Want to stop Doomscrolling? You may need a sleep coach

Margaret Thatcher, who He was known to sleep only four hours a night, and is often credited with saying “Sleep is for cowards!” But sleep is actually work. Putting down the phone, putting aside personal or political concerns, all require discipline. True relaxation requires practice.

Sleep trainers are mainly used to treat newborn babies (and their exhausted parents). But recently, as Worrying about sleep As infection rates rise, adults find they need help with their habits, too. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 57 percent of Americans believe they would feel better with more sleep, compared to just 43 percent in 2013. Only about a quarter of those surveyed reported getting the typically recommended eight or more hours per night — down from 34 percent 10 years ago.

Sleep specialists embrace the opportunity to help adults achieve their dream of waking up rested. WIRED spoke with one sleep consultant who, after years of working with children, has tapped into this underserved population. She says it’s entirely possible to change daytime and nighttime habits to improve quality sleep. Why don’t you start tonight?

Usually, an adult One of two things comes to me: First, a major life event — work stress, having a child, loss of a parent, the end of a relationship — destabilizes their system. Sleep is always the first thing to go. The second is that they have a chronic pattern. There are people who actually struggle with sleep since childhood, and then sleep becomes part of the way they see themselves. They tried everything, and then they said, “I’m an insomniac.”

Either way, they are exhausted. I always laugh, because when I’m trapped at a dinner party, it’s like, “Oh, I have a quick question. I haven’t slept through the night in 19 years.”

I have been a sleep consultant for over 20 years. I started my baby sleep practice after earning my master’s degree in clinical psychology. I was working with a lot of parents, and I actually started to notice a common problem: Their children’s sleep problems were literally pushing them to the brink of divorce.

Even when I got their babies to sleep well, the parents were still struggling with old habits from long before their babies arrived. That’s when I realized I needed to help adults too.

There are two camps: difficulty falling asleep or difficulty waking up at night, or both. That’s my job: to unravel the mystery that keeps a person up at night. Some of the most difficult cases are people who come to focus only on their nighttime habits and do not disclose things that happen during the day.

One of my clients had trouble sleeping through the night for years. We realized that they consume most of their calories at night, and none during the day. So they kept waking up to eat, completely throwing their diet out of whack.

Another client, a woman who exercises all the time and drinks 200 ounces of water a day, never made the connection that she was getting up to pee literally every hour. We had to reduce the amount of water she drank and make her stop drinking at a certain hour.

Sometimes people actually stop working. I think of a mother who says, “I forgot to buckle my child’s seatbelt in my car.” “I put my keys in the refrigerator.”

I start with the basics. Of course, we care about sleep hygiene, but that’s all you can Google: get blackout shades, get a sleep sanctuary. Most people think they have a good environment, but their habits or environment work against them. This is where training helps, because I can spot what they are missing.

People have these stories they tell themselves, like, “If I sleep, it means I’m not working hard enough” or “I’m young and I don’t need much sleep.” What new story can you tell yourself about sleep? From there, I use a lot of journaling, CBT techniques, mindfulness work, and breath work.