Buffer Zone
How to create a buffer zone effectively:
A ‘buffer zone’ is a period of unwinding time before going to bed. This should help sleep to happen more naturally as we allow ourselves to calm down from the day we've had.
Your buffer zone activities should be something that you would enjoy doing anyway!
Do not force yourself to do something that does not bring you joy.
For example: if you don’t find reading enjoyable or relaxing, then do not pick your buffer time as the point in your life that you choose to take up reading.
Ideally, your buffer activities should not be activating or stimulating, but they should still be enjoyable.
Screen time/gaming before bed is off limits because engaging in these activities can be stressful.
Watching TV is a compromise on this - it is better than using social media or gaming but the TV show should be one that is not going to cause you anxiety or stress.
Possible activities: playing with your pet; podcasts; listening to music; colouring in; crafts; audiobooks; reading books.
These are typically de-arousing activities that are ideal for promoting sleep and should help to reduce the amount of time spent in bed not sleeping.
Ideally, your buffer zone should last between 1 and 2 hours (anything less than 1 hour is not helpful as you will not have had enough time to relax and benefit from the buffer time).
This buffer time should happen 1 to 2 hours before you plan on going to bed.
It is helpful to work out a schedule of when you plan to go to sleep every night as this means that you can pre-plan when your buffer time will happen.
In summary:
Schedule your evening - when do you plan to sleep? This will help you work out when your buffer zone should happen.
Choose an enjoyable activity - but avoid anything that could be potentially stressful.
Your buffer zone should be no less than 1 hour and no more than 2.
Scheduled 'Worry Time'
If we are poor sleepers, we are likely to be worrying in bed about life and about not sleeping because at night, there is nothing to distract us from these thoughts and then we catastrophise any and all issues.
Key thing to remember:
It is ok to worry about things - whether that is life problems in general or worrying about not being able to sleep.
It is not helpful to say ‘don’t worry’. Instead, say to yourself: ‘I know I am going to be worrying about x, y and z, so I am going to schedule time into my day or evening to worry.’
This means that you are in control of what you worry about and when this happens.
Key points for making your worry time successful:
Your scheduled worry time should be earlier than the buffer zone.
Worry time should ideally happen at the same time every day.
It should be between half an hour and an hour long (this depends on how long it takes you to resolve any worthwhile worries)
An easy way to do this is to have a ‘worry journal’ (a small notebook is ideal).
You should ideally keep this and a pen with you at all times (using your phone notes page could be a good alternative if you can’t carry a notebook)
During your day/evening or when lying in bed, write down any worries that pop into your head.
The action of writing the worry down is cathartic. It gets it out of your head and onto something more concrete (as sometimes worries can be focused around potentially forgetting something).
The act of writing worries down, with some time and practise, should allow you to forget about the worry during the day or when trying to get to sleep because you know that: 1. It is written somewhere so you can’t forget about it and 2. You know that you have scheduled time in your day to spend time worrying about it.
Set aside half an hour to an hour of your day to worry time.
Get your list of worries out in front of you.
Go through each of your worries and think about it/write something about it: why is it there? Where has it come from? Why is it worrying you? What can I do about this worry? Can I control this? Can I write down a solution to this worry? Who can I speak to, to help me deal with this worry?
If, after this process, you decide that the worry can’t be controlled, for example, a fear of dying, ask yourself: why am I having this worry? Where is it coming from? Is something triggering it?
Prioritise your worries.
What worries are not valid? Which ones can I immediately decide are not worth worrying about?
What is the number one worry that you need to deal with?
What steps are you going to take to control this worry and deal with it?
Make a plan to deal with it.
Do this same process with any worries that you decide do need attention urgently.
Why is scheduling your worry time effective?
Worries often feel worse at night than they do during the day. Everything feels worse at night in the dark. We have an abundance of time at night to spend thinking and overthinking about things.
However, it is important that we make sure we write down any worries we have, especially at night. This is because, in the light of day, we may actually realise that the thing that kept us up last night was not worth it.
Scheduled worry time works well because it may be that when you get to your notes during worry time and see what you were worrying about at night, you may decide that the worry is not actually valid and doesn’t need to be worried about. This may help to diffuse the worry from coming back again.
It may be helpful to write a note beside any worry that, in the light of day, you have decided isn’t worth worrying about. This is because it means you have a clear note that you can return to if the worry creeps back in - it acts as a reminder that you previously came to the conclusion that it doesn’t need to be worried about and you can hopefully clear it from your head.
In summary:
Get yourself a worry journal or use your notes app in your mobile phone
Keep it with you and write down all worries you have (no matter how big or small). This can happen during your day/evening or while trying to get to sleep.
Identify what is and is not within your control. Think about the worries you have written down/write down notes about each worry to help you process them.
Prioritise your worries - what is not worth worrying about? What is the most important worry on my list?
Make a plan to deal with any important worries.
Thought Blocking
Thought blocking is a technique used to interrupt negative recurring thoughts that can run through our minds.
This technique works well at night but can also be used during the day if you struggle with intrusive thoughts.
This is usually done in unison with worry time - particularly if you complete worry time but still have negative thoughts.
This process does work better for trivial or nonsense thoughts. Worry time should be used for real-life important worries.
However, thought blocking can help you to stop fixating on worries that you cannot control or worries that keep running through your head during the day/at night.
If you are fixated on a word (how it looks and saying it in your mind), you cannot be thinking about any worries you may have.
Dark thoughts can’t creep in if you don’t let them - we are aiming to block out worrying or bad thoughts by replacing them with zero emotion thoughts.
How to Use Thought Blocking
Choose a word to focus on.
