Tips for sleeping in the warm summer nights

In today’s busy world, it’s often hard to switch off. For many, this can lead to difficulties getting to sleep, and this feeling can be heightened by warm summer nights. What can be great news for an evening barbecue can be a nightmare when it comes to hitting the hay. Below are some top tips for getting a good night’s sleep through the summer heat.

Decline the offer of a nightcap

Staying hydrated is important in the heat, and thirst is one of the things that may wake you from your slumber. If possible, it’s best to avoid drinking alcohol close to bedtime. However, if that’s not practical for you and you don’t normally have trouble sleeping, stopping a couple of hours before bed and switching to water instead may help your body rehydrate before sleep.

Always keep water by the bed, so if you do wake, you won’t have far to go to quench your thirst.

Make your bedroom a gadget-free zone

So many people tell me that they text in bed or use their tablets to relax. There are two main reasons why this might make it harder to get to sleep. Firstly, the blue light given off by many devices can send a message to our brain that we are awake and alert, which is the opposite of what we want before bed.

Secondly, active distractions of the technological kind have an association attached to them, whether it’s the stress of the day from your emails, the general chatter of social networking or thought-provoking TV. These aren’t things we want in the bedroom. So leave the TV for the lounge, the iPad on the sofa and the mobile in your bag.

Even doing these things in daylight hours in your sleeping space can be a distraction. If you use your device as an alarm, set it at least half an hour before bed and don’t use it again until the morning. If that’s too hard to resist, invest in a good old-fashioned alarm clock. Doing these things can help your brain accept that it is time to wind down and relax, giving you a better chance of a good night’s sleep.

Get into a good routine

Our body clocks love routine. When the nights get lighter and warmer, it is easy to stay up longer in the evening. That’s fine; we all want to enjoy the benefits of summer. However, if you are going to do it, do it consciously and try to stick to going to bed at around the same time each night and getting up at the same time in the morning.

Yes, I’m sorry to say that if you are lucky enough to have time for a Sunday morning lie-in, it probably won’t do your sleeping patterns any good. The closer you stick to a routine, the easier you may find it to fall asleep.

Leave space to leave the day behind

If at all possible, you want to go to bed with a clear mind. For half an hour before bed, with all those gadgets safely tucked away, give yourself some quiet time to empty your mind and declutter your thoughts.

If you enjoy meditation or listening to hypnosis tracks, this is the time to do it. Otherwise, you might read, or maybe do a craft activity. The key here is to do something quiet that will allow you to calm down your thoughts. With this in mind, any choice of reading material needs to fit that purpose, so newspapers are out, your annual tax return is out and non-topical, relaxing material is in.

Accept that the day is over and that you are entering recharge mode

The biggest thing I hear about difficulty sleeping is people saying that their thoughts are whirring around in their mind, or they keep thinking of things they need to do. It is important to mentally give yourself permission to accept that the day is finished and allow yourself to sleep.

If you find that a list of things to do keeps popping into your head, have a book you can write the things you want to do tomorrow in. Remember, this isn’t an exercise in writing a mental shopping list. It is about taking a thought out of your head, putting it on paper and closing the book for tomorrow.

At this point, acknowledge to yourself that this is not something you can deal with tonight. The best chance of achieving the things on your list is to wake up tomorrow feeling rested and refreshed, so allow yourself to sleep.

Create good associations

Our lives are full of associations, some conscious, some unconscious. Consciously, I associate the smell of a particular perfume with my mother, as she has always worn it. Subconsciously, the sound of a car when I’m about to cross a road will automatically make me step back and check again if it’s safe. These associations are built on my memory of things I have experienced.

In the same way, we can build positive associations for ourselves. On those nights when you feel you are finding it easy to get to sleep, do something repeatable at that time, every time. An example of this might be spraying a relaxing scent into the air, such as lavender. This can create an association between the smell and sleep. Then, on more restless nights, if you spray it again, it may remind your mind that it is possible to relax and sleep.

You can also use memories of associations that already exist. If you are lying in bed thinking how warm it is, instead you might lie there imagining you are relaxing on a lovely sunny beach, and suddenly the warmth becomes enjoyable. Or remembering a time when you were relaxed and cool may also help. The possibilities are endless. The message is that good thoughts and feelings can encourage relaxation and sleep.

Hopefully, the above tips will help you in your quest for a deep, relaxing slumber. If all else fails, if you are in the UK at least, I can certainly promise you that the hot nights will not be around for long. You’ll be hunting out the bed socks and thermal pyjamas before you know it. So enjoy what you can of the warmth, calm the mental chatter and give yourself the best chance of a good night’s sleep.