First Quarter Moon: The Sleep Post

Our story of bedtime and resources for better sleep.

Photo from March, 2024, Silverwood Park in Minneapolis, where there was a nesting great horned owl pair and a kind photographer. Credit to generous stranger. Thanks to Jessica, who is also generous.

Josh and I met in the early 90s at the Minneapolis Crisis Nursery providing direct care to children zero to 6 years old. That included waking, feeding, bathing, dressing, wellness checks, administering meds, comforting, and perhaps requiring the most skills of all, getting the kids to sleep. We both had experience working with kids before that, but because of the acute nature of families experiencing crisis and the around-the-clock kind of care involved, this experience was foundational to our parenting experience.

Josh prided himself on teaching 6 year olds to ride a bike while they visited and getting the most challenging to sleep. There was the whole routine, the winding down, the getting pajamas and teeth brushed, story time, and the process of lights out and sleep, all in a strange place. Generally, the daytime was filled with exciting new activities, other kids, learning things by playing and then by the time you are back in the sleeping room, everything slows down and you are tired.

But there were always the excited kids, or resistant, or homesick, or overtired, all unable to wind down. With experience you develop the skill of firmness and learn the benefits of being boring, and learn it’s all about cultivating a certain attitude. “It’s okay if you can’t sleep, just stay in your bed and rest your body. I will be right here reading this philosophy book. Would you like if I read it out loud?” And if you are lucky, the kid is quickly lulled to sleep by your calm, monotone presence. And sometimes it takes longer than you like, but it’s worth it because you are developing a routine.

By the time our kids were little, Josh had developed the “sleep story.” Originating from the idea of induction scripts he learned at a hypnosis training for therapists he took, the stories involved setting a scene, often from the kids’ suggestion, and setting the expectation and then walking the kids down the steps into sleep. By the time the countdown reached 1, our children would be in dreamland. It seems that sleep stories are a thing out there in the world, but I had always thought he created the term. (I did not verify if the sleep stories that I unearthed in my google search followed the same induction script model.)

In the 2000s that the phrase “sleep hygiene” came into our sleep education, the idea of keeping your sleep space and time “clean.” The word hygiene implying there are practices and routines and structures that support sleep. Sleep hygiene includes then the whole process, the timeline, your space where you sleep, choosing what you include in that time and space, and also what you leave out. And doing it on purpose.

Developing a sleep routine is a process and where you are starting from really matters. At the Nursery, with the kids, they were only there for 3 days. This came with its benefits and disadvantages. Because sleep is so dependent on its routines and signals, we could intentionally develop these things from scratch. The kids may have trouble sleeping at home, but this was an all new environment and we could set up new cues and reinforcements how we wanted. The kids were coming from situations of crisis where there were bound to be conditions that made it difficult to sleep. On the other hand, change is always a big disrupter of sleep. Here they are in a new bed, in a new space, with new people, and sounds. There was stress at home and if they have separation anxiety there is stress here as well. We did the best to do the things that were known to work and helped kids find their way to sleep, and each individual kid had their own responses.

We carried this knowledge into our parenting life, establishing best practices and routines around bedtimes and invested time into establishing sleep hygiene for all of us. Now our kids have grown and do it for themselves. And we have new routines around sleep that don’t involve helping others. Not to say that, we don’t have problems that arise. Despite all this knowledge and practice, disruptions in our sleep happen now and again, and we have to reestablish what works and let go of the things that are getting in the way. That is the nature of practice.

There seems to be an epidemic of insomnia in our modern world. And when you look around there is a lot of advice about what should be included in your sleep routine and what shouldn’t. There are a lot of myths out there (like everyone needs a full 8 hours of sleep and you should worry if you don’t get it) and there is plenty of unhelpful advice. How do you make sense of it all?

My answer to this is my answer to everything:

Devise your own exploration of what should be included in your routine and what to leave out and adjust accordingly.

Some people swear by Yoga Nidra and other meditations to induce sleep, but I find if I do meditations at bedtime, it wakes me up. I am energized by mindfulness of the body and it can keep me awake for hours afterwards. Josh on the other hand can fall asleep to anything. If we are out at friends at he expires like a pumpkin carriage and we find ourselves exiting post haste before I will be required to carry a sleeping Josh home. The sounds of television, audio book, or meditation alike lulls him down to sleep when he is tired, perhaps from years of relaxing that way, it happens like clockwork. He is conditioned to fall asleep with these things. Unlike him, I can’t help but be actively engaged when I consume media with my ears and my eyes, even when I don’t want to. I can never fall asleep with the tv on.

