Brain
Soothing Solutions: 5 Techniques To Sleep Better And Stress Less
by Cassie Kalbah
We can go for days without Wi-Fi, but one rough night of sleep? That can turn a normal person into a cranky couch creature. The next day usually comes with too much coffee, a short fuse, and a “don’t talk to me” energy. So, let’s talk about five simple, research-backed ways to quiet the nervous system, sleep better, and make mornings a little less awful.
sleep better
1. Find Your Off Switch with a Guided Trance
Hypnotherapy used to get a bad rap, but studies now show real changes in brain activity linked to stress and pain relief. If breathing apps just make you roll your eyes, try booking a session with a qualified hypnotherapist for insomnia. They’ll guide you into a calm, focused state so your brain learns new signals for sleep. People often notice fewer 3 a.m. ceiling-fan staring contests and lower stress hormones. It’s a different kind of reset. Less tossing, more dozing.
2. Protect That Last Hour Before Bed
Bright screens trick your brain into thinking it’s morning. That blue light slows melatonin production, so Netflix’s “Still watching?” starts to feel like a taunt. Give yourself a tech cut-off about an hour before bed. Dim the lights. Read something on actual paper. Stretch, write a few things you need to do tomorrow, and then close that notebook for good. If your phone keeps tempting you, leave it in another room. At first, you’ll feel twitchy without it, but eventually it’s pretty freeing knowing it can’t bother you from the hallway.
3. Breathe Your Brain to Sleep
Box breathing is simple and weirdly effective: inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, pause for four. Keep repeating until your eyelids get heavy. This kind of slow rhythm tells your nervous system to chill out. Sometimes it helps to think of something random, like “parking meter”, so you’re not planning grocery lists in your head. After a week, you might even notice fewer headaches and a bit more mental space.
4. Cool Down Your Cave
Your body’s temperature naturally drops at night, and a cool room helps with that. Most people sleep best somewhere between 60–67°F. Experiment with lighter pajamas, different sheets, and maybe a fan until your bed feels pleasantly cool instead of stuffy. Sharing with a partner who likes it hot? Try a dual-zone blanket so you’re not battling over thermostat rights at 2 a.m.
5. Put Worry in Its Place
Lying awake, stressing is pointless. Instead, schedule a 15-minute “worry time” during the day. Write down everything that’s bugging you, list possible fixes, then close the book. Your brain will get the message that those thoughts have a home. And it’s not your pillow! In one study, people who wrote their next day’s to-dos before bed fell asleep faster than those who just reviewed what they’d already done.
Sleep isn’t something you can force, but you can set the stage for it. Try a couple of these ideas together, and you might notice mornings start feeling less like survival mode and more like… well, mornings.
