easier. I felt a lot better the next day, too!”

Sleep Hygiene

When you’ve been under stress for a long time, your brain can “forget” how to sleep. Perhaps you need to teach your brain how to sleep again. You can do this by following certain guidelines for your sleep environment and your bedtime routine that will help your brain be ready for sleep when you lie down. This is known as “sleep hygiene,” and like any other kind of hygiene, it’s something that you need to do every day in order to take care of your health. It’s kind of like brushing your teeth every morning and night, for good dental hygiene, or practicing mindfulness daily for good mental hygiene (as discussed in chapter 4).

Your sleep environment and what you do in the evenings send powerful messages to your brain about whether or not it should go to sleep. Think about how young children—such as preschoolers—resist their bedtime when there is something fun and exciting they could be doing. They don’t want to miss out, even though they’re totally exhausted. Your brain can sometimes be like that preschooler who doesn’t want to rest. Improving your sleep hygiene involves changing both your sleep environment and your sleep routine in a way that will send the message to your brain, “Nothing is happening. It’s boring—there’s nothing to do right now but go to sleep.”

Try This! Improve Your Sleep Hygiene

Here are some things you can do to help yourself get a good night’s sleep (Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre 2011).

Your Sleep Environment: Your Bedroom

If you have a phone, TV, computer, or stereo in your bedroom, move it to another room. If you can’t remove all such electronic devices, try at least removing those with screens. Just looking at the light of a screen (for example, on your computer or your phone) activates your brain and disrupts your body’s release of the sleep hormone melatonin, making it hard for you to fall asleep even long after the screen is off. Finally, instead of using your bedroom for everything that you normally do—like hanging out, talking on the phone, using your smartphone or tablet, reading, studying, and doing homework—try to move as many activities as you can into a different room of your home. Try to use your bedroom only for sleeping. If you can use your bedroom just for sleeping, you will send a powerful message to your brain every time you enter your bedroom: Brain, listen—this room is just for sleeping. There’s nothing interesting or fun going on here. It’s boring—you won’t miss out on anything here—so you can just sleep.

Your Sleep Routine

Have a consistent sleep schedule. Try to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day. Aim for at least eight and a half hours of sleep each night. If you need to sleep in late on weekends and other days off to catch up on missed sleep, try not to sleep in for longer than one hour. That’s because the more irregular your sleep schedule is, the more confused your brain gets and the harder it is to sleep when you want to. If you need to take a nap during the day, nap for no longer than sixty minutes. And don’t nap in the late afternoon or evening, because if you do, chances are you won’t feel sleepy at bedtime. Have a consistent bedtime routine. About an hour before bedtime, start to wind down your activities. During this time, avoid studying; doing homework; playing video games; watching TV; using a computer, cell phone, or tablet (anything with a screen); exercising; having intense conversations; and any other activities that might be either stimulating or frustrating. Instead, find quiet and relaxing things to do, like reading an inspiring book, listening to soft music, drinking warm milk or herbal tea, and writing in your journal. Then do the same activities every night, in order to get your brain in the habit of starting to shut down as you get ready to sleep. These are just a few ideas. If you do a web search for “sleep hygiene,” you will find many more. Don’t feel as if you have to do everything on this list all at once. Start with one small change that you would like to make right now, and see how it goes for a week. Once you succeed in making that change, your confidence will grow. The following week, you can choose another change to make.

Remember to be patient with yourself. It can take weeks or months to start to change your brain’s sleep habits. But, over time, practicing good sleep hygiene is a safe and powerful way to change your brain’s sleep patterns. If you continue to have problems with sleep even after making changes to your sleep hygiene, consider seeing your doctor to find out whether there are other things you can do to help yourself sleep better.

Even though your life is busy—full of fun and important activities—it’s important to make room in your life for enough sleep. Sleep is like healthy food for your brain and body. Sleep nourishes and restores you, allowing you to be at your best. Your life is stressful enough; you don’t need sleep deprivation adding to your difficulties. And you don’t have to allow stress to get in the way of your sleep. Take good care of your sleep, and your sleep will take good care of you.