Are you familiar with the Introduction to Self-Coaching?
Good! Then you’re ready to start using I-SSEE self-coaching to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep! (If not, it will help if you familiarize yourself with self-coaching by reading the introduction before starting on self-coaching for sleep.)
Below, you can scroll through the 5 steps of the I-SSEE method of self-coaching for sleep!
- I–Identify your overall goals, your most powerful motivations for change, your strengths & resources, your starting line, and your readiness for change
- S–Seek reliable information
- S–Set SMART goals
- E–Experiment with strategies
- E–Evaluate strategies and revise as needed
Step 1: I-Identify
Identify your overall goals
In the Introduction to Self-Coaching, you identified overall goals for your health.
Do you want to add an overall goal related to sleep? Eg: I want to get the sleep I need to be alert and feel refreshed during the day
Identify what makes you reluctant to change
- Perhaps you really enjoy the time before bed when you can surf the internet. You know you can get sucked in, but you’re worried about losing an activity you enjoy.
- Perhaps the only way to get enough sleep is to go to bed earlier and yet you tend to be a night owl and really enjoy the later hours of the day.
- Maybe you suspect you have sleep apnea, but are worried about what a sleep study would involve or don’t want to use a device.
Be honest with yourself and write down the reasons you may be reluctant to change. But be sure to go to the next step.
Identify your most powerful motivations for change
Using the techniques from Introduction to Self-coaching, take some time to discover your most powerful motivations for changing your sleeping pattern. How does your overall goal for sleep fit into other goals for health? Were there benefits of sleep that particularly motivate you?
Identify your strengths and resources
Which of your strengths do you think might be most useful in resetting your sleeping patterns to renew your health? Can you think of ways that you might apply past success to making change to your sleep?
What resources are available to you? Do you have a way to get sunlight first thing in the morning? Do you have the financial resources to get items you might need to create an optimal sleeping environment? How can you activate your support network? Do you know where to get a referral to a sleep specialist if needed?
Identify where you are now
You might keep a sleep diary to help pinpoint your current sleeping patterns. That can serve as a baseline. And if you’ve made an appointment with a sleep specialist, it will be valuable data.
Identify your readiness to change
Which number best reflects your readiness to change your sleeping patterns?
_________________________________________________________________
0 1 2 3 4 5
Not at all ready I am totally ready
- Using the same scale: How ready are you to at least start to think about changing so that you can reach the goals you have?
- How ready are you to take a baby step or two toward changing so that you can reach the goals you have?
- How ready are you to make at least one significant change in order to reach the goals you have?
Remember: You don’t have to stay where you are in terms of readiness. You can nudge yourself forward:
Often our reluctance to change is because there are things we like about our current habits that we don’t want to let go of.
- Spend some time thinking about your deepest motivations for change such as envisioning what your life would be like if you were in a good mood and had the energy and focus you needed each day. Compared to the things you are reluctant to change, which do you want most deeply?
- Might you be willing to take a step toward better sleep that doesn’t directly involve the thing you are most reluctant to let go of?
- Or would you be willing to make a compromise?
Example:
You really love surfing the internet or playing a video game before bed. You might try strategies such as:
- Develop other habits that don’t directly challenge the behavior you don’t want to give up, but that might help your sleep: Commit to exposing yourself to natural light as soon as you wake and/or to a 10 min. walk each day for a week.
- Compromises: Purchase a pair of blue light-filtering glasses and wearing them while you engage with your electronics. Or flip your schedule: Surf the internet right after dinner. Do the dishes right before bed.
Step 2: S-Seek reliable information
Have you read Sleep Foundations ?
Sleep Foundations covers a knowledge base that you likely need to select the SMART goals & strategies most likely to help you succeed.
The posts on this website are for informational educational purposes and are not intended to replace needed consulation with your health care providers or medical advice. Links to the sources are provided to make it easier for readers to seek additional information at the source. By using this site, readers are assuming responsibility for how they use the information provided.
Sources used in the Sleep section are from the National Institute of Health, The National Sleep Foundation, Meir Kryger, MD (professor at Yale, author of medical textbooks on sleep, credited with over 200 research articles related to sleep), and the journal Sleep.
Opinion: I decided not to use material from another researcher who is a popular speaker on sleep because he didn’t cite sources for a good deal of the information he was presenting in his lectures. When I tried to double check his facts, I found some claims went further than current research and tended to arouse fear which I think can paralyze efforts at change.
Step 3: S- Set SMART goals
A SMART goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound
Pro Tip:
The recommendations for preparing your sleeping space and for creating routines for wake-up, daytime, and bedtime are easily converted into SMART goals.
Examples:
- Within 10 minutes of waking up, I will either go outside or sit by a window for at least 5 minutes to expose myself to natural light to reset my circadian rhythm for 5/7 days this week.
- I will turn off electronics an hour before bedtime 5/7 days this week.
- I will go to bed (turn out the lights and stop engaging in activities) 15 min earlier 6/7 days this week.
- I will go to bed on Friday and Saturday nights at the same time as I do Sun-Thur nights.
- I will get up on Saturday and Sunday at the same time I get up Mon-Fri.
- I will think about what a relaxing bedtime routine would be for me and write down the steps by Tuesday.
