Sleep Better

Lesson 7: Winding down

Goal: build an evening that works backwards from your bedtime and lets a busy brain slow down, with a few low-effort tricks for drifting off.

You can’t switch sleep on like a light, but you can stop doing the things that hold it off. A wind-down is simply a buffer between the busy day and bed.

Work backwards from your bedtime

Start from your target bedtime (Lesson 3) and count back. Here’s the 10-3-2-1-0 countdown from Lesson 5 as a plan for a 10:30 pm bedtime:

Put it in your calendar. Add recurring events for “Last coffee”, “Work stops” and “Screens off” with a gentle reminder. Treat the wind-down like any other appointment; it’s much easier to keep when your phone reminds you rather than relying on willpower at 9:30 pm.

Empty your head onto paper

• Write a to-do list. In a 2018 sleep-lab study, people who spent five minutes before bed writing a specific to-do list for the coming days fell asleep about nine minutes faster than people who wrote about what they’d already done. The more specific the list, the faster they fell asleep. Getting tasks out of your head and onto paper seems to tell the brain it can stop rehearsing them.
• Give worries an earlier slot. If you tend to lie awake worrying, set aside 15 minutes in the early evening as “worry time”: write down what’s on your mind and one next step for each. Sleep therapists use this so that bed isn’t the first quiet moment you have to think. If a worry pops up in bed, tell yourself it’s on the list and will be dealt with tomorrow.

Read something boring

Reading a paper book under a dim, warm lamp is one of the best wind-downs there is, and the duller the better. The trick is to pick something that’s pleasant but not gripping: a page-turner keeps you up, while a slow classic lets your eyelids win.

• Long, slow classics work beautifully: think Victorian novels, old travel writing or philosophy. Project Gutenberg has over 70,000 free, out-of-copyright books.
• If you read on a device, use an e-ink reader with a warm front light turned down low rather than a phone or tablet (Lesson 4).

This is a well-loved life hack rather than a tested treatment, but it combines several things that are backed by evidence: low light, no screens and a calm, unstimulating activity.

Listen to a boring story

If you’d rather listen, the same idea works with audio, and it’s especially good if your mind races in the dark.

• Nothing Much Happens: gentle bedtime stories where, as the name says, nothing much happens.
• Sleep With Me: a podcast of deliberately rambling, dull stories designed to bore you to sleep.
• LibriVox: free audiobooks of public-domain classics read by volunteers. A dense 19th-century novel read aloud is excellent sleep material.

Calm music, with a sleep timer

A 2022 Cochrane review (the gold standard for weighing up evidence) found that listening to music probably improves sleep quality in adults with insomnia symptoms, with no reported side effects. The studies mostly used calm, slow music for 25 to 60 minutes at bedtime.

Good classical places to start:

• Erik Satie, Gymnopédies (especially No. 1)
• Claude Debussy, Clair de lune
• Frédéric Chopin, the Nocturnes
• J.S. Bach, the Aria from the Goldberg Variations. Legend says Bach wrote the variations for an insomniac count; historians doubt the story, but the slow Aria works anyway
• Max Richter, Sleep: a modern classical work of more than eight hours, written with input from neuroscientist David Eagleman to be listened to while you sleep. There’s a one-hour version, From Sleep, if eight hours sounds like a lot

Use a sleep timer so the music or story stops on its own and doesn’t wake you later:

• Spotify (phone app): open the Now Playing screen, tap the three dots, choose Sleep timer, and pick from 5 minutes to 1 hour or “end of track”. For podcasts there’s a moon icon on the player.
• Apple Music and other apps on iPhone: open the Clock app, go to Timers, set a time, tap When Timer Ends and choose Stop Playing. This works for any app.
• Android: most podcast and audiobook apps have a built-in sleep timer, and many phones have one in the Clock app.

Keep the volume low, use a speaker or soft headphones you can sleep in, and set the phone face down and out of reach.

Relax the body

• Slow breathing: breathe in through the nose for a count of four, then out slowly for a count of six to eight. A long out-breath is the part that calms the nervous system.
• Progressive muscle relaxation: working from your feet up, tense each muscle group for five seconds, then let go and notice the difference.

Sleep therapists suggest doing these in bed only if they take less than about 15 minutes; longer routines are better done on the couch before bed.

Guided relaxation and breathing

Pick one or two and use them for a week before trying others.

Non-sleep deep rest (NSDR). Andrew Huberman’s name for guided deep relaxation, similar to progressive muscle relaxation or yoga nidra. Lie down, follow the voice, and let your body go heavy. Use the 10-minute version at bedtime (in line with the “under 15 minutes in bed” rule), and the longer ones on the couch in the evening or as an afternoon reset instead of a nap:

• 10-minute NSDR · 20-minute NSDR · 30-minute NSDR (Huberman Lab)

Breathing. Slow breathing with a long out-breath is one of the quickest ways to calm the body:

• Box breathing (Sunnybrook Hospital): in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4
• Resonance (coherence) breathing, 5 minutes (Mike Maher): a slow, steady rhythm of about 5 to 6 breaths a minute, with a visual guide
• A 30-second breathing reset (Dr Jemma King)
• Breathing techniques to reduce stress and anxiety (Andrew Huberman on the Tim Ferriss Show)

Save energising techniques such as Wim Hof breathing for the morning; they’re designed to wake you up.

Racing thoughts. Leaves on a stream (Therapy in a Nutshell) is a short exercise from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): you picture each thought on a leaf and watch it float away rather than arguing with it. It pairs well with worry time.

Binaural beats are tracks that play slightly different tones in each ear, claimed to nudge brainwaves towards relaxation. The research is mixed and they’re not a proven sleep treatment, but some people find them a pleasant, steady background, like rain sounds. A neurologist explains what binaural beats can and can’t do (Neurogal MD). If you try them, use headphones you can sleep in and a sleep timer.

Exercise 7

Set three repeating calendar reminders today: “Last coffee”, “Work stops (write to-do list)” and “Screens off”. Then pick one wind-down activity (a boring book, a sleep story or a playlist with a sleep timer) and use it every night this week.

Sources

• Scullin et al. (2018), The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
• Jespersen et al. (2022), Listening to music for insomnia in adults, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
• Chang et al. (2015), Evening use of light-emitting eReaders, PNAS
• Sleep Health Foundation, CBT for insomnia (relaxation in bed only if under 15 minutes)
• Spotify Community, Sleep timer

This course is general information, not medical advice. If you have ongoing sleep problems, loud snoring with pauses or gasping, or sleepiness that affects driving or work, see your doctor. In Australia, if you are struggling or feel unsafe, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.