When someone struggles with insomnia, intervention strategies often focus on bedtime routines or surviving sleepless nights. However, good sleep hygiene starts during the day. Just like in any sport, preparation is key to success when “game time” arrives.
Your daytime choices work to either support or sabotage your ability to sleep by influencing your sleep pressure (the natural drive to sleep) and circadian rhythm (your body’s internal clock).
Let’s explore four proactive steps adults can take during the day to build a strong foundation for restful nights. In this post, we will talk about:
- Minding your caffeine intake
- Calibrating your circadian rhythm
- Avoiding the blood sugar roller coaster
- Finding space to think through and address our anxious thoughts throughout the day
Plus practical tips to do all of the above!
1. Mind Your Caffeine Intake
First, let’s talk about caffeine, as it’s one of the most common ways we sabotage our sleep during the day.
Caffeine consumption is deeply ingrained in our culture—it’s normal, expected, and even celebrated. Whether it’s coffee, tea, energy drinks, or chocolate, caffeine is everywhere! But despite its popularity, caffeine can be a major culprit when it comes to insomnia.
The reality is, caffeine doesn’t truly “boost” productivity as much as we think. Oppositely, it actively blocks sleep pressure from building naturally over the course of the day and it doesn’t replace the restorative power of actual sleep. In the end, it can be fuel that perpetuates a cycle of daytime exhaustion and nighttime insomnia.
Consider this fascinating study by NASA. They gave caffeine to spiders and observed how it impacted their web-building abilities. The result? The webs became chaotic and disorganized—worse than those built by spiders exposed to other substances, like marijuana.
If caffeine can disrupt a spider’s ability to build a web, which is one of the most intuitive things a spider can do, imagine the subtle ways it might affect your focus, productivity, and sleep!
Finally, while I’m not suggesting you give up caffeine entirely, it’s worth asking yourself, “How much do I depend on caffeine to survive?” It may be time to re-evaluate your relationship by reducing your intake or timing your consumption earlier in the day so it doesn’t interfere with your sleep schedule.
There is not a hard and fast rule on when adults should stop drinking caffeine during the day. There’s a lot about caffeine and caffeine tolerances we don’t yet undertand, and everyone seems to be impacted diffrerently. Personally, I have found that I need to cut off caffeine by noon in order to sleep well at night.
Also remember that caffeine can be in places you don’t expect! I had a season when I was regularly drinking smoothies in the later afternoon/early evening and my insomnia symptoms started coming back. I started digging into what might be going on and I realized I had been putting kombucha in my smoothies, not realizing kombucha had caffeine in it!
If you’re reading this and cutting down on your caffeine intake feels impossible – like I’m asking you to cut back on something you need to survive – it’s time to really address the root cause of your exhuastion so we can actually improve the quality and quantity of your sleep!
The whole goal of adult sleep coaching is to help you no longer need to rely on caffeine to survive but to actual sleep well each night. Then coffee can simply be something you enjoy each morning, as a ritual, rather than a daily need for survival.
2. Calibrate Your Circadian Rhythm
The next daytime strategy to help with your overnight sleep is making conscious choices to help calibrate your circadian rhythm. Your body is like a finely tuned clock, and just like a clock, it needs regular recalibration to stay in sync!
Your circadian rhythm relies on external cues such as sunlight and meal timing to stay in sync with the day/night cycle. By knowing these cues, you can add things to your daily rhythms that align your internal clock and set yourself up for better sleep.
Here are a few suggestions to help calibrate your circadian rhythm:
Get Morning Sunlight as soon as possile after you wake up
Exposure to natural light in the morning is one of the best ways to start your circadian clock. It signals to your brain that it’s time to wake up and regulates when melatonin (the sleep hormone) will be produced later that evening.
Once your brain registers that morning light, it essentially starts an inner timer in your body that in 12-14 hours it’s time to produce melatonin for the night.
This morning sunlight exposure could be something as simply as going for a 10 minute walk, opening the blinds while getting ready for the day, or drinking your coffee on your back porch. Light exposure early in the day can make a big difference!
Get explore to Evening Light
While morning sunlight is really important, so is evening light, as not all light is the same; there is a difference composition of light from morning to evening.
