Sleep Advice is Annoying

From a poor sleeper and regular consumer of sleep tips.

To all the New York Times “Well” columnists, PhD sleep experts, and mattress and pillow companies writing articles about how to improve one’s sleep, here are my top 10 tips for better sleep advice:

1. First off, please stop using the term “sleep hygiene.” Hygiene is a gross word. It reminds us of young teens forgetting to wear deodorant. Or of “feminine hygiene,” a term that I desperately hope is on its way out the door.

2. You don’t need to inform us that sleep is important or tell us to prioritize sleep. We know it is important! That’s why we’re reading your article in the first place.

3. I appreciate the tip to manage stress and limit worries. Maybe if you didn’t constantly list the plethora of poor health outcomes resulting from lack of sleep---from heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, mental health problems, and dementia----that would help my stress level.

4. Thanks for pointing out that sleep disruption, like hot flashes and weight gain, are common for women in perimenopause and menopause. But must you say that lack of sleep itself can also lead to weight gain? Because that just feels mean.

5. When you use titles like “How to Master Sleep Hygiene,” and talk about how to “harness positive habits” and “optimize your sleep schedule,” you give us the sense that sleep is about control and efficiency, when it’s really about letting go. How can we let go and relax when we’re so busy harnessing and optimizing?

6. On the one hand, you tell us that chronic insomnia can increase our risk of dementia, and on the other hand, you say that taking sleep medication to assist with sleep can also lead to dementia. Thanks.

7. We don’t need another app or device to rate our sleep and tell us how happy and accomplished we should feel about the sleep we got. We know whether we feel like shit or not in the morning.

   1. We also don’t need any more eye masks, ear plugs, rice pillows, weighted blankets, heating pads, or scented oils to put on cotton balls. I have so many sleep aids that my side of the bed looks like a tiny village.

8. Stop giving us advice that involves all this extra time I think you assume we are wasting, like “spend an hour doing something relaxing before bed” and “putting at least 3 hours between eating and bedtime. Where is this time magically supposed to come from?

9. We know that when we can’t sleep, we’re supposed to get out of bed and go to another room and do a calming activity, but seriously, who wants to do that? At 2am, who actually gets out of their warm and comfortable bed and trudges to the next room to do puzzles?

10. On top of restricting caffeine, alcohol, and rich food, you’ve told us that we should also restrict sleeping in on the weekends because regularity of sleep routine is the priority. So you’re saying that on the rare and beautiful weekend morning when we’re able to sleep until 9am, this is bad for our sleep and we should instead set an alarm for 6:15am every day? Have you no decency?!

Maybe I’m a little cranky because I didn’t sleep well last night---and YES, I KNOW! Lack of sleep affects my mood.