Building Better Sleep Habits — and Keeping Them Through the Holidays

The holidays bring joy, connection… and disruption.

Travel, late nights, and changing routines can throw your sleep completely off track.

But with a few intentional habits and environmental tweaks, you can stay rested and ready through the busiest season of the year.

Before I dive in too deep, let's first set the ground rules for what I tend to consider when thinking about "Sleep Hygiene:"

1. The Environment - light, temperature, noise, other people, pets, etc.

2. Your Behaviors - phone usage, caffeine, stress, etc.

3. Your Routine - what you do leading up to attempting to fall asleep

There's more you can look at when defining Sleep Hygiene, but these are the biggest impacts you can make.  The good news is that making a few tweaks now for the Holidays, allows you to roll them into the New Year and build on that foundation for continued benefits.

For each of these three areas, there's a range of changes that can be made not only in how much of an impact they'll have for your sleep quality, but also how large of a change you'll need to make. Both of which will vary wildly from person to person and as such I typically recommend making only one or two changes at a time, prioritizing your ease of implementation and sleep impact. So let's look at each of these areas, and toss out a couple of ideas for each as well as some idea on the commitment needed to make the change:

1. Environment

1. Try to create as dark of a room as possible, with the simplest option being to use a sleep mask.

2. A little more of a financial commitment, but might be better if masks are not comfortable, would be blackout window coverings of some sort.

3. Temperature is also a massive factor in sleep quality and covers not only the temperature of the room, but that of the bed as well. There are lots of options here ranging in price from adding fans to help cool down, setting the room temperature cooler, or even looking at the various options out there to cool (and heat) your bed itself.

2. Behaviors

1. Stress is one of the more impactful factors I've listed, but it is also complex and not always obvious. A workout (productive stress) done late in the day could have a calming impact on some, or it could produce too many endorphins such that it becomes harder to fall asleep. Couple stressful days with some items in the routine area I'll get to such that you moderate those days and mitigate the detrimental effects of an excess of stress.

2. Caffeine varies significantly not only in the magnitude of the impact but also the duration such that everyone needs to understand for themselves what does and does not work for them.

3. Screen usage has been consistently shown to be damaging to sleep quality, with the simple answer being to put everything away a set period before bed. However, that's practically very challenging for many people, so an alternative would be to wear blue light blocking glasses to reduce (or negate) that impact.

3. Routine

1. A routine starts with timing, ideally one that allows for consistent bed time as well as a consistent waking time. Best practices are to keep both of these times as consistent as possible, during the week and weekends. A way to think of this is the popular shift many do over the weekends essentially is subjecting your body to jet lag every week. Now, does this require a rigid structure such that there's never any fun? Of course not, but recognize the impact a night out will have and look for other ways (like a nap) to more fully restore the body and mind.

2. Outside of that, look for things you can stack in the evening to help enter a calm state and prepare the body for sleep. Again, these could be all sorts of things and don't need to be overly complex - start simple and work backwards from whatever time you want to go to bed. Some options to consider:

1. reading, journaling, stretching, meditation, turning down the lights, and way too many more to list out.

There are two separate paths you can take to work on your sleep hygiene as the holidays approach:

• Pick one or two items from the list above, work to implement them, and keep track of the impact they have on your sleep duration, quality, and how you feel the next day. Look to be as consistent as possible, but allow yourself the grace to enjoy the Holidays. The goal is progress and awareness, not creating the perfect solution.

• If your schedule seems overwhelming and too chaotic to control, roll with that and keep a journal of the various things that change, how they impact your sleep, and how you feel the next day. This information you gather will then better inform you for the New Year such that you can have targeted changes that you KNOW will impact YOUR sleep in a positive way. Mentally, making changes in a way you've already proven to work are significantly easier to implement and sustain such that you'll get a massive boost to start the New Year!

A final idea to consider if you're traveling for the holidays, what parts of your sleep hygiene can you bring to carry that continuity and familiarity with you?

And as always, look for the small changes you can make that are sustainable and build momentum.

The holidays don’t have to derail your rest — they can be a chance to refine it.

Build a sleep routine that supports recovery, clarity, and energy, no matter where you are.

Start small. Be consistent. Protect your foundation.

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