Why You Should Get Out of Bed When You Can't Fall Asleep

From time.com

It's 2 a.m., and you’ve been awake for an hour—staring at the same patch of ceiling, counting the same sheep, and doing increasingly alarming math about how wrecked you’re going to feel tomorrow. Your instinct is to stay right where you are and try harder. Surely sleep will come eventually. And even if it doesn’t, at least you’re resting—right?

Not exactly. The better move, sleep specialists say, is the one that feels most counterintuitive: Get up, leave the room, and do something else. The technique is called stimulus control, and it isn't new—psychologist Richard Bootzin introduced it in 1972, and it remains a cornerstone of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia.

Here’s how to do it when you can’t get to sleep, and why it works. 

Why lying in bed when you can't sleep makes it worse

The problem begins when you treat sleep like a task you need to accomplish. "Effort is the enemy of sleep," says Shelby Harris, a behavioural sleep medicine specialist in New York. The harder you work at it, the more frustrated and alert you become. People who sleep well, Harris points out, aren’t using some secret trick. “They don't really do anything,” Harris says. “They just fall asleep.”

Sleep, in other words, isn’t something you can will into happening, says Michael Perlis, director of the behavioural sleep medicine program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. It’s a physiological state, not a behaviour you can perform on command.

Watching for sleep to arrive doesn’t work, either. People often report that they were close to drifting off, Perlis says, but if you’re conscious of being close, you’re still awake. After all, how can you consciously monitor yourself becoming unconscious? 

There’s one more argument for staying put: Even if you aren’t sleeping, you figure, at least you’re resting. Perlis rejects that one, too. "If rest was any good,” he says, “we wouldn't sleep.”

How long should you stay in bed before getting up?

People are often told to get out of bed after about 20 minutes awake. But many clinicians have moved away from enforcing that rigid cut-off, partly because there’s an obvious problem with it, Harris says: You can't time 20 minutes without looking at a clock—and clock-watching in the middle of the night is a reliable way to become even more stressed about not sleeping. 

Instead of watching the clock, notice your mood. The signal is frustration: Your mind is racing, you’re getting annoyed, or you catch yourself actively trying to force sleep to happen. "That's the sign that's usually around 20-ish minutes," Harris says. "Get out of bed, go do something else just to pass the time, and only go back to bed when you think you might be sleepy again."

That doesn’t mean you need to leap out of bed the moment you open your eyes. If you're awake but calm—not spiralling, not straining—you can stay put for a little while. Give yourself a few minutes to see what happens. The time to get up is when your mind starts racing or you notice yourself trying to force sleep.

Why getting out of bed helps you fall asleep faster

Perlis sums up his advice in a simple slogan: “Give up. Get up. Get out.” Giving up means abandoning the effort to fall asleep. Getting up and leaving the room make that decision real: Sitting up, standing, and walking send powerful signals to the body to be awake.

That might sound backward. If your goal is sleep, why would you make yourself more awake? But that’s exactly the point. When you stay in bed trying, Perlis says, you can end up “surfing,” or flickering between wakefulness and sleep without ever feeling as though you slept at all. “You get nothing from surfing,” he says.

Becoming fully awake interrupts that pattern and allows sleep pressure—the biological drive that makes you sleepy—to build. Perlis compares it to putting money in the bank for tomorrow night: Even if getting up doesn’t rescue this particular night, it can improve your odds of sleeping better the next one.

Leaving the bedroom also helps preserve the connection between your bed and sleep. The more time you spend there tossing, turning, worrying, and watching the clock, the more your brain begins to associate bed with wakefulness and frustration. Getting up breaks that association—and, as Perlis puts it, helps “give sleep a chance” a little later on.

What to do in the middle of the night when you can't sleep

Whatever you choose to do once you’re out of bed, your goal shouldn’t be to do something tiring, Harris says. The activity is simply something to do until sleepiness returns—while keeping you from lying in bed and teaching your brain to associate your mattress with frustration. So pick something you actually enjoy.

“I collect cookbooks—old cookbooks—and I look through my old cookbook collection,” Harris says. “I go to my kitchen and then I earmark old family recipes. I love beautiful photos in cookbooks, and I’ll just look at things that I might want to make at some point.” The screen-free ritual passes the time without turning sleep into another task. “I’m not sitting there saying, ‘I gotta get sleepy,’” she says.

Throughout her 20-plus years of practice, Harris has also seen patients take up art projects and knit what she affectionately calls “insomnia scarves.”

