Winding down/Helping your body know it's sleep time
The basic idea here is that your body naturally produces melatonin to help you get to sleep. But your body is using the ambient light to determine that it's night/that you should be winding down. So with artificial "sunlight" in the form of lamps and screens, your body may not be getting the right cues. Here are some things that might help:
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Melatonin (and other things like magnesium, 5-HTP, GABA, L Theanine)
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Blue Blocking glasses
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Flux +
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Making your phone extra-dim
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Warm lighting/Dim lighting
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Stick to a sleep schedule + reinforce it with social cues/commitments
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Prevent your phone from being a distraction
Staying asleep/getting back to sleep
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Try to sleep while the sun is down — warning: sunrise can be quite early depending on where you live.
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Err on the side of keeping your bedroom cool
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Keep a bedside notebook or use a dark-mode phone note-taking app
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Make use of features to turn off notifications and/or app access on your phone
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If you struggle with trauma, have a positive but low-stakes task to occupy your thoughts
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Set a cutoff time for drinking fluids
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Try new-age sleep music (maybe better than whitenoise, which is also an option — I sleep with an air purifier or a 🌬️Fan as well)
