Sometimes it’s hard for people to shut off their minds when they go to bed. These are called intrusive thoughts. When people try to stop the flow of thoughts and it doesn’t work, they can get frustrated or feel anxious. This can make it even harder to fall asleep.

If your thoughts are predictable, like reviewing events from that day or planning for tomorrow, try a technique called putting the day to rest. If your thoughts jump from topic to topic, articulatory suppression may help.

If thoughts and worries make it hard to wind down, try a strategy called putting the day to rest:

1. At about 7 p.m. every evening, sit down with a pen and notebook for about 20 minutes.
2. Think about what happened that day. Make notes about upsetting or stressful events. Write down your feelings and how you might have done things differently if you had the chance, and make a plan to address these things in the future.
3. Write down tasks that you didn’t get done and make a plan to finish these tasks tomorrow.
4. When you’re done, close the notebook.
5. Put a piece of paper beside your bed. Write down any new thoughts that come up during the night and tell yourself you’ll deal with them tomorrow. Add the piece of paper to your notebook in the morning.

Close your eyes and mentally repeat the word “the” 1 to 2 times per second.

Do this for 5 minutes or until you fall asleep.

If you’re thinking of decreasing or stopping caffeine, don’t do so all at once because you might end up with a caffeine withdrawal headache. Instead, find out how much daily coffee, tea, or cola you drink in total and then slowly decrease it by 150 mL (about 5 ounces) every 3 to 5 days.

Talk to your healthcare provider about reducing medicines that contain caffeine.

Regular daytime aerobic exercise is often suggested as a sleep strategy. However, some people find that aerobic exercise can trigger or worsen their migraines. These general strategies may help you better tolerate aerobic exercise:

• Start with short, low-intensity sessions. Slowly build up the session length and intensity over time.
• Start each session with a long, gentle warm up and end it with a long, gentle cool down.
• Monitor your pulse to make sure your exercise doesn’t put you into a heart rate zone that has previously triggered headaches.
• Drink water before, during, and after exercise.
• If your choice of aerobic exercise involves stationary or repetitive neck positions (like road biking or swimming) and seems to impact your headaches, try adapting the activity. For example, try an upright bike or a different swimming stroke. If your activity involves inverted (upside down) positions and worsens your headaches, make sure to also adapt it.
• Speak with your doctor or exercise specialist for more information and guidance.

Sometimes we don’t have a choice and must use our computer, tablet, or cell phone close to bedtime to complete a task. We know this isn’t ideal because nighttime blue light exposure can reduce melatonin and impact sleep. To try to reduce the impact of blue light on your melatonin levels, consider the following strategies:

• Dim the display.
• Try to limit the amount of time you use the device.
• Use specially designed tools to decrease the blue light:
  • software like f.lux and other similar programs
  • built-in light filters, like Night Shift on Macs or Night Light on PCs
  • dark mode on cell phones, computers, and tablets
  • screen readers or dictation mode to minimize the amount of time you have to look at the display

Researchers have had mixed results when studying how sleep is affected by blue light glasses during evening electronics use. Some studies have found that sleep improves while others have not. If you decide to try blue light blocking glasses, choose a pair that blocks high levels of blue light. Do your homework. Not all blue light glasses are equal. Some blue light glasses block more blue light than prescription glasses with a blue light protective tint. Ask your eye care provider for more advice about this rapidly advancing area.

People who sleep together can wake each other up at night. To prevent this from happening:

• Wear earplugs.
• Go to bed at different times.
• Put a foam mattress pad under the person who is restless.
• Put a silent (vibrating) alarm clock in the pillowcase of the person who has to wake up earlier.
• Have pets sleep in their own beds.

There are different types of shiftwork, including rotating shifts and permanent evening or night shifts. There are many strategies to cope with shiftwork. Some general strategies are listed below. Ask your healthcare provider for recommendations specific to you and your situation.

• Discuss with your doctor if a no-shiftwork accommodation is right for you.
• Eat 3 evenly spaced meals over the day. Eat healthy foods and avoid fast foods.

• Ask if your employer can rotate your shifts clockwise, like moving from day shift to evening shift to night shift to day shift. Your body can adjust more easily to this arrangement than to a counterclockwise rotating schedule.
• Avoid shifts that rotate in a disorganized fashion. Try to work shifts that change every 2 to 3 days. Your body can adjust more easily to this than to shifts that rotate every 5 to 7 days.
• Proactively adjust your sleep schedule leading up to a shift change. For example, an evening shift worker planning to rotate to a night shift should delay bedtime and rising times by 1 to 2 hours on the last few days of the evening shift. This will make the transition to the new shift easier.

• Nap at home before driving to work. Several researchers have found that home-based (“prophylactic”) naps helped night shift workers feel more alert at work. In these studies, the length of the nap ranged from 1.5 to 3 hours and the timing of the naps were different too (including 2 to 5 p.m., 3:30 to 5 p.m., and 7:30 to 10 p.m.).
• Nap at work for about 20 minutes on one of your breaks. Consider having caffeine just before your nap. It sounds illogical, but some researchers have found that having caffeine before a night-shift nap reduces post-nap grogginess and boosts alertness when work continues.
• Nap at work after your shift ends and before driving home to increase alertness and safety on the road.
• Have a serving of caffeine at the beginning of your shift.
• Keep the same schedule every day, even on days off.
• Wear dark glasses on the commute home.
• Use blackout blinds in your bedroom.​
  ​
  ​