How to motivate myself to go to bed?

January 27, 2006 8:13 AM

How can I better motivate myself to go to bed and not browse the web, play Xbox, watch TV, etc?
posted by joshua to Health & Fitness (24 answers total)

Is it negatively impacting your life or just a bad habit you'd like to change?
posted by unixrat at 8:17 AM on January 27, 2006

I think the best bet is to follow Tip 1 from this link. I've found that just turning my computer and/or TV off and picking up a book about an hour before I want to be asleep works wonders - I read for about 45 minutes and then hit the hay - it never takes me more than 15 minutes to get to sleep as long as I read awhile before turning off the light. When I go to bed right after watching a movie or something I toss and turn for an hour.

To motivate yourself to do this, you might want to set an alarm on your watch or something for an hour or so before you want to go to sleep, at which point all electronic gear goes OFF. You'll probably find there's nothing keeping you from sleeping unless you have a good book...
posted by sablazo at 8:26 AM on January 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

I think you need to let us know what the end result is supposed to be here.

Do you want to get more sleep?
Do you want to replace those activities with something else - exercise, studying, reading, meditating, spending time with loved ones, etc.?

Nature abhors a vacuum, so if you're not going to be browsing the web, playing Xbox or watching TV, they must be replaced with something else, be it sleep or healthy habits or whatever. If you don't choose what to replace them with, you'll fall into different bad habits.

Please elaborate.
posted by willmize at 8:28 AM on January 27, 2006

Do you have a TV or a computer in your bedroom? If so, move it to another room and reserve your bedroom for sleeping and maybe a little reading. That way, when you need to go to bed there will be no distractions.

Also, if you have no extra room to which you can move your appliances, try putting them on a lighting timer that will switch them off at a set time, but will be a pain to turn back on. The trick is to make going to bed the easiest, most hassle-free thing to do compared to staying up. Just remember to save first.
posted by Alison at 8:30 AM on January 27, 2006

It sounds like the OP isn't having trouble fallingn asleep, just having trouble actually getting into bed to do it. So it's "Ok, I"m going to bed now, but let me just check my email one last time. Oh look, South Park is on, I'll just watch this and go to bed. Before I lie down, let's just see if there's any new posts on metafilter. Oh, this post, reminds me, I've been meaning to look up X...Wow, this articleon topic tangentially-related to X is really interesting..." etc. etc.

Or mabye I'm projecting because that's what I do.

This probably isn't the best solution, but once when I left my powercord at the office (my laptop is my only computer), I had a wonderfully productive night, got a tonne done and got to bed at a decent hour. Still got all my email etc. done, but knowing I had a limited amount of battery power forced me to now just goof around too much on the internet.
posted by duck at 8:40 AM on January 27, 2006

Comfy bed, comfy sheets. Keep your computer out of your bed, and take the tv out of the bedroom altogether.
posted by bilabial at 8:41 AM on January 27, 2006

I have such a hard time with this. For me, having an interesting book or magazine to bribe myself to bed with helps.

Setting a time usually helps for me- I'll look at the clock and say, ok, it's 10:30 now, I need to say goodbye to everyone on IRC, get up and get ready for bed at 10:45.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:54 AM on January 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

Just wear yourself out during the day. Work harder, study harder, exercise, whatever it takes. Then when nighttime rolls around you won't want to do anything but sleep.

At least, that's how I sleep now, though I never planned on being so busy.
posted by dead_ at 9:04 AM on January 27, 2006

I had this problem, I wrote a guide about it here.
posted by rc55 at 9:27 AM on January 27, 2006

Best answer: Sometimes, the problem is attitudinal, in that it can easily seem that TV, Internet, etc. is more "interesting" than sleeping. I think it helps to value your sleep life as something worthwhile in and of itself, but many folks I know (and from what I see of general societal attitudes in an increasingly sleep deprived world, more and more people all the time) seem to view sleeping as a "waste" of time. So many people seem to willingly short change themselves in sleep, in order to spend more time in other pursuits, that I'm at the point of positing wide spread sleep deprivation as the root of much evil.

Ideally, you'd come to a point of looking forward to sleep with the same anticipation you have for good, regular meals, and it would become a welcome part of your day, and one generally worth planning and doing well. Your sleeping area would be arranged conducively for sleep, and you would not only not feel guilty about the time you spend sleeping, but feel that going to bed, sleeping, and awakening are each enjoyable phases of an important daily activity, which as a whole is on a par with taking a walk, doing good work, and eating.

I second much of the practical advice up thread regarding specific techniques for making a transition to sleep time, but I think it is worth first thinking about what your attitude about sleeping is, and getting a positive value focus on that. If deep down, you really think sleeping is a waste of time, and that you have to "make" yourself get enough sleep, it's always going to be tough to do so. On the other hand, if you come to value sleep as an activity where your subconscious necessarily attends to functions your conscious mind cannot, and develop that attitude into positive actions that support preparing to sleep, sleeping, and awakening, I think you'll have a better chance of success, and probably, better quality of sleep. Some techniques I've used to foster this change of attitude in my own life include:

1) Noting consciously when I've felt alert and rested after sleeping, and how much I enjoy the feeling of mental and physical energy.

2) Making my bedroom an inviting place to sleep and awaken. Banishing distractions and "conveniences" is part of that, so no TV, no computer, etc. But also, orienting my bed for daylight, even though that isn't the most space efficient room layout. Good sheets, comforter, pillows. No clutter. Effective, but not jarring alarm device. Etc.

