Is Your Elaborate Night Routine Causing Your Insomnia?

Imagine it is 10:45 at night. You are lying in bed. But you look like you are fixing a bomb.

You have tape on your mouth. You are wearing a heavy eye mask. The room is cold. You took your special vitamins. Your noise machine is on. You spent a long time getting everything perfect for sleep.

But you are still wide awake.

Why? Because you are not sleeping. You are fighting a war with yourself.

This is the problem today. We treat sleep like homework or a game we must win. But here is the truth: Sleep is a shy animal. If you chase it with phone apps and trackers, it runs away.

If you worry more about your “Sleep Score” than your actual job, you are stuck in a bad loop.

Why “Trying” Kills Sleep

To understand why your perfect routine is bad, we need to look at why your brain stays awake.

Orthosomnia (Sleep Anxiety)

Researchers found a new problem called Orthosomnia. This means trying too hard to have perfect sleep. This often happens because of watches like Apple Watch or Oura that track your sleep like a game.

Imagine this: You are trying to relax. But someone yells your heart rate at you every 30 seconds. Can you relax? No. Orthosomnia is like that yeller. It turns sleep into a big test that you are scared to fail.

The way to sleep better is not to do more things. It is to care less about the results.

Sleep Effort Syndrome

Doctors have a name for long, complex night routines. They call them “Safety Behaviors.”

These are things you do because you are scared. You start to think: “If I don’t drink my tea and stretch for 20 minutes, tomorrow will be terrible.”

Think of it like this: It is like wearing a “lucky shirt” to watch a sports game. You think the shirt helps the team win. If they lose, you blame the shirt. But really, the shirt does not change the game.

Your tea and stretching are just like the lucky shirt. Your body knows how to sleep. It does not need the shirt.

As the famous psychiatrist Viktor Frankl once wrote:”Sleep is like a dove. It stays near your hand if you do not pay attention to it. But if you try to grab it, it flies away.”

The Paradox

Here is a strange fact: The harder you try to sleep, the more awake you feel. This is because “trying” uses the working part of your brain.

Think of it like this: Sleep is like a shy cat. If you chase it and try to grab it, it runs under the sofa. If you sit on the couch and ignore it to read a book, it will jump on your lap.

Our goal is to stop chasing the cat. We want you to stop trying so hard.

Why Messy Sleepers Win

Let’s look at the facts. Why do people with messy habits often sleep worse than people who maintain tidy spaces?

The Stress Connection A study in 2024 looked at stress about sleep rules.

Study A: People who followed strict sleep rules worried more. If they forgot one step, they took 45% longer to fall asleep because they were scared.

Study B: In a test where doctors told people not to try to sleep, the people actually fell asleep faster.

The Simple Plan

We are going to make your night simple. We want to do less work.

Step 1: The Light Shield (Sunset)

Don’t run around turning off all the lights. That is hard work. Just change the light that hits your eyes.

Action: Put on red sleep glasses two hours before bed.

Why: This lets you watch a movie or talk to your family. It stops the bad light from waking up your brain. It is easy.

Step 2: Clear Your Head (1 Hour Before)

When your mind races, it is usually trying to remember things for tomorrow.

Action: Write a “To-Do” list for tomorrow on paper. Then, close the notebook.

Why: You are telling your brain, “It is written down. You can relax now.”

Step 3: Do Nothing (Bedtime)

This is how we fix the anxiety.

Action: Only go to bed when you are tired. Don’t look at the clock. If you are not sleepy, read a book in low light.

Rule: Do not try to sleep. Your only job is to rest your body. If you sleep, great. If not, you are still resting.

Conclusion: Less is More

We have learned that worrying about sleep makes it a hard job. By controlling every minute of your night, you keep your brain awake.

The answer is not a new gadget. The answer is subtraction (doing less). Your body knows how to sleep. It just needs you to get out of the way.

The Next Step: Tonight, try a “Subtraction Experiment.” Choose one part of your routine to skip. Prove to your brain that you don’t need a lucky charm to rest. You might find that doing less is the best way to sleep.

Citation

1.Baron, K. G., Abbott, S., Jao, N., Manalo, N., & Mullen, R. (2017). Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?. Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 13(2), 351–354. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.6472

2.Harvey A. G. (2002). A cognitive model of insomnia. Behaviour research and therapy, 40(8), 869–893.https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(01)00061-4

Scullin, M. K., Krueger, M. L., Ballard, H. K., Pruett, N., & Bliwise, D. L. (2018). The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: A polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. Journal of experimental psychology. General, 147(1), 139–146.https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000374