5 Ultimate Tips to Help You Sleep So Much Better

Stop tossing and turning tonight!

By
Published August 21, 2024
gif illustration of woman sleeping during the day and night
Rose Wong

I stay up most nights until 12:15 a.m. just so I can do the new day’s online Wordle puzzle. I know that’s foolish — the five-letter word for it might be WACKO — and yet, I keep doing it. (Never heard of Wordle? It’s a wildly popular New York Times game that gives you six chances to guess a five-letter word.)

Sometimes, I get stuck, and then I try to go to sleep while words fly through my head. Then I pop up a half-hour later because my brain has figured out the solution. Now it’s 1 a.m., and I know my dogs will wake me up by 7 a.m.

I’m 68 and sleep-deprived, and I’m not alone. The Sleep Foundation estimates that up to 70 percent of seniors have sleep issues. If I don’t change my habits, I’m putting myself at a higher risk of dementia, heart disease and a whole slew of other health problems.

What to do? No. 1: play Wordle at lunch. Here are five other strategies to try if SLEEP is a five-letter puzzler for you.

Are you a Morning Lark or a Night Owl? Matthew Walker explains in his book Why We Sleep that our genes make some of us Morning Larks and some of us Night Owls. I lean toward Night Owl status, the realm of creators and neurotics. Walker cites that Bob Dylan and 30 percent of us are Night Owls. Morning Owls tend to be cheerful and excel in corporate jobs. Oprah Winfrey is a Morning Owl, as are 40 percent of people.

My friend Lynn Kalber is a Morning Lark. Around 9 every night, she takes a 10-milligram melatonin gummy, puts the Sirius Sleep music channel on a 30-minute timer and she falls asleep easily … and wakes up around 5 a.m.

“The Sleep music helps me focus on that — and not have my thoughts careening around in my head for an hour,” she says.

Silk and scents. Will a nice silk pillowcase help you sleep? Maybe — silk is cooler than cotton, and a cool room (the ideal temperature is 65, Walker says) is best for deep sleep. But silk pillowcases are pricey — at least $50 for the top brand recommended by Good Housekeeping magazine. Your hair is less likely to frizz if you sleep on silk, for example, and if you’re a side sleeper, you probably won’t wake up with your face pleated like an accordion if you sleep on silk.

The bigger benefit is to splurge on quality bed linens and blackout curtains — and scents that help you ease into rest.

Susie Eaton Hopper is an editor with a busy brain. She swears by a scented laundry soap she discovered years ago in a lovely linen shop: Blanc Summer Verbena linen detergent ($36 for 64 ounces) and dryer sachets ($24 for 25 dryer cycles), which she uses to wash all bedding, pajamas and towels.

“Is it a luxury? Definitely, but to change the sheets every week and sink down in this heavenly scent relaxes me instantly,” she says. “I am not an easy sleeper, so it’s helpful to me because it’s perfect aromatherapy. I need all the help I can get for a restful sleep.”

Sink into a bath. Inspired by Susie, I started adding scent — specifically, Dove’s “anti-stress” body wash with blue cornflower and oat milk scent — to my nightly bath. It’s a simple and affordable tweak to my nighttime routine. Sleep expert Walker says taking a hot bath before bed leads to a 10 to 15 percent increase in deep, “slow-wave” sleep, the cycle of sleep that helps repair the brain and ward off dementia.

Lavender is the hero scent of “slow-wave” sleep. Researchers at Wesleyan University found that a few drops of lavender essential oil dabbed on a tissue under your pillow can deepen your slumber.

Hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Remove anything or anyone that could wake you, even if that means a snoring partner sleeps in another room.

“Sleep has cycles that repeat every 90 minutes during the night,” writes Dr. Alex Dimitriu in the July/August 2024 issue of Psychology Today. “Stage 1 and 2 are light sleep, followed by Stage 3, or slow-wave sleep, and, last, REM, or dream, sleep. Slow-wave sleep occurs predominantly in the first half of the night, while dream sleep happens more in the morning hours.”

Disrupt these cycles, and you're depriving your brain of the chance to dream, organize thoughts and even remember where you put your car keys.

“It’s OK to hang up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign,” says Elaine Heroux, a therapist who specializes in the healing power of dreams.

What’s on your bed isn’t as important as what’s in your head. We know what we’re supposed to stay away from near bedtime: our phones, the TV, coffee, too many cocktails, heavy meals — even a post-midnight Wordle. But there’s one thing we can never get away from — our own thoughts.

And it’s our thoughts that are the culprits that most often keep us up at night. We close our eyes and think about our fears, and fear begets more fear and obsessive “what ifs?” And before you know it, it’s 3 a.m. — and you’re still awake, and that small thing you worried about has become a huge drama played out only in your mind.

Because of this, Heroux suggests writing your thoughts on paper before you go to bed. “Write it out and let it go,” she says.

But can I let go of Wordle if I haven’t found the word after three tries? Maybe the key is to concentrate on five-letter words that count — and RELAX and DRIFT into a good night’s sleep.

How many of you have a hard time sleeping? What do you do if you can't sleep? Let us know in the comments below.

Jan Tuckwood is an award-winning journalist who was associate editor and revenue content director of The Palm Beach Post for 30 years. She’s also a former fashion editor of The Denver Post, and her work has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and Glamour magazine, among other publications. She is the editor of five books, including the official history book of Palm Beach County, and she is the co-author of Too Young to Be Old, the 2022 memoir of Diane Gilman, HSN’s “Jean Queen.”