If you go to sleep and get up at different times of the day across the week, your body clock will get out of sync. You won\u2019t then feel sleepy (or alert) at the right times.<\/p>\n
If you do an ever-changing array of activities before bed, particularly ones that wake you up, then you won\u2019t wind down enough before bed to fall asleep when you lay down.<\/p>\n
Bedtime routines aren\u2019t just for young kids! Everyone benefits from having a night-time routine in the run up to bed.<\/p>\n Try and do the same things at around the same time each night so that your body has time to prepare for relaxation and sleep.<\/p>\n Following the same routine each evening, and going to bed at the same time, will help set your circadian rhythm, meaning you will begin to feel sleepy at the same time each night.<\/p>\n We also need to make sure we set our circadian rhythm for when we need to wake-up too, meaning we need to be getting up at the same time each morning. Even at the weekend – Sorry!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/details>\n It\u2019s just too late. Remember that you need between 8 and 10 hours sleep a night (sometimes more).\u00a0 So, if you need to wake up at 7.00am, you need to be falling asleep around 10.00pm.<\/p>\n Shifting your body clock can be challenging, so you may want to slowly shift to an earlier bedtime over the course of a week or two.<\/p>\n To start with, you will probably feel more tired and maybe a bit grumpy. This is normal.<\/p>\n After a week or so of a new routine, this should settle as your body adjusts to getting the right amount of sleep at the right time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/details>\n Try to start a bedtime routine an hour before getting into bed and spend this hour out of the bedroom if you can.<\/p>\n Spend some quiet time about 30 minutes before bed focusing on an activity you find calming and relaxing. This might be meditation, yoga, mindfulness, breathing techniques, craft activities, drawing, reading or playing musical instruments.<\/p>\n The next day, even if you have a bad night\u2019s sleep and are tired, it\u2019s important you try to keep your daytime activities the same as you had planned.<\/p>\n That is, don\u2019t avoid activities because you feel tired. This can reinforce insomnia and stop you having a good night\u2019s sleep the next night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/details>\n My planned bedtime: ___________<\/p>\n My planned wake-up time: ___________<\/p>\n My planned wind-down routine and activities:<\/p>\n ___________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n ___________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Challenge If you go to sleep and get up at different times of the day across the week, your body clock will get out of sync. You won\u2019t then feel sleepy (or alert) at the right times. If you do an ever-changing array of activities before bed, particularly ones that wake you up, then you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":563,"featured_media":0,"parent":195049,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-infopage.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-195063","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/195063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/563"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195063"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/195063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195068,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/195063\/revisions\/195068"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/195049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxfordhealth.nhs.uk\/camhs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n What makes a good routine?<\/span>\n <\/summary>\n
\n Bedtime at 2am??<\/span>\n <\/summary>\n
\n Quiet time<\/span>\n <\/summary>\n
My plans to help my routine<\/h2>\n