The key is that you shouldn’t make your middle-of-the-night activity feel like punishment. Harris recalls a colleague who used to tell patients to go sit in their "insomnia chair"—and now those patients "dread that chair because they associate it with wakefulness." It’s better to do something you'd genuinely choose, and to see it as a pleasant way to pass the time, not proof that the entire night has gone off the rails.

A few ground rules can help the technique work better:

Don't give insomnia a job

If you turn 3 a.m. into bonus productivity time, your brain might decide it’s worth continuing to wake you up around that time. “Don’t do your work. Don’t do taxes. Don’t do bills,” Harris says. “The more you wake up and do work, the more you’re teaching your body to have those awakenings.”

Skip screens when you can

Phones and laptops can pull you into texts, work emails, and other messages—and make it difficult to put the device back down. Some research also suggests that blue-enriched screen light may interfere with sleep. If a screen is your only realistic alternative to lying in bed with a racing mind, watch an episode of something you enjoy. Just treat it as a backup plan rather than your first choice.

Switch on a lamp 

You don’t need to keep the room dark in an effort to coax yourself back to sleep, Harris says. Turn on a lamp and use enough light to comfortably do whatever activity you’ve chosen.

Don't fall asleep on the couch

Do it often enough, and you'll train yourself to sleep there and dread your own bed. When sleepiness hits, get up and walk back to your bedroom. 

Plan for your excuses now

Don’t wait until the middle of the night to figure out where you’ll go or what you’ll do. “You have to think about all the excuses you’re going to come up with at night,” Harris says. “Think about it during the day, and problem-solve for those.”

If the rest of your home is cold, for instance, “keep a robe and slippers right next to your bed,” she says, and consider leaving an electric blanket in the room where you plan to go. Choose your activity in advance, too, and have your book, magazine, cookbook, or art supplies ready.

You can also adapt the technique to your circumstances. If you live in a studio or don’t want to disturb your partner, sit up in bed or move to a nearby chair. Harris also recommends remaining seated in bed if you take medication that makes you groggy or you have an increased risk of falling.

Once you feel sleepy again—and perhaps notice yourself yawning—return to bed. “See what happens,” Harris says. If your mind starts racing or you become frustrated again, “get back out, rinse, and repeat.” You might need to do that multiple times in one night.

If you’ve been practicing stimulus control for two or three weeks, while maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake time, and your sleep hasn’t improved, Harris recommends seeing a sleep specialist. They can screen for conditions like sleep apnoea and determine whether you might benefit from a fuller course of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. 

And the next time you’re lying awake at 2 a.m., furious that sleep hasn’t arrived, remember: The wakefulness isn’t necessarily the biggest problem. Your reaction to it might be. "Change the narrative," Harris says. "Trying to force it is only going to make it worse."

https://time.com/article/2026/07/28/what-to-do-when-you-cant-sleep/ 

Sleep restriction: The unexpected method insomnia experts swear by

From cosmopolitan.com

By Jennifer Savin, with additional reporting by Sophie Boyden

We love a personalised approach to snoozing... 

We are all (hopefully) born with the ability to sleep, but we aren’t necessarily born knowing when and how to achieve optimal kip. In order to sleep well, our body clock has to be set to fall asleep at the same time that our natural sleep drive reaches a high – and when we struggle to drift off, many of us instinctively go to bed earlier or stay in bed longer to catch up. However, according to Silentnight’s sleep expert, Kathryn Pinkham, this can backfire.

“Many people understandably start going to bed earlier or staying in bed longer to try to ‘catch up’ on sleep, but over time this can weaken the brain’s association between bed and sleep,” Pinkham explains.

To break this cycle and reset your body clock, insomnia experts use a method called sleep restriction. Right this way, please!

What is sleep restriction?

“Sleep restriction, sometimes referred to as sleep compression, is one of the core components of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), the gold-standard treatment for persistent sleep problems,” says Pinkham. “Despite the name, it is not about depriving someone of sleep.

“It’s about helping rebuild a stronger, healthier relationship between bed and sleep by reducing the time spent in bed to encourage a stronger ‘appetite’ for sleep.”

By limiting your time in bed to closely match the hours you can actually sleep, you create a mild, temporary sleep deprivation. This builds a powerful biological pressure to fall asleep quickly, drastically improving your sleep quality rather than just quantity.

                                                                                                              LaylaBird//Getty Images

How to calculate your sleep window

To figure out your own specific calculation, you first need to establish your “sleep efficiency” — the percentage of time you are actually asleep versus the total time you spend in bed. Make sense?

