How to Sleep Better During Quarantine
You’re not the only one trying to figure out how to sleep better right now—the changes forced on all of us by the coronavirus pandemic have made it a lot harder to get our 40 winks. In normal times, insomnia is a problem for about one-quarter of Americans every year. But even as the country begins to reopen, many people are still dealing with disrupted routines, spending much of their time inside, and working from home or in stressful, risky conditions. Stanford Professor Donn Posner, a founding member of the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine, called it the “perfect storm of sleep problems.”
It's true: Between increased screen time, oddly-timed meals, above-average drinking, general inactivity, and simple anxiety, potential quarantine habits are almost like a bingo card for weird sleep patterns. “All of those things are contributors to poor sleep,” says Claire Barker, a clinical sleep educator at the University of Vermont Medical Center Sleep Program. “The lack of a routine in people’s lives—or an ever-changing routine—is really throwing people off.”
Burning the candle at both ends is unfortunately not optional for many frontline healthcare workers treating the sick and vulnerable. But for the rest of us sleep is more important than ever. Roger Seheult, a pulmonologist and U.C. Riverside medical school professor who has rocketed to YouTube fame during the pandemic, points out that good sleep, between seven and eight hours at night, can reduce a person’s incidence of contracting a viral infection by a third.
Fret not, however: Better quality sleep can be yours with a little understanding of our circadian rhythms and some slight changes in behavior.
Get Some Sun
Our sleeping schedules are dictated by the body’s circadian rhythms, the subtle cues of metabolism that help the body stay awake during the day and prepare to sleep in the evening. Light is crucial to establishing these rhythms. And light, unfortunately, is one element of good sleep that is hard to get when staying inside is a priority.
“Morning sunlight is important to cue the circadian rhythm. And if somebody is unable to go outside, they’re unlikely to have that natural circadian pattern reinforced,” says Brandon Peters-Mathews, a sleep medicine doctor at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. He recommends that anyone trying to figure out how to sleep better should put on their mask and get 15 to 30 minutes of time outside in the morning, and keep their blinds open during the day to allow sunlight inside.
Move Your Body
Sleep becomes more fragmented if we end up being more sedentary during the day, since exercise helps encourage sleep. Yes, many gyms are closed. But you can go for a socially-distanced run, or a bike ride, or shift to bodyweight workouts.
Mind Your Mealtimes
Many of us are eating weird food at odd hours, without our usual structures preventing dinner from becoming a nightly 11 p.m. grilled cheese. But managing when you eat and drink can also restore balance to your sleep schedule. About two hours before bed, the body starts to secrete melatonin, the hormone that regulates the sleep cycle—a process thrown off by a meal eaten too late in the day. Barker says watching how much coffee you drink is important as well: To fall asleep by 10 p.m., stop drinking coffee by 2 p.m. Moderating alcohol is equally important.
“Alcohol messes with our circadian rhythms a bit, causing a rapid onset of sleep, but then it subsides,” she says. “You go to sleep quickly and wake up quickly, before you’ve gotten adequate sleep.”
Rebuild Those Routines
A key to falling back into a more regular sleep pattern is by setting and keeping to a regular schedule—one that mimics, as closely as possible, the schedule you kept before the pandemic put people on lockdown. So set an alarm and enforce a bedtime like you would have before all of this.
“People have lost that scheduled wake-up time, when the alarm would go off. So they allow themselves to sleep in, and morning sleep becomes more fragmented,” Peters-Mathews says. “Many people would notice their sleep has improved quickly by just going back to the schedule they had before.”
Manage Your Stress Levels
Getting a good night's sleep is difficult right now for a variety of reasons totally unrelated to the light given off by our smartphones. Some people are juggling working full-time jobs and taking care of their children. Some people are worrying about how they’re going to pay the rent and afford their next meal. Some people are stressed about having to work without adequate protective gear.
“Dealing with changes in your financial situations, and school, and work being completely turned upside down—the anxiety of all the changes is a lot,” Barker says. “All of it can build up and come to you in the middle of the night when you’re finally relaxed enough to have a thought.”
Everyone has their own tool kit for fighting anxiety, whether that's taking on a big cooking project or listening to a soothing podcast. One practice Barker recommends is keeping a daily journal of your thoughts, and jotting them down in the evening before you get in bed. It’s a method her daughter uses to help to get to sleep at night. If that doesn’t work, you can always head to YouTube and push play on a video of Bob Ross painting happy little trees—it's been working for me.
It's what you do with the fear that matters.
Originally Appeared on GQ