3) Setting a general bedtime, as I do meal times. Nothing hard and fast, but, like mealtimes, a time I can generally see as a milestone for whether I'm going to be having a normal day, and a good tomorrow. I don't always manage to have dinner by 6:30 p.m., but if I haven't eaten by 8, I know there is a reason for feeling as grumpy as I do, and that I need to eat before doing anything else. In the same way, I've come to expect to be going to sleep at 10:30 p.m., and while I can and do stay up to 11:00 p.m. or midnight whenever a specific activity warrants it, I don't let those occasions shift my sleep schedule.

4) I played around, not particularly successfully, with "lucid dreaming," and while I never got any great insights from it, I did come to respect the work my brain was doing while I was asleep, and came to value that as a necessary activity in my daily life. That prompted some long overdue changes in my attitude about sleeping, as I've described above.
posted by paulsc at 9:29 AM on January 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

check out the book "the promise of sleep."

Also, I think something about the light generated by monitors farks with your sleep cycle, especially at night.

Set your alarm early and soon you'll be too tired to stay up that late.
posted by mecran01 at 9:30 AM on January 27, 2006

From what my friends have told me, just get married, you'll be in bed asleep by 9:30pm every night.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:30 AM on January 27, 2006

1. Tonight, use the web. Spend time surfing for a good fiction book you're interested in reading. Order it or go get it tomorrow!
2. When the book arrives, choose to go read that in bed rather than surf the web.

I find that the book is always a more attractive option than sitting there, drearily finding the next thing to click on.
posted by rolypolyman at 9:37 AM on January 27, 2006

Get a backbone. Or, try electroshock.

I think the get a backbone plan is better. If you can't stop yourself from watching tv and playing video games, how are you going to deal with the real serious challenges of life?

You'll find that, while the fight to have a backbone never gets easier, the things you will fight about will change.

Today - the television, tomorrow, debt, lack of exercise, and spiritual denial.
posted by ewkpates at 10:05 AM on January 27, 2006

I have two tricks I use to motivate myself to get to bed when I am not tired.

One - I always have an interesting book available (as pointed out above) that I only read in bed. Gives me something to look forward to.

Two - and I'm glad this is an anonymous forum - I have an ongoing fantasy-like movie that I like to "view" in my head at night when I'm in bed. Whether or not this "movie" involves my naked self frolicking with many good-looking partners is none of your business. But I'm always inventing new scenes...

And blue-beetle's point is also true of new parents and puppy-owners.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 10:28 AM on January 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

One other thing, seemingly trivial, but not:

If you aren't doing it routinely already, make your bed, like Mom told you. No, really, when you get up, or soon after, make your bed.

Partly, it's a means of fostering an attitude of caring for yourself, through caring for your sleep life, and that's worth the 5 minutes near the start of your day that it takes to do it. But also, I find that going to bed is more ritualized if I am doing it in a bed that has been made. Physiologically, I also think your body tends not to struggle as much in the early phases of sleep with bed clothes that are not tangled, and this promotes descent into deep sleep phases.

A lot of people I've known who had sleep problems never made their beds, complaining they were too rushed in the morning, perhaps because they had problems waking up. Several people I've convinced to give this small thing a try as part of changing their sleep habits report satisfaction.
posted by paulsc at 11:03 AM on January 27, 2006

An alarm clock. Set it to an hour before you want to go to bed. Another one at 30 minutes.

The key is to train yourself that it's bedtime (and that you're tired and you set the alarm when you knew better, rather than when you're tired.)

Really breaks you out of the "Just one more level/fifteen minutes" concept.
posted by filmgeek at 12:40 PM on January 27, 2006

Get up early! Way early! The best way to make yourself go to bed earlier is to wake up earlier. The whole process of getting tired and falling asleep starts like 15-18 hours earlier when you wake up.

I had real circadian rhythms problems after college (go figure), and had to break them with 3 or 4 alarm clocks scattered around my room all set for 5-6am. It was painful, but it worked.
posted by Mid at 12:51 PM on January 27, 2006

Seconding the advice to make your bed every morning. I started doing this about 4 or 5 years ago, and it's really remarkable how pleasant it is to come home to a made bed, as well as how much more inviting it is to get into at at night.

I also have the bad habit of surfing too much online before bed. It's almost never anything very interesting -- I just get into that weird, mildly hypnotized "zone" of clicking, clicking, clicking.... I've started catching myself, though, and I ask the following question: what do I think I'm going to come across online right now that I haven't already come across all day? The answer is, almost invariably, nothing. At which point the nefarious internet spell is broken, I turn my stupid laptop off, and I go get into bed to read for at least a half hour before I go to sleep.
posted by scody at 12:58 PM on January 27, 2006

I have this problem too, and 'turn it off at a set time' doesn't really work--the problem is getting myself to do that! One motivator I use is to schedule anti-virus scans and defragmenters and such to all start at 1am, when I want to stop using the computer so I can get to bed by 2am. They slow things down so much that the computer becomes annoying to use and I am able to shut off the monitor and get to bed.
posted by underwater at 1:09 PM on January 27, 2006

get a tivo so you don't miss the shows you like to watch at 12am.

maybe if you took naps, you don't need to be in bed by 2am. You'd still get enough sleep. just not in one big chunk.
posted by CrazyJoel at 2:23 PM on January 27, 2006

This may or may not be helpful, but Ambien works pretty well for me.
posted by deafweatherman at 4:18 PM on January 27, 2006

Schedule a batchfile to run on your computer, that pops up a message at a decent hour telling you to get ready for bed. When the message comes up, you get up and perform the necessary prep work, then set an alarm clock/timer in another room for t+30, then sit back down in front of the computer. Until the timer goes off, you're permitted to browse the web; at that point, you must go to other room to turn off the timer. This action breaks your web-trance, so now you can just aim your body toward bed and collapse into it.
posted by niloticus at 6:09 PM on January 28, 2006

You could even program your computer to turn itself off at bedtime if you think that will help.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:20 PM on January 28, 2006