The formula is simple:

(Total Sleep Time divided by Total Time in Bed) x 100 = Sleep Efficiency %

For example, if you spend 8 hours in bed but only sleep for 6 hours, your calculation is: 6 hours / 8 hours x 100 = 75% sleep efficiency

The remaining 25% is how much you will want to reduce your sleep window by. Instead of spending 8 hours in bed to get 6 hours of sleep, your new, restricted window would be exactly 6 hours (for instance, 12:00 AM to 6:00 AM).

“The calculation is usually based on a person’s average total sleep time, rather than how long they are spending in bed,” Pinkham notes. “For example, if someone is in bed for eight and a half hours but only sleeping for six, we may initially set a shorter sleep window closer to that six-hour mark, before gradually increasing it as sleep becomes more stable and efficient. This is always adjusted carefully on an individual basis and should never be less than five hours.”

Moving forward, the goal is to gradually improve your sleep. “As sleep drive becomes stronger, sleep often becomes deeper, more consolidated and more restorative. The goal is not less sleep long term, but better-quality sleep and less time spent awake and frustrated in bed.”

How long does it take your body to adjust?

Thankfully, this isn't a permanent lifestyle change. It is a short-term, highly effective intervention designed to fix a specific problem.

“Typically, sleep restriction is used for several weeks as part of a structured CBT-I approach,” Pinkham advises. “Consistency is important, and some people notice improvements within a few days.

“The process should feel gradual and supportive rather than punishing, and it works best when combined with other elements of the programme designed to reduce anxiety and hyper-vigilance around sleep.” Basically, you also need to break that cycle of panicking that you cannot or will not be able to sleep, which ironically makes the ability to actually sleep so much harder.

What if I'm already a good sleeper?

                                                                                                Maria Korneeva//Getty Images

Firstly, lucky you! And secondly, while you may not need to restrict your schedule, you can likely still benefit from the core philosophy of sleep restriction. “For people who already sleep relatively well, strict sleep restriction is usually unnecessary,” Pinkham concludes. "However, some of the principles behind it, particularly maintaining a consistent wake-up time and avoiding spending excessive time awake in bed, can still help improve sleep quality and daytime energy.”

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a71317648/best-sleep-calculation/

How to get a good night’s sleep in hot weather – and why it’s so hard

From theguardian.com

Avoid espresso martinis and wear the right pyjamas: experts give tips on how to sleep when it’s hot outside

Getting a good night’s sleep when it’s hot out can feel impossible. Unfortunately, worrying about not being well-rested doesn’t help.

Experts say worrying about sleep in warm weather will inevitably make you feel worse. “When people cannot sleep because they are too hot, it often becomes both a physical and a mental challenge,” says Dr Shelby Harris, founder and director of NY Sleep and Psychology, and author of The Women’s Guide to Overcoming Insomnia. “They may start watching the clock, worrying about how tired they will be the next day, or trying harder to force themselves to fall asleep.

“If several hot nights occur in a row, the accumulated sleep loss can also affect mood, making people more irritable, emotionally reactive and less able to cope with everyday stressors,” Harris says. 

If you’re on day three of bad sleep during a particularly heinous stretch of 100F days, here’s what experts have to say.

How does heat affect your body and brain when you’re trying to sleep?

                                                                 Illustration: Guardian Design/Igor Barilo/Getty Images

Understanding what happens physiologically and mentally when it’s hot will give you a framework for why you’re feeling – and maybe acting – different.

“The body is constantly trying to keep its core temperature stable,” says Dr Yi Cai, a sleep expert and the director of sleep surgery at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving medical centre. “In hot weather, it does this by sending more blood to the skin and producing sweat, which cools the body as it evaporates. But when it’s very hot, especially if it’s also humid, those cooling systems become less effective.”

While your body is trying to cool itself down, your mind is also working overtime. “When someone is hot and struggling to sleep, frustration sets in and makes the problem worse,” says Janet Kennedy PhD, sleep psychologist and founder of NYC Sleep Doctor. “Core body temperature naturally drops 2-3 degrees at night, which triggers melatonin production. When it’s hot, that doesn’t happen, and it becomes difficult to fall asleep.” Melatonin is released by the pineal gland when it gets dark outside and tells your brain’s hypothalamus – which controls temperature regulation, among other things – to start preparing for rest.

“Tossing and turning, catastrophizing about the next day, and worrying about not sleeping activates the sympathetic nervous system, triggering adrenaline, which heightens discomfort and keeps you awake,” Kennedy says.

