Twelve Steps to Sleep

The body in the invisible
Familiar room accepts the gift
Of sleep, and for a while is still;
Instead of will, it lives by drift

In the great night that gathers up
The earth and sky. Slackened, unbent,
Unwanting, without fear or hope,
The body rests beyond intent.
— Wendell Berry, from Sabbaths (1990)

We spend roughly a third of our lives asleep, or trying to. For many of us, sleep was one of the first casualties of addiction and one of the last things to fully heal in recovery. We know what it’s like to lie awake at 3 a.m., mind racing, body tired but wired. We know the fog that follows a bad night, the way it dulls everything. In Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker offers twelve tips for a healthy night’s rest, drawn from the National Institutes of Health. They sound simple, but that doesn’t make them easy.

Those of us in recovery already have the first one down. Alcohol suppresses REM sleep and fragments the night. When we drank, we weren’t sleeping. We were sedating ourselves. Caffeine is sneakier. It doesn’t eliminate tiredness; it masks it. The fatigue keeps building, and when the caffeine wears off (its half-life is five to seven hours), all that accumulated exhaustion lands at once. That afternoon cup echoes into the night. Nicotine is a stimulant too, often causing lighter sleep and early waking as the body goes into withdrawal. It’s also worth talking to a pharmacist about other substances that interfere with sleep: heart and blood pressure medications, asthma inhalers, cold and allergy remedies. Stimulants prescribed for focus, like Adderall and Ritalin, are among the most powerful sleep-preventing drugs known. Timing adjustments can make a difference.

Our bodies thrive on rhythm. When we let weekends drift, staying up late, sleeping in, Monday feels like jet lag. A goal worth trying is the same bedtime and wake time every day, even on weekends, even when nothing forces us out of bed. Morning light helps set that rhythm. Even in an Ottawa winter, a few minutes outside or sitting by a window helps reset the internal clock, making it easier to feel alert in the morning and sleepy at night.

What we do during the day echoes into the night. Exercise and movement help sleep, just not too close to bedtime. An evening hot yoga class or late run can leave us wired for hours. A heavy dinner lingers and can cause discomfort that makes it hard to settle. Too many fluids late in the evening mean trips to the bathroom at 3 a.m. Eating and drinking lighter as the night approaches gives the body less to process. Naps can restore energy, but timing matters. A late-afternoon crash on the couch borrows from the night ahead. If we nap, keeping it short and before 3 p.m. helps protect nighttime sleep.

The bedroom matters. Cool, dark, quiet, and free of screens. Moving the phone charger to another room helps. Turning the clock away helps too; watching the minutes pass only feeds the anxiety. A buffer before bed makes a difference: reading, music, something quiet to signal the body that the day is ending. Going straight from screen to pillow and wondering why the mind keeps racing is a pattern many of us know. A hot bath before bed works well. The drop in body temperature afterward naturally brings on drowsiness. It’s the cooling down that does it.

When sleep won’t come, we can stop fighting it. Lying there willing ourselves to sleep rarely works. Getting up, reading something boring, and coming back when drowsy does. The anxiety of trying to sleep often pushes it further away.

There is no right way or wrong way to practice these suggestions. I have learned that change doesn’t come through force. It comes through willingness and repeated small choices. Good night!