4 Essential Sleep Routines

Therapy in a Nutshell

Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam

Mental Health, Education, Health & Fitness:mental Health, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 658 Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When people can’t fall asleep or they struggle with insomnia, they often look for bedtime routines to help them, and while sleep hygiene can be helpful, it’s kinda like waiting until you retire to plan for retirement, it’s kinda too late at bedtime to really create the optimal sleep situation- so in this video I’m going to share 4 essential routines that can actually help you fall asleep quickly and sleep better. Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com Support my mission on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/therapyinanutshell Sign up for my newsletter: https://www.therapyinanutshell.com Check out my favorite self-help books: https://kit.co/TherapyinaNutshell/best-self-help-books Therapy in a Nutshell and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health. In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger Institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction. And deeper than all of that, the Gospel of Jesus Christ orients my personal worldview and sense of security, peace, hope, and love https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/believe If you are in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or your local emergency services. Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to another episode of the Therapy in a Nutshell podcast.
0:04.0	I'm Emma McAdam and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
0:07.0	And this podcast is all about taking the life-changing, but usually kind of complicated topics of therapy
0:13.0	and boiling them down into simple, easy-to-understand concepts that you can use in your daily life.
0:19.0	If you find today's episode is helpful to you,
0:21.0	please pass it on to someone else who could benefit from it as well. Each podcast
0:24.5	episode comes from a corresponding video you can find on the Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube
0:28.7	channel. Also, these podcasts are educational and don't replace the advice or direction
0:33.2	you may be receiving from a therapist or other health professionals. Now please enjoy the episode.
0:39.0	When people can't fall asleep or they struggle with insomnia, they often look for bedtime
0:43.2	routines to help them. And while sleep hygiene can be helpful, it's kind of like waiting until
0:48.0	you retire to plan for retirement. It's kind of too late at bedtime to really create this optimal sleep situation.
0:55.0	So in this video, I'm going to share four essential routines that can actually help you fall asleep quickly and sleep better.
1:06.0	Okay, so there's a ton of advice out there about sleep, and some of it's just just wrong and will definitely make your sleep worse, especially if you have insomnia.
1:13.7	The chief among these is that you have to go to bed at the same time each night.
1:17.9	Now, what this does is if you go to bed before you're sleepy, you're going to feel frustrated and anxious about not being able to fall asleep and how badly you need to sleep and how important to the next day is
1:28.7	and all the other bad advice out there about how you need X number of hours of sleep to avoid
1:33.1	brain damage and whatever. And what you actually end up doing is that your anxiety makes it
1:40.1	harder to fall asleep and you train your brain that bedtime is a time to worry and to get
1:46.2	anxious and upset. So according to sleep expert Martin Reed, one of the essential conditions to
1:52.1	sleeping well is what he calls sleep drive. Your sleep drive is the need for sleep that your body
1:57.6	builds up the longer you're awake. So when you sleep in late or take long
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdam and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.