“If you cannot fall asleep because you are too hot, do not stay in bed becoming increasingly frustrated,” Harris says. “Get up, cool yourself down, and return to bed once you feel sleepy again.”

How can you prepare for a hot night?

Keep the sun out: The temperature outside will influence the temperature inside your home, so blocking the sun’s rays out is key. “Keep the bedroom as cool as possible,” Kennedy says. “Close the blinds during hot days to keep the sun out.”

Sleep in the coolest part of your home: If you don’t have air conditioning in your bedroom, sleep in the coolest part of your home – usually on a lower floor, says Cai, with the blinds and curtains drawn. If the temperature drops a little at night, then you can open your windows to let some of the cooler air through. “Avoid adding unnecessary heat sources like bright lights or electronics before bed,” she says.

Use light, breathable bedsheets: For maximum comfort, sleep on the most cooling and temperature-regulating fabric possible. “Keep bedding light and breathable – cotton sheets are often more comfortable than heavy fabrics,” Cai says. Put your flannel bedsheets away for cozier times and pivot to natural materials; crisp cotton percale is a great option. Linen sheets are a great year-round choice and will keep you cool in the summer and warm enough in the winter. Other materials like bamboo, lyocell or any combination thereof can also work, but avoid cotton sateen, which is slinky, buttery, slippery and has a tight weave.

Wear breathable pyjamas: Now is not the time for footie pyjamas. Cai suggests loose fitting sleepwear or “as little as you’re comfortable with”.

Use cool, damp fabrics: Some of the traditional tricks for keeping cool actually do work, according to the experts. For instance, a cool, damp towel on your neck or wrists can help you feel more comfortable. Putting your pillowcase in the freezer for “a short time” before you sleep can also be pleasant, Cai says. (In my personal experience, 20 minutes should do the trick.) These temporary fixes can improve comfort, but Cai warns that “they’re not a substitute for a genuinely cool environment during extreme heat.”

Use cooling devices: Air conditioning is a straightforward way to keep the temperature of your room or home low. If you have a fan, try to maximize its effects: “A bowl of ice in front of a fan may provide some local cooling in a small space, but don’t expect it to cool an entire room,” says Cai.

Is there anything you should avoid before bedtime?

An espresso martini (or three) can feel divine in the moment, but at bedtime, you may regret your choices. “It helps to limit alcohol and caffeine, which compromise deep sleep and trigger night waking,” Kennedy says.

Heavy meals can also contribute to dehydration, Cai notes, which won’t help matters when you’re trying to get some rest. You should be drinking water when it’s hot, but don’t overdo it. “Avoid drinking large amounts [of water] right before bed if night-time bathroom trips are an issue,” Harris says.

If you do need to hydrate before bed, Kennedy suggests a compromise: “Stay hydrated, but taper before bed. Dehydration worsens heat strain, but drinking a lot right before bed increases wake-ups.”

On hot days, it might seem sensible to save exercise and other strenuous activity for the early morning or evening hours. But morning is a better choice. “Vigorous exercise close to bedtime can increase body temperature or interfere with sleep,” Harris says.

Does heat affect some people differently?

Many of us are unhappy and grumpy in relentless heat, but it can have worse effects for specific groups of people.

“Older adults are especially vulnerable [to heat] because the body’s ability to regulate temperature becomes less efficient with age,” Harris says. Infants, young children and pets are also regularly affected by extreme temperatures. “These groups are more vulnerable to heat and may not recognise or communicate that they’re overheating,” says Cai. “Check on older neighbours regularly, encourage regular fluids, and don’t rely on thirst alone as a signal to drink.”

Tending to the people (or pets) that are most vulnerable during heatwaves requires some forethought. Cai recommends dressing babies and young children in light clothing and keeping them in the coolest rooms of the house. Pets should be walked during cooler hours, usually in the early morning or evenings, and should always have plenty of access to water and shade.

Cai also urges people to pay attention to any possible symptoms of heatstroke. “If anyone develops confusion, becomes difficult to wake, stops sweating despite the heat, or has a very high body temperature, seek emergency medical care immediately,” she says.

What if none of this works?

Remember that sleep will eventually come. Locking into an anxiety spiral won’t do much good, and will potentially make things worse. “Try not to fight with things you can’t control,” Kennedy says. “Getting angry, frustrated or desperate will raise your body temperature and make it harder to sleep.”

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/28/tips-sleeping-hot-weather