How to cope after a night of poor sleep…

whilst increasing your chances of better sleep the next night

How to cope after a night of poor sleep… whilst increasing your chances of better sleep the next night

Image credit: Myself :-) Taken at a café in Queensland.

I must admit I have been wanting to start this Substack for a year or two. But my thinking mind got in the way, wanting a ‘perfect’ order of sleep content and flow of topics that logically built on the next. As you can see, that perfectly curated content didn’t happen. So, here I start today, in no particular order.

I was inspired to write about this topic after reading another Substack by a meditation teacher, Manoj Dias. I met Manoj many years ago when working at The Mind Room and really appreciated his approach to meditation. In “How to get through a day.... If you didn't get any sleep the night before”, Manoj writes about his struggles with sleep and shares his protocol for getting through these tough days after a sleepless night. His writing reminded me of the real struggle that these post-insomnia days can be. Whilst we can’t change the bad sleep we had last night, we do have some influence over how we respond to poor sleep the next day. We can choose actions to help us move through the day with more ease and apply sleep science and psychology principles to increase our odds of better sleep the following night.

How we choose to respond to a night of insomnia is so important. Insomnia is an ironic condition, and often what we feel like doing to make ourselves feel better after poor sleep (e.g. sleeping in, drinking lots of caffeine, cancelling our plans, reducing our activity, withdrawing from people) can actually fuel insomnia and keep poor sleep returning night after night. My goal with these tips is to help you contain poor sleep to a night or two and give you some strategies to move through these tired days with more ease.  

So, here are my top tips for coping after a night of poor sleep. I have broken them up into things to things you can do to enhance your sleep the following night and how to improve your mood and energy to get you through the day.

Please note, I am focusing here on poor sleep in the form of insomnia (where you have struggled to fall asleep, stay asleep or woken up too early, despite giving adequate time and opportunity for sleep to come), rather then when you are sleep deprived for other reasons, like choosing to stay out late, shift work etc.

How to increase your chance of good sleep the next night.

We all experience a night of poor sleep from time to time, such as during times of stress or health issues. The occasional night of poor sleep is just part of being human and was once upon a time adaptive (e.g., when there was a threat or danger in the environment at night and we would need to stay awake). But we don’t want a night of poor sleep to turn into weeks or months of insomnia. Luckily, if we know how to respond to a difficult night according to the latest sleep science and psychology, we are less likely to experience repeated bouts of insomnia. So here are my top tips to help your sleep return to normal quickly after a night of insomnia.

1. Maintain a consistent get-up time, regardless of how much sleep you had the night before. In other words, don’t sleep in after a poor night of sleep. Even if you feel like you have had no sleep at all, get up at your normal time and start your day. After a night of bad sleep, we often hit the snooze button and stay in bed later, trying to get more sleep. Whilst this approach makes logical sense in the short term (you didn’t sleep well, so you try to get more sleep), trying to compensate for lost sleep can actually play a big role in insomnia returning.

   When we sleep in or start our day later, we actually decrease our drive for sleep the next night. This is known as your sleep drive or homeostatic sleep pressure. Another way to think about it is like hunger. The longer you go without food the hungrier you get. The longer you go without sleep, the ‘hungrier’ you get for sleep. Sleeping in and having irregular sleep-wake patterns can also confuse your body clock (aka your circadian rhythms) to what time of day it is. (You can learn more about sleep pressure and circadian rhythms in my YouTube video here).

   Therefore, starting your day at the same time each day, regardless of how much you slept, is probably the most important thing you can do for your long-term sleep health. So keep a regular wake-up time every day, regardless of how sleep went the night before. By doing so, you keep your circadian rhythms happy and build up plenty of sleep drive to increase your odds of better sleep the next night.

2. Don’t over-caffeinate. How much coffee do you drink after a rough night of sleep? The coffee cup image at the beginning of this Substack highlights how much we like to drink coffee when sleep-deprived!

   Caffeine is a great fatigue management tool, but you can have too much of a good thing. Caffeine blocks sleep-promoting receptors in your brain called adenosine receptors and prevents you from building up your sleep drive. This means that caffeine can ward off sleepiness (which can be a good thing early in the day) but having too much or drinking ­it too late can make it harder to sleep at night. Caffeine has a long half-life of 5-6 hours. So, if you have a cup of coffee at 12 p.m., you will still have half of the caffeine in your system at 5 or 6 p.m. and a quarter at bedtime! Additionally, caffeine can increase physiological arousal and set off anxiety and jitters for some people. This physiological arousal doesn’t help you feel much better during the day.

   So, by all means, enjoy some caffeine to help you get through the day but drink it early and limit the amount. Also, if you are quite sensitive to caffeine (depends on your genes) or can feel anxious when taking too much, you might like to avoid it altogether to increase your odds of better sleep the following night. For more info, check out this podcast by Dr Matt Walker about caffeine and sleep.

