5 general sleep tips that don’t actually help with long-term insomnia or sleep problems

There are so many misconceptions about sleep out there, and a confusing amount of advice online. I wanted to address the top 5 generalised sleep tips I see that really doesn’t help people like you overcome sleep problems or insomnia.

Often, clients come to me having tried many of these things, and they are frustrated that nothing has worked so far. This is the problem with following generalised tips; they don’t work for everybody and can lead to real frustration and disappointment.

These can do more harm than good in the long run especially if you want to finally overcome your insomnia or sleep problems.

Using exercise to exhaust yourself into sleep

The first thing I hear about often is using exercise to exhaust yourself in the evening with the hope of better sleep at night.

This tip has been doing the rounds for a period of time now. I have come across clients who actually, really consistently ended up exercising quite late in the evening, hoping that their level of tiredness would help them to either fall asleep easily or sleep through the night more consistently.

What tends to happen is when you become very exhausted, your body isn’t able to relax.

So sometimes, the more exhausted you become, the more your body goes into it’s flight or fight state. Because you have put your body under so much pressure by exhausting yourself,  it needs recovery time before it can even go to relaxation. 

It's simply harder to go from exhaustion straight into a good quality sleep. The body has to go through steps to calm you down physically, mentally and emotionally first.

Of course, a lot of exercise can also cause muscle pain. This is something I’ve seen in clients who have experimented with using exercise to exhaust themselves later at night. 

The other thing here is just because you think extreme tiredness will help you fall asleep, it doesn't mean that your sleep is going to be the same quality. You might fall asleep fast because you are exhausted. But some of my clients in the past found that they woke up a couple of hours later, and then they weren't able to fall back to sleep again. 

What that shows us is just because you're exhausted and you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, it doesn't mean that your body has transitioned in a physical, mental and emotional way into sleep itself. 

Instead of working yourself to exhaustion in the gym or elsewhere, focus on calming down physically, mentally and emotionally. Of course, exercise is important to keep you healthy, but only when used in the right way. If you are already exhausted, you need to support your body and allow it to recover.

Having an overly rigid, regimented bedtime routine

Bedtime routines can really help the body and the mind to prepare you for sleep, so I work on this with clients in my practice. But I’ve seen clients come to me with such rigid, stressful and busy routines that they were going to bed stressed. 

A bedtime routine in my world is about closing the day and getting you ready to transition into sleep. This routine helps to signal to your body and mind that it’s time to switch off and let go of the day.

It should not be about squeezing in tasks that add more pressure.

I would suggest using only what really works for you to become relaxed and ready for sleep, not a long list of things you might think you need to do. Simple is better, so just pick two to three things to do before you get into bed and turn the lights off.

Taking notes in the night

Over the years, I’ve heard people being advised to keep a notepad next to their bed if they need to write out what’s bothering them in the middle of the night.

That tip in itself isn’t entirely bad.

But it can develop into a habit, where you actually wake up to write thoughts, concerns or worries down. You might start to believe that if you don’t write, then you won’t be able to fall back to sleep and this is where it starts to become a more negative habit.

Instead, consider that if you’re needing to write thoughts down in the middle of the night, then you haven’t fully closed your day. That’s what is waking you up or keeping you awake.

My suggestion instead is to create time each day to empty your thoughts into paper during the day and away from your bedtime, then that can be a part of your ‘closing the day’ routine that of course will also help you sleep peacefully at night. 

Drinking calming tea before bed

Have you ever affiliated a cup of camomile or something similar with the increased ability or hope to fall asleep easily?

Many people do.

I’ve had clients in the past that have formed this belief, but didn’t even like the tea they were drinking.

So consider these questions:

Does what you drink actually help you?

Is it something you actually enjoy? 

Do you believe that you can fall asleep without it?

Could the tea before bed cause your bladder to wake you up a few hours into the night?

Drinking tea might work for you, or it might not.

I’d suggest choosing to have a drink or not based on what’s really working for you and what you enjoy - not what a tip on the internet has told you to do. 

Your body was designed to sleep way before we as human beings started drinking warm tea. So it's important to stop affiliating these things with sleep just because you haven't yet found anything else that is more proactively practical and effective. 

Picking a time for sleep from an article 

Maybe you have read online that you should go to bed at 10 pm, then wake up after 7 or 8 hours, and only sleep in that time frame. 

Many clients have come to me when they've already picked up some tips and advice about putting their sleep into a timeframe. You might have heard this referred to as 'sleep restriction' which, comes from a cognitive behavioural therapy perspective. 

My work incorporates cognitive behavioural therapy too.

But if you have chosen to go down the line of 'sleep restriction' without appropriate supervision, it can then cause you more sleep problems and can even increase the amount of struggle you have.

Just because you have read that there is a right time to sleep, doesn’t mean it’s absolutely right for you. If you are more of an even person (naturally, not 'self-diagnosed',) then forcing yourself into bed at 10 pm is going to work against you.

You could find yourself lying awake and getting even more frustrated. Then getting up too early isn’t going to work well for you either and can really make your sleep problems or insomnia worse.

Instead of picking an inappropriate time frame for your sleep, remember the importance of personalising your own routine to suit you and seek help from a professional when deciding the 'restrict' your sleep.

These are the five different things that I wanted to talk to you about, as these general tips that I see in my practice so often really don’t work for people like you who would like to overcome long term sleep problems or insomnia.

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