So as the day winds down, exposure to amber-hued light from the setting sun can also cue your body that it’s time to prepare for rest. Avoiding bright, artificial lights in the evening—especially blue light from screens—can further reinforce this.
Consider dimming the lights in your house or switching from overhead lights to lamps. Also consider turning your phone and other electronics to the nighttime setting to help reinforce and strengthen your circadian rhythm in the evening.
Meal Timing
Did you know that eating late at night can disrupt your body’s ability to lower its temperature, which is essential for melatonin production and the onset of sleep?
It is estimated that for many adults, 50% of our caloric intake happens after dinner. That’s a lot of calories that can impact your overnight sleep! So my biggest tip when it comes to food in the evening is to try to finish your last meal 2-3 hours before bedtime so your body can do what it needs to do to prepare for sleep.
3. Avoid Riding the Blood Sugar Roller Coaster
Blood sugar fluctuations throughout the day can also impact your sleep. Consuming sugary, starchy, or processed foods—especially in the morning—can send you on a roller coaster of sugar highs and crashes.
For example, if you have a starch or sugar-heavy breakfast after “fasting” all night long, you will likely hit a sugar crash around 10 am and your body will want more food, which could throw you into another spike, then an energy dip, etc., hence the roller coaster.
These sugar crashes and energy dips during the day can at times be the culprit behind those unwanted middle-of-the-night wake-ups!
The best way to combat this roller coaster is to prioritize a protein-rich breakfast. Aim for about 30 grams of protein in the morning to start your day with a stable blood sugar level that sets a steady energy foundation for the day.
Some ideas of a protein-rich breakfast include:
- Eggs and breakfast meat
- Oatmeal with chia seeds and nut butters
- A protein shake
- Greek yogurt with hemp hearts
- Add protein powder to what you’re eating
I once had a nutritionist tell me to treat breakfast like any other meal – don’t get stuck on thinking of “breakfast foods,” just eat regular meal and get in that protein.
As with caffeine, I’m not saying don’t enjoy comfort food or dessert on occasion, but prioritize balanced meals that include fiber, healthy fats, and protein as your norm, and enjoy sweeter foods later in the day after a more stabilizing meal.
4. Watch Your Mindset Around Sleep
Lastly, your mindset about sleep plays a huge role in how rested you feel! Negative thoughts about sleep can amplify your exhaustion well beyond the physical impact of insomnia. And if you’re constantly worrying about not sleeping, the stress itself may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here are a couple of suggestions on how to keep your thoughts from weighing you down:
Process Stress During the Day
We fill our days with so much activity, and even as we try to “wind down” in the evening, it’s with the TV, or social media, or music – it’s more noise bombarding our brains!
For many of us, that means our first quiet moment of day is when we’re lying down to fall asleep. But that means our brains our kicking on at bedtime or racing when we wake up at 3 am.
So rather than waiting until bedtime to process your day or manage the stress you experience through school, work, or parenting, find time during the day or earlier in the evening to journal, meditate, or talk through your stressors so you’re not carrying that weight into bed.
One way to do this is to take a walk in the middle of your work day, or eat lunch without your computer or tasks to check off your to-do list! Similarly, if you’re in a meeting heavy work environment, set your calendar up with natural 5-15 minute buffers before your next meeting so you can have even a brief moment of rest before the next item on your agenda.
Reframe Your Thoughts
Instead of obsessing over how little sleep you’re getting each night, identify those thoughts and begin to proactively reframe them or replace them.
For example, you can remind yourself that your body is resilient and you’re investing in long-term change.
Also remind yourself that even if one night isn’t perfect, your efforts during the day are setting the stage for lasting improvements.
Conclusion
In all of this, rememeber that good sleep starts long before your head hits the pillow. By making intentional choices throughout the day, you can set the stage for a restful, restorative nights. Don’t let sleep dominate your thought life, but remember, these small changes add up, and over time, they can make a big difference in breaking the cycle of insomnia.
If you want help thinking through your day and how you can begin to make some small changes to improve your sleep, feel free to email me or sign up for a (free) discovery call! I’d love to hear more about your sleep challenges and share more about how I can help.
With Grace,
Kathryn
Your Adult Sleep Coach
