What if I told you that being perfect with your sleep habits is actually the very thing keeping you awake?

Let's talk about why it's time to stop working so hard as sleep.

Welcome back to Savvy Psychologist.

I'm one of your interim hosts, Dr. Jade Wu.

Every week will help you face life's challenges with evidence-based approaches, a sympathetic

ear, and zero judgment. If you've ever struggled with sleep, you've probably gotten advice.

Lots of advice. Put away your phone two hours before bed, no caffeine

afternoon, exercise in the morning, not in the evening, go to bed at the same time every night,

take melatonin, etc. You may even have followed all of these rules religiously and still

found yourself staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m., wondering what you're doing wrong.

Or maybe you've been lucky to not have major sleep problems like insomnia,

but feel guilty about not being as good with your sleep hygiene as you should be.

Now, here's what I want you to know.

These sleep hygiene tips are not bad advice.

Of course, they're like brushing and flossing,

great foundational habits. But if you have a cavity, no amount of brushing is going to fix it.

Similarly, sleep hygiene doesn't fix sleep problems like insomnia.

In fact, in clinical research trials, sleep hygiene education is often used as

the control condition, the thing researchers compare real treatments against. These habits support

general sleep health, but they don't resolve chronic insomnia on their own. And when people

double down on the rules out of

desperation, that rigidity can actually backfire. So I'm going to walk you through which

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