3. Keep your plans as best you can, and don’t cancel everything because you didn’t sleep well last night. This can be a tough ask when you are super tired from a night of poor sleep. When we are tired, our emotions often tell us that we should cancel all our plans to save our energy. For example, we might call in sick to work, watch Netflix all day, nap, and not expend energy or get light exposure. Or we might cancel our dinner plans after work because it feels too effortful. But if we withdraw from activities and social interactions, we often stay stuck in our bad mood and tired state. For example, have you ever been tired or grumpy but found that talking to a close friend made you forget how bad you felt, even for just a few moments? And we don’t build up a lot of sleep drive if we stay inside on the couch, watching Netflix and napping all day.

   Even though cancelling our plans can take the pressure off us having to perform, it can keep us more stuck in our tiredness and bad mood. Ironically, it can also put MORE pressure on your sleep to ‘work’ the next night, as now you really need to sleep well to catch up on all the things you didn’t do today! So, whilst there may be times when your poor sleep is due to having too much on your plate and you need to pull back a little to get life back into balance, try to keep up your plans and activities (especially the fun ones), if possible. Don’t let insomnia dictate your day or your life. 

4. Try not to nap - but if you do, keep it short and earlier in the day. In general, we tend to recommend not napping after a night of poor sleep (if possible), as it can decrease your drive for sleep the next night. It’s a little like having a snack before your main meal – it can reduce your appetite for sleep. So, if possible and safe to do so, stay awake throughout the day and do some other things to help put some energy back into your system (see tips below). We don’t get all our energy from sleep, so look for other ways to support your energy than just relying on a nap.

   However, if you need to nap, keep it short, like 10-15 minutes. This way, you will get some light sleep, but not go into deep sleep, which can reduce your sleep pressure more and make you feel more groggy upon awakening. Second, treat a nap like you would caffeine – do it earlier in the day, ideally, before 2pm.

5. Don’t go to bed early to make up for lost sleep. Although you may feel sleepy earlier in the evening after a night of poor sleep, keep building that sleep pressure until your normal bedtime. In other words, don’t compensate for poor sleep by trying to go to bed early. Our body has some in-built mechanisms for dealing with sleep loss, and we don’t need to try to get more sleep. For example, our brain prioritizes deep sleep after a night of sleep deprivation. We don’t need to make it up for sleep hour for hour; our brain has its own way of helping you get back on track.

   Also, if you try to compensate for poor sleep by going to bed early, you may struggle to fall or stay asleep that night as your circadian rhythms and sleep drive might not be ready for sleep. This can all lead to more insomnia on future nights. To help you stay awake on these tough nights, you might need to keep yourself moving or be a little more active than normal. Stand up and do the dishes, do some light housework, engage in a hobby. Doing some low-key activities that help you stay awake and build your sleep drive to your normal bedtime will give you greater odds of a better night’s sleep.

How to improve your energy and mood to cope during the day.

Here we have some practical fatigue management tools to boost your energy and mood.

1. Get lots of natural light exposure across the day. Natural daylight is a fabulous way to boost your energy and mood during the day. Try getting some natural light exposure when you wake up, such as 15-30 minutes of light at the same time each morning. You might go for a quick morning walk or have your breakfast/coffee outside. It can help you to wake up and feel less fatigued. Also, regular timed light exposure in the morning helps to entrain your circadian rhythms to let your body know when to keep you awake and when to help you sleep. If it is dark when you wake up, you can buy light boxes to artificially deliver light at the appropriate wavelengths at the right time.

   In addition, the more natural daylight exposure you can get across the day, the better. Exposure to daytime light helps your mood, improves your sleep, and increases your energy, making you feel a lot better on these post-insomnia days. For example, one study with over 400,000 people from the U.K. Biobank found that each additional hour of daytime light exposure was associated with more ease in getting up in the morning, reduced tiredness, and fewer insomnia symptoms. So, get outside and into the daylight as much as possible every day, especially on these post-insomnia days. Leaving the office to go to your favourite café or taking a post-lunch walk around the block can be a great way to do this. Every little bit of daylight helps.

2. Look for the positives during the day.

   

   Image credit: The Awkward Yeti

   When we are sleep-deprived, our minds love to dwell on the negatives. Our thoughts often centre on how bad we feel, how tired we are, and how much our day will suck! We call this a negativity bias, and is really common when we are sleep-deprived. When sleep-deprived, research suggests that we are more likely to judge neutral images or events as negative.  This negativity bias colours our thoughts towards the negative. We also tend not to pay attention to the neutral or even good things that happen on these difficult days. However, these negative thoughts are not so helpful for getting us through the day.