To each their own.

So experimentation counts, finding what works and encouraging more of that, while noticing what disrupts and banishing it from your sleep time and place.

And the attitude you cultivate in bed is important.

Bring in appreciation for the rest you are getting even when you are not sleeping. Know that lying in your safe, warm space for sleep is rejuvenating in itself. Welcoming in gratitude is part of a restorative practice. If you slip into worry, frustration, or restlessness, do your best to remember that sleep hygiene says that doesn’t belong in the time or space and play with ways to let it go. Or move and do it elsewhere.

When I have trouble sleeping, I sit up in bed and do a breath practice called Nadi Shodana, or alternate nostril breathing. But it took me awhile to find it.

Here is the podcast where I teach that breath.

Reading, changing location, self-massage, walking outside, writing in my journal, forward-folds are just a few of the things that I attempted before discovering this breath works the best.

And thankfully it is easiest of all to do. It doesn’t require moving out of bed. Or any special equipment. It’s quiet so it doesn’t bother Josh next to me (although he is a special case as I have said above, so perhaps he’s conditioned to sleep through my antics). I don’t time it. I just sit up in bed and do it for longer than I want to. Which is probably 5 minutes or so. I sit up to make sure I am opening up all my breathing passageways, and afterwards, when I lie back down, it’s a welcome relief. And I am cultivating that attitude in bed. And so far, now that I’ve found it, the breath always works. After lying my head down, I am asleep without a second thought.

Nadi Shodana is a balancing practice and involves using your fingers to close one side of your nose, to force the breath through the other and continuing by switching back and forth.

Here is how you do it:

With your right hand, your thumb closes your right nostril while you breathe in through the left. Holding your breath at the top. Then switch nostrils. Close the left nostril with your right ring finger (pointer and middle finger are folded down towards your palm) and exhale all your air from your right nostril. Keep your finger there while you inhale. At the top switch again. Thumb comes back to right nostril and exhale through the left. Continue in that pattern for 5 or so minutes. You can estimate about 10 full rounds (exhale and inhale) of breath per minute once you get the rhythm down.

It’s awkward at first. Sometimes one nostril feels plugged or restricted and that is natural, as our nostrils switch in dominance all day long. Be gentle and allow yourself time to explore and see what works for you. And that in itself is the medicine. It takes time to remember the order of what you are doing and fall into the rhythm. And then when you do, there is a kind of rocking motion with this breath.

If you are patient and generous with yourself while you get the rhythm of it, that is medicine too.

This breath works for a few reasons. Everyday our bodies alternate which nostril is dominant every few hours and the breath accelerates this nasal cycle and brings us to a more balanced state between nostrils. This cleanses our sinuses with attention and breath. The hold on the in breath is naturally calming while the slow controlled exhale slows the beats of your heart. It aids in the production of nasal nintrous oxide that is good for your heart and veins. Also, the switching nostrils and using your hand to help the process provides bilateral stimulation of your brain, as in other modalities like EMDR and tapping, crossing sides of the body is believed to help in processing. So it’s rhythmic and comforting like a rocking chair putting you right to sleep.

Let me know what you have tried and where you are in establishing your own personal sleep hygiene.

Here are some other resources for your perusal:

I linked this lion’s roar article about what to do when you can’t sleep before in this link post, but thought I’d put it in here again. It is essentially different ways to meditate in bed. I have some podcasts that offer that as well. Some people love Yoga Nidra at bedtime, which is a meditation which leads your awareness in a pattern through your body. Here is a recording I made for you to listen to. Also Shavasana Meditation.

We love Wirecutter for their in depth comparisons of products and in its infinite wisdom it has done a lot of work around sleep. How to choose a mattress. How to sleep better. How to re-train your sleep position. If you want to see what they say, they go deep.

Finally, here are some really good podcasts from 10% Happier. This one is with Diane Macedo who wrote The Sleep Fix, which like the books byline, I found her to be super practical and pragmatic. I really liked her response when Dan asked about reading at night. It’s all about attitude in your bed, keep it positive, comfortable and relaxing. And this one with Donn Posner is really informational too. He spends time on how normal it is to have trouble sleeping and answers lots of questions about when to really worry about it and when not to. He also really normalizes sleep differences.

Also Huberman on sleep hygiene.

Next owl post (first quarter moon) will be an extension of this sleep post leading us into the world of dreams.