This word should ideally be a non-salient/zero emotion word. For example, ‘The’
It is important to make sure that the word is not something that you could attach emotion or a story to.
This ensures that you cannot create a story out of the word which then keeps you awake.
This is why ‘counting sheep’ often does not work for people. It is very easy to create a story (particularly a bad one) out of sheep jumping over a fence.
Visualise the word in your mind - what does it look like?
Imagine the word being said and say it to yourself every 2 seconds for 10 minutes (or as long as you need to)
Your mind might/will wander away from thinking about the word - this is ok. Make sure to go back to where you were and begin again - visualise and repeat the word.
Relaxation Methods
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
This involves tensing and relaxing different muscles in your body.
Start with toes and move all the way up to your head. This encourages the muscles to relax.
You shouldn’t be tensing too hard; just enough to feel your muscles tense.
Do this at the same time as reducing the rate of respiration/breathing.
This should last about 15 minutes.
It should be used in conjunction with a structured video/sound ideally.
The videos found below allow you to follow a structure with someone telling you what to do and when. You either listen to this with a male voice or a female voice.
You should go to bed, switch out your light and listen to the 15-minute process.
It is a useful strategy to use if you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. This process could also be used during the buffer zone period.
It should be ‘practiced’ at some point during the day/evening before going to bed. This makes sure that you know what is coming during the video, meaning that it won’t be a source of stress wondering what is coming next.
Guided Imagery
This method is partly about relaxation and partly to do with distraction.
Choose a positive image to think about: what do you hear? What do you see? What do you taste? What can you feel? Engage all of your senses.
You should choose an image that is personal to you.
The scene or image needs to be relatable. It could possibly be a previous relaxing experience.
Practise the image in your head before going to bed. Do not try and make up an image when you get into bed.
Use the image when you can't get to sleep to calm your mind.
Stimulus Control Therapy
The aim of Stimulus Control Therapy is to work at reassociating our beds/bedrooms with sleepiness rather than feeling awake.
Therefore, our goal when aiming for good sleep is to create a strong ‘bed = sleep’ connection.
Our ‘bed = sleep’ connection gets disrupted when we begin to introduce things into our bedrooms that are not conducive to sleep. For example, having things like TVs, games consoles and desks/laptops in bedrooms.
However, this does not necessarily mean that everyone needs to remove these things from their bedrooms.
A good sleeper can have all of these things in their room and have no issues with sleep. This is because they haven’t learned to have a negative relationship with sleep.
However, if through a process of working through the sleep hygiene information you have worked out that technology could have a role in your struggles with sleep, it might be a good idea to clear these things out of your bedroom.
In order to start building up a strong ‘bed = sleep’ connection, we need to address how efficient our sleep actually is.
Complete a sleep diary for a week. This diary should include an estimated daily record of: how long you spent asleep and how long you have spent in bed (roughly how long it took to get to sleep). Sleep efficiency is calculated from this.
Your sleep efficiency should be as close to 100% as possible. A good sleep efficiency is between 80% and 90%. For poor sleepers, sleep efficiency could be anywhere between 50% to 60%.
To calculate: average number of hours slept across the week divided by the average number of hours in bed across the week, multiplied by 100 for a percentage.
Stimulus Control Therapy is completed using the steps below:
Your bed and bedroom should only be used for sleep.
What do you currently do in your bedroom environment that could be done elsewhere? For example, studying/watching TV/playing games consoles?
If it is possible to move these activities to another room in your house, try to implement this.
Work out what you feel like when you feel ‘sleepy-tired’.
Listen to your body; if you feel sleepy-tired earlier than your normal bed time, go to bed earlier. Your body knows best what it needs.
You should only go to bed when you feel sleepy-tired. You need to be sure that you know that you feel sleepy-tired before getting into bed.
This is important because it doesn’t matter what technique you implement - if you don’t feel sleepy-tired, you will not be able to sleep.
Going to bed when you aren't feeling sleepy could lead to you thinking you have an issue with sleep, when in reality, you just aren’t tired.
Ways to become in-tune with the sleepy-tired feeling: Listen to your body. You should start to feel lethargic and your eyes should feel heavy. Some people find it hard to concentrate on things (even TV or phone scrolling). Your body is good at letting you know when it needs to sleep - trust what it is telling you.
What do I do if I am trying to sleep but can’t fall asleep?
If you're not asleep after 15-minutes of trying - get out of bed and move room from the one you are sleeping in.
Stay in this different room until you feel sleepy-tired.
When you feel sleepy, return to bed.
If this doesn’t work and you are still awake within 15/30 minutes, get back up and try the process again until you eventually fall asleep.
Persist with this process for at least two weeks before you decide it doesn’t work.
Success with Stimulus Control comes from: knowing what sleepiness feels like and preparing to be awake.
Where are you going to go in your house if you can’t sleep? If you can’t leave the room - choose another part of the room you sleep in to spend time away from your bed.
What are you going to do while you are away from your bed? Relaxation techniques and buffer zone activities are good choices. You should be avoiding anything that is stimulating or arousing.
This process can also be preventative – it can stop problems with sleep occurring in the first place.
Don’t be strict with the 15-minute rule – it’s about making sure that we don’t develop an association with being in bed and being awake.
We want an association that is ‘when I am in bed, I am asleep’.
Don’t force your child to go to bed too early. Remember that teenagers have a delayed body clock so 10pm to adults is probably much earlier for teenagers.
Forcing someone to go to bed too early (before they feel sleepy) can end up resulting in you creating a negative association between being in bed and not sleeping. You could be doing more harm than good.
However, you should only allow this process of staying away from bed until feeling tired if the teenager is not sitting up playing games and on their phones. They should only be engaging in relaxation techniques or buffer zone activities.