What's the best way to gradually move my sleep schedule to an earlier time until I get it to a point where I sleep in fairly early and wake up early to see the sun? I don't like sleeping at 4 or 5 in the morning. I also have sleep anxiety whenever I lose confidence in my ability to sleep. What should I do? Anyone?
i’ve been trying to fix my sleeping schedule since september and i think i’ve done quite well during this time so maybe i can give you some advice that you might consider useful. for the person who had woken up at 12:00 in the past, starting to wake up at 6am was awfully hard but i, somehow, still maintain it. 1. the first tip is go to sleep before 00:00 no matter what. especially during the first month of your rescheduling process. during the entire september (my first rescheduling month) i ALWAYS went to sleep at 22:00 even though sometimes i wanted to stay up late. it is okay if you will go to sleep a bit later but the best option would be to go to bed at the same time every day. it will help to reconfigure the internal clock in your body. 2. don’t try to start waking up too early from the very beginning. if you want to wake up at 4/5am, make it your ultimate goal but start with something less. at first you can start waking up at 6:30 or 7am and then after a week or two increase the time you wake up: 6:00 then 5:30 then 5:00 etc. it will be a little bit easier for you to get used to the schedule (just a little bit lol but still). 3. one more very important tip that helps me to not give up the idea of waking up early. for me it’s the most important one. put your phone (or another device that you have your alarm clock on) in another corner of the room so that in the morning you have to GET UP from the bed to turn it off. doing this, you won’t get a chance to succumb to temptation and stay in the bed continuing sleeping. 4. it’s okay to let yourself sleep longer sometimes. during the first month it is better you maintain your schedule every day but then, after you get used to it a bit, you can allow yourself to rest (during weekends for example). i let myself sleep till 9 or 10am on weekends. i just want you to remember that it’ll be hard af. it requires a lot of discipline. but it’s going to be easier and easier over time. good luck! if you have more questions i’ll be happy to answer them
Thanks so much for your reply. An issue I have with the first point though if that if I'm not in need around late 3 or 4 am I'll have trouble going to sleep. I also use my phone for background noise to help me sleep because I know my intrusive thoughts will thrive on the silence in my room. I tried going to sleep at 2:30 but that didn't work until I slept at like 5:30 last night. Number 3 I have to practice because of what I said about sleeping in silence. The radio or TV helps sort of.
@BigGyro09 so basically you have trouble falling asleep because of intrusive thoughts? yes, in your situation it’ll be hard to start falling asleep earlier but i think maybe you can try to wake up early one day and make sure you don’t take naps during the day so that you will want to go to sleep early. doing physical activities throughout a day also helps making your body and mind tired. as for listening to background noise at night, actually i think it’s quite unhealthy to do so because we should give our minds time to be in silence, especially during sleeping hours, it helps you rest more. but i know how troubling that can be with ocd so i recommend you to try meditating (or doing yoga) before going to bed and also not using your phone one hour before bedtime, especially social media, at least because it can easily trigger another ocd episode
@Tanya.L This is extremely helpful. Meditating before bed can definitely help because I will end up being more calm. Deep breathing already helps me being relaxed so mediation overall should. That could be my period to just think and wind down instead of just doing it while in bed trying to sleep. This is extremely helpful. Thank you!
@BigGyro09 yes! i really hope it’ll help you! good luck and Merry Christmas!
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