Step 4: E-Experiment with strategies
Strategies can involve:
- Strengthening your motivation
- Cueing yourself to do the new habit
- Overcoming obstacles
- Increasing the reward of the new behavior
- Recording/ Tracking your behavior
Remember: You will often need to bundle strategies to get the change you want
Examples of strategies for improving sleep:
Strengthening motivation
Put a visual reminder (even something as simple as one word on a sticky note) of your most powerful reasons to change your behavior near your sleeping area OR near whatever might distract you from sleeping (smartphone, laptop, etc.)
Cueing
Cueing is especially important in your nighttime routine. Most of the elements that are recommended for inclusion in the nighttime routine have a dual function: 1) they directly nudge your body toward sleep (dimming the lights signals your internal circadian rhythm; a warm shower is relaxing and lowers your body temperature,etc.) and 2) they serve as powerful cues to your brain that sleep time is coming.
Recall the famous experiment with Pavlov’s dogs. Dogs naturally begin to drool when they see & smell food. Pavlof rang a bell each time the food was presented for a period of time, so the sound of the bell and the sight and smell of the food were paired up. Eventually, he could ring the bell without the food present and the dogs would drool. The dogs had come to associate the bell with the food. It served as a cue. When certain things happen consistently right before you go to sleep, your brain will eventually associate those things with the act of falling asleep and when the cues appear, it will signal the brain to move toward sleep.
If you establish a predictable bedtime routine, each aspect of the routine will serve to cue your body that it’s almost time for sleep and it will respond accordingly.
Other examples of cues you might use:
Set an alarm on your phone for 1 hour before your target bedtime to turn off electronics and begin your nighttime routine.
Set an alarm on your phone to indicate the cut off for caffeine for the day.
Overcoming obstacles
Think about what you currently do that might delay bedtime. Perhaps you intend to go to bed on time, but then hear the notification that you’ve received an email which leads to an unanticipated 20 minutes answering emails. Or perhaps as soon as you lie down, you begin to think of all the things you have to do tomorrow and your mind won’t quit.
Create a separation in time between your strategy and the obstacle. In other words, take proactive measures. Actions that are taken a a time separate from the actual obstacle serve two purposes: They not only help overcome the obstacle, but they serve as a cue to your brain and body:
- Make turning off notifications on your phone part of your bedtime routine. Earlier in the routine will probably be more effective. (You’ll need to add turning them back on to your morning routine somewhere!)
- Select what you are going to read or listen to well earlier in the day so the decision-making doesn’t delay bedtime.
- Early in your bedtime routine, write down your to-do list for tomorrow so your brain doesn’t suddenly decide it needs to complete that task as you lie down to sleep.
Anticipate potential obstacles and create a plan:
- Keep tomorrow’s to-do list by the bed with a pencil in case you do think of something at the last minute. Writing it down takes a few seconds; otherwise your brain can expend a lot more energy trying to ensure it will remember it.
- Remove temptation: Leave your laptop, tablet, etc. outside your room. If you want your smart phone in the room with you for emergency notifications or phone calls, leave it across the room so that you can’t absent-mindedly pick it up and start scrolling.
- Have a plan for quieting your thoughts if you are prone to anxiety or ruminating. Practicing a specific breathing pattern such as 4-7-8 breathing (link) or box /square breathing can be helpful. Listening to something that is interesting enough to distract you from your anxious thoughts, but not too stimulating can also be very effective–as can a combination of the two.
Increase the reward
Making your sleeping space the most comfortable, inviting environment possible will both improve your prospects of a good night’s sleep and increase the reward of getting in bed and going to sleep.
Track or record your behavior
Keep a sleep diary as part of your bedtime and wake-up routines. This will serve as feedback on how well you’re doing and if you need the help of a sleep doctor, you’ll have excellent records! Tracking also doubles as a way to get a small “pop” of reward when you’ve done something well.
Note: Many smart watches and fitness wearables have a function that gives you data on your sleep, but the data may or may not be reliable.
Step 5: E-Evaluate your strategies and revise as needed
It is really important to understand that change isn’t an automatic “success-fail” endeavor. When you utilize self-coaching, remember Edison’s approach to finding the element needed for his light bulb to work. He considered each “non-success” a step to success. He tracked his attempts, learned from them, and kept moving forward with new experiments until he got the result he was seeking.
So, too, the process of evaluation will quite frequently cycle you back to Step 4 of Experimenting with strategies (or sometimes even to Step 3 of Setting SMART goals) Experiment. Evaluate. Rinse. Repeat. until you get the outcome you’re after.
Example:
Overall goal: Get a full seven hours sleep
Where I am now: I have to get up at 7:00 to get to work, but usually stay up until 1:00 a.m.
SMART goal: I will walk back my bedtime by 15 min each night this week compared to last week. This week, I will go to bed by 12:45 a.m. each night
Strategies for the first “experiment”:
1) I will go to bed by 12:45 a.m.
2) I will follow the new bedtime routine I created 5/7 days this week: Get off computer 1 hour before bed and leave it in the living room. Take a warm shower. Use lotion for a self-massage. Do some brief stretching. Get in bed and read until target time.
Results: You did your new nighttime routine (+) and then you checked your phone “one more time”and were up for another 45 minutes.
Evaluation: The phone is an obstacle, but you want it in the bedroom in case someone calls you in an emergency.
Revise and try a new experiment:
Keep: strategies of 15 min earlier target bedtime and of bedtime routine. They worked, but need additional strategies.
Add: “Put cell phone in basket across the bedroom” at the point in the routine before you get in the shower.
Add: A reward if you do this for 7 days in a row.
Tomorrow morning: Evaluate again and revise if needed
Filling in your sleep diary is a great way to start the evaluation process!