   The good news is, we can expand our focus away from the negatives with some practice. We can consciously start to pay attention to the neutral or even positive things that happen to us after poor sleep. For example, can you still enjoy a nice cup of coffee or tea even when sleep-deprived? Perhaps try taking a few moments to savour your nice warm beverage. If you went for a walk in the sunshine, could you still enjoy the sensation of sun on your skin, the pretty flowers around the neighbourhood, or just being out in the fresh air? On these difficult days after poor sleep, I encourage you to consciously look for the good or neutral things to help your brain focus a little less on the negative stuff.  

3. Get some exercise. Exercise can help reduce symptoms of tiredness and fatigue after a night of poor sleep. This means that exercise can reduce how bad you feel the next day. And in general, exercise overall can help to improve sleep quality. There is not great data around exactly what type of exercise you should do, but in general, aerobic exercise of moderate intensity appears better than high intensity.

   A word of caution here – many people with insomnia will exercise excessively to tire themselves out in the hope of getting better sleep. This doesn’t always work (it is not building up sleep drive like being awake does), and it is definitely not a cure for chronic insomnia. Check out this Sleep Hub post for a good overview of the research around exercise and sleep. Instead, focus on using exercise or even some gentle movement (such as a walk around the block) as a fatigue management tool and a way to help yourself feel better and look after yourself after a night of poor sleep.

4. Include some activities in your day to look forward to and nurture yourself. Insomnia can often show up when we have jam-packed, energy-depleting schedules. Our minds often worry about how they will get through the day with such little sleep. If we are staring down the pipeline of a busy day with lots of pressures, we can really benefit from creating some time to nurture our energy or include some simple things we can look forward to. If we do this, we can shift our thoughts away from “I am so tired and won’t be able to get through this busy day” to “even though I am so tired and it is a hectic day, I am going to take a walk around the block at lunchtime, as I know that will make me feel a bit better”. Or perhaps, “even though I am so tired, I’m going to go to yoga after work as really helps me recover when I am stressed”.

   It can even be as simple as taking 5 minutes out of your day to drink a cup of tea mindfully, stopping at your favourite café on the way to work, calling a friend who makes you feel good, or taking three slow deep breaths a few times during the day. Whatever it is, including some activities that make you feel good or nurture your energy can go a long way to helping you cope after a night of poor sleep. 

5. Remember that you can still do a lot of things without a lot of sleep. People with insomnia have a pretty amazing talent – they can do a lot of things with little sleep! Often the drive for wakefulness is very strong and can help to carry you through your days. Although your mind may focus on how bad you feel and how tired you are, take a few moments to think about what you have accomplished in the past when you haven’t slept very well. Have you made it through a day of work or something important like a work presentation or business pitch when you were less than adequately rested? Or think back to when you were a teenager or in your early 20s. After staying out late at a party or playing video games, did you still make it through school/uni/work ok? Sleep didn’t seem so important back then, and you may have chosen to forgo it in place of something more fun.

   Although these post-insomnia days can be really challenging, remember that you have likely made it through these sorts of days before and have probably managed them better than you think. I like to encourage people to keep a little reminder (e.g., a note on their phone) of the times they made it through the day on little sleep and even perhaps experienced a positive event. This can provide a gentle reminder of your inner strength and ability to cope with poor sleep.

Summary

In sum, treat yourself kindly on these days after poor sleep. But you don’t need to try and catch up on lost sleep. I always come back to the saying on days after poor sleep, “This too shall pass”. And it will pass quicker if we don’t compensate for insomnia.

I hope these tips will help you move through these tough days with more ease and stop poor sleep from coming back night after night. So, let me know what you think. Have you tried any of these tips? What resonated with you? Do you have any other tips to share to help others get through the day after a night of poor sleep?

My Better Sleep News

·        We are conducting a market research survey to create some sleep resources and sleep programs. If you struggle with your sleep or know someone who does, we would love for you/them to complete the survey which you can access here: https://forms.gle/xkJ4T5Pt9E1JK3M78

Sleep media of the week

·        You might like to tune into this podcast where Dr. Andrew Tubbs talks about why it's important not to compensate for a night of poor sleep. https://www.sleepisaskill.com/podcasts/episode-118

Sleep research news

·        I was lucky enough to get to talk to Dr. Jesse Cook on the Sleep Research Society podcast about my PhD research disseminating sleep and insomnia education to graduate psychology programs. You can check out the episode here: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-zqu9t-1492592?utm_campaign=admin_episode&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=episode_share

And here is a picture of my dog, Kevin, to round out today’s Substack 😊

Disclaimer

The tips in this newsletter are for informational and educational purposes only and do not constitute medical or psychological advice. Please consult your own healthcare professional for advice on your own specific sleep condition and needs. If you would like to get some more specific sleep help from a behavioural sleep medicine provider/sleep psychologist in your local area, you can find a worldwide list of qualified practitioners here https://www.behavioralsleep.org/index.php/directory/all.