I stare at the ceiling in the pitch black. I close my eyes momentarily before opening them once again. No matter how much I try to force myself asleep, I just can’t. The feeling is frustrating because I know that I will be tired the next morning, yet there is nothing I can seem to do. 

Sleep is extremely important to everyone, and, as you have probably heard, teenagers need a lot of it. I also know that getting enough sleep can be extremely difficult between sports, extracurriculars, family obligations, and homework. Discussing ways to make time to get more sleep is an entirely different conversation. Instead, I want to focus on how to get the best sleep possible with the time that you do have.

I wanted to start by acknowledging that one of the best things to make your sleep better is to not use electronic devices before bed, but also I understand from experience that is almost impossible especially on a school night. I am also guilty of using maybe the 30 minutes of free time I have after finishing my homework to watch TV. However, my one recommendation in this situation would be to try reading a book or listening to a podcast. Both of these activities are forms of sleep-friendly media. 

I want to stop here to tell a short little story, if you would stick with me for a second. I am not the biggest coffee drinker, but I do love matcha–a type of green tea that has a high caffeine concentration (though not as high as actual coffee). One day, I chose to have matcha around 2:30 P.M.  This was pretty common for me; I often had tea or matcha later in the day and it never really affected me. That night, I was wide awake. I knew I needed to go to bed, but I felt almost wired. This experience rattled me because I had had caffeine that late in the day before or even later, and nothing really happened to me. This caused me to do some research, and I found out that caffeine does not always affect you the same way each day. It can depend on a myriad of factors. Furthermore, caffeine can stay in your body for a long time. This has led me to make the decision to try not consume caffeine after lunch,for the most part. I encourage people to try this–just as an experiment–because caffeine can affect the human body in ways that we may not even notice. 

Anyway, that is a wrap on my basic advice. Here are the odder recommendations that work for me. I like to take hot showers before going to sleep. I also like turning down the temperature or putting a fan on even when I am not warm. The scientific explanation for this is that being cool often makes you fall asleep faster. If I am having trouble sleeping, I flip my pillow around. Though I haven’t tried it, I have also read that switching which end of the bed you put your head on can help. It is like you are almost confusing yourself to sleep. The weirdest thing that I do is that I get out of bed, stand and close my eyes for a minute in the dark, and then get back into bed. I have no idea why, but that is usually helpful.

I really hope that this was helpful, and I would love to hear what wacky sleep recommendations that you might have. If they are good, I might even mention them in my next article!