It was so much fun kicking off Season 2 with this week’s guest!

Kelly Murray, an adult sleep consultant, joined me for a chat on all things good sleep. And she really delivered! She had two tips in particular that I had never heard of before that she swears work like a charm. Read on!

An Adult Sleep Expert’s Tips to Finally Get Good Sleep (and Stay Asleep)

Build a Routine, and Make Sure a Bath (or Shower) is Part of It

Kelly stressed the importance of having a reliable routine at night so that your body gets used to preparing for sleep. And one thing she highly suggests is taking a bath or shower at night. Why? Here’s Kelly:

“What [the bath or shower] does is, your body’s going to heat up when you’re in the bath or shower, and as soon as you get out your body temperature is going to plummet. That plummet in body temperature tells your body that it’s nighttime. Because if you think about it, we’re supposed to be sleeping outside and what happens at night, the body temperature goes down

Melatonin, as you might know, is also known as the “sleep hormone.” When your brain feels it, your body starts to prepare for sleep.

Avoid Screen Time a Half Hour Prior to Zzz’s

And speaking of melatonin, she also suggests avoiding TV 30 minutes before sleep, because she says that can inhibit melatonin production. This is where I’ll pop in and say, I don’t think I can get rid of my nightly Netflix habit, so in the meantime I just make a point to wear my blue light-blocking glasses while we watch!

If You Wake at Night, Try Tapping (or Leaving the Bed!)

One technique I hadn’t heard of to address bad sleep is tapping.

Kelly made sure to mention she isn’t an expert in this, but she does sometimes suggest checking it out to clients who are having a hard time falling back to sleep.

It’s called the Emotional Freedom Technique. Kelly says, “We have like electrical currents running through our bodies, and they start to absorb negative emotions. And you need to release those emotions and rewire those circuits.”

I don’t want to offer a How-To here, since I’m not an expert either, but it’s definitely worth some research!

One other thing Kelly mentioned for you Middle-of-the-Night-Wakers that surprised me was to actually get up and out of bed when you find yourself unable to fall back to sleep.

She says if you’re up for more than 10-15 minutes in bed, awake, in the middle of the night, your mind will start to associate your bed with wakefulness; so the best thing to do is to get comfortable somewhere outside your bed.

Here’s what Kelly says, “Either find like a little place in your bedroom where you can sit or go into another room, keep the lights very dim, if you have blue blocker glasses throw those on, and then do something either mundane or relaxing, like read your Kindle, until you feel really really sleepy again, and then jump back into bed.

You don’t want to go back into your bed until you actually feel tired. Because if you’re not tired, when you jump in bed, you’re going to have a hard time sleeping, you’re going to stress out even more.”

This might sound counterintuitive—you know, actually getting out of bed when all you want to do is be sleeping in it, but Kelly says it works!

“I have a hard time convincing clients to do this, but it works. They may not fall asleep faster when they initially start doing this. But what happens is over time, they reprogram their brain. Their brain no longer looks at it as it’s normal to be awake, stressing out in bed, they the brain associates the bed with only sleep.”

There you have it! Three Simple Ways to Get Better Sleep, Starting Tonight.

Make sure to check out the podcast here, or watch our interview below. See you soon!