No matter how well you typically sleep, it’s not unlikely that lately your nights may be a little bit more restless than usual. “It’s a time of stress, and sleep does get disrupted during stress,” says Shelby Harris, PsyD, a White Plains, New York–based clinical psychologist who specializes in behavioral sleep medicine and author of The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia: Get a Good Night’s Sleep Without Relying on Medication RELATED: How to Handle Anxiety in the Time of COVID-19 According to the National Sleep Foundation, stress puts your body into a state of hyperarousal, which makes it tough to fall asleep and get back to sleep after waking up during the night. RELATED: What We Know About How Sleep Problems Affect Thinking and Memory That last part is key. According to the Mayo Clinic, not getting enough sleep puts you at an increased risk of getting sick when exposed to a virus, and it slows down your body’s recovery process. While you sleep, the body releases proteins called cytokines, which help your body defend itself against infection, inflammation, and stress, according to the Mayo Clinic. RELATED: How Your Immune System Fights Off the Novel Coronavirus — and Other Germs Sleep is also when the body produces T cells, which are white blood cells that regulate your immune response, according to a study published in Pflügers Archiv: European Journal of Physiology. Not logging enough shut-eye can ultimately lead to low-grade inflammation and immunodeficiencies, according to the researchers. Sleep is also a useful tool to help you cope with stress. “Sleep will reduce stress and depression,” says Laine Young-Walker, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist at the University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia. Think about how a bad night’s sleep affects your mood: Not sleeping well tends to make you more irritable and more emotionally reactive, which doesn’t put you in the best position to handle the stressors on your plate. RELATED: Why Exercise and Sleep Are Your Ultimate Defense Against Sleep
Sleep Experts Say Taking a Few Steps to Improve Sleep Now Can Help Stave Off Bigger Problems Later
If your sleep trouble (difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep) started in the past month or so, as the threat of COVID-19 has been building, it likely qualifies as acute insomnia. Acute insomnia is typically brought on by work stress, family pressure, or traumatic events, and it lasts a few days or weeks, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. It’s a pretty common result of being faced with a new stressor or being thrown into a stressful situation, and it usually tends to subside when that stressor goes away (or you are able to better manage it). Acute insomnia, however, can become problematic if the bad sleep habits you develop become your new norm and morph into chronic insomnia. Chronic insomnia is when sleeplessness occurs about three times a week for at least three months; it increases your risk of depression and high blood pressure and lowers your quality of life, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. An important point is that with acute insomnia, taking a few steps to improve your sleep can often help. With chronic insomnia, the poor sleeping patterns are more engrained, and those habits are tougher for your body to reverse. The bottom line: Focusing on correcting sleep troubles now can do your body a whole lot of good, Harris says. “You need to try to do everything you can to mitigate it as best as possible,” she says.
8 Ways to Sleep Better During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic
What can you do to sleep better tonight? Here are eight tips from Harris and Dr. Young-Walker.
1. Limit Media Consumption
The news helps you stay informed, but consuming too much of it could lead to increased worries. “We have to know things that will help us, such as some of the universal precautions and washing hands and social distancing. But really getting caught up in [those headlines] 24 hours a day is only going to increase anxiety and make it harder for you to do day-to-day things,” Young-Walker says. Harris recommends reading or watching the news only once per day — ideally in the morning or early afternoon for 30 minutes or less — and then cutting it off. “Continually looking at it is almost retraumatizing some people and putting you on edge more,” she says.
2. Pause the Negativity When and Where You Can
To quell your anxiety, remove some of the reminders about what’s going on, Harris says. This could mean temporarily disabling news alerts on your phone, avoiding social media, or silencing the feeds of people who are making you more anxious. The purpose, Harris explains, is “so you’re not hearing other people panic, which can then make you more tense and have trouble going to sleep.”
3. Maintain Your Regular Bedtime and Wake Time
You may be newly working from home. Your kids may be attending classes in your living room. Your routine has likely changed since this national crisis began. But you can get into a new routine and stick with it. Even though many aspects about what’s happening in the world right now are out of your control, maintaining a routine is entirely up to you. “Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time seven days a week,” Harris says. That sense of normalcy (even though it may be different from whatever your old normal was) can help this moment feel less weird, jarring, and stressful. She says to set an alarm and get up regardless of how much sleep you got the night before. Sleeping in to make up for a sleepless stretch in the middle of the night can make it harder to fall asleep the following night, Harris says.
4. Seek Natural Light
It’s more difficult than usual when you’re confined to your house or apartment, but make it a point to get as much light as possible. “Open up all your shades because we need light to help us set our wake and sleep cycles,” Harris says. Read: It’ll help you feel the need to sleep at night and be awake in the morning and throughout the day. According to a study published in August 2019 in Somnologie, natural daylight at high intensities helps people fall asleep earlier, sleep longer, and log more quality sleep.
5. Adopt Relaxation Techniques
For some, reading quietly before bed, listening to soft music, or meditating to calm down might help, Young-Walker says. She recommends an app called Sanvello, which is being offered for free during the COVID-19 crisis. It’s designed to help people deal with stress, anxiety, and depression by offering coping tools and guided programs like meditations, journaling, and thought reframing.
7. Move More
With gym closures and stay-at-home orders, you may not be able to keep up with your usual exercise routine. Try an at-home workout instead, or go running outside if you can. According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise helps you battle stress by pumping the body with feel-good endorphins and can also improve sleep. “If you’re too sedentary, you’re not going to sleep as much at night. You’re not going to need to recharge your battery because you didn’t use it much during the day,” Harris says. Just avoid exercise close to bedtime because the stimulation can make it hard to fall asleep, Young-Walker says. RELATED: Why Exercise and Sleep Are Your Ultimate Defense Against Stress
8. Use Your Bed Only for Sleep and Sex
That means you shouldn’t use your bed as a space to do work or watch TV or fuel your anxiety. Yes, if you find yourself ruminating about all the stressors on your mind as you lie in bed and try to sleep, get out of bed. “If you continue to worry in your bed, you’re going to teach your body that the bed is a place to worry,” Harris says. “Go sit somewhere else, and that’ll hopefully stop the worry chain.” RELATED: 20 Self-Care Tips for Being Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Pandemic
