Stimulus Control: Strengthening The Connection Between Your Bed And Your Sleep
It's the middle of the afternoon in late August. The outside temperature is sweltering, the humidity nearly suffocating. 😓
As you’re walking down the street, you pass by an ice cream shop. Immediately your mouth begins to water. 😋
What’s happening here?
Well besides the fact that you might be craving a sweet treat, your body is responding to the ice cream as a cue. You’re hot, and you know that the cold ice cream will help cool you down.
You’re responding to a stimulus.
Now picture yourself climbing into bed, crawling under the covers, and closing your eyes. What’s happening now?
Ideally, you’re able to fall asleep within a few minutes. 😴
But when you’ve experienced poor sleep, especially over an extended period of time, you realize that’s not what happens. In some cases, no matter how utterly exhausted you are you find yourself counting ceiling tiles or mentally making tomorrow’s to-do list.
Though it may sound funny, you may have lost your connection between your bed and your sleep. And that’s exactly where stimulus control comes in.
What’s Stimulus Control?
Essentially, the goal of stimulus control is to associate the bedroom with sleep. This might sound totally basic but hang with us for just a moment.
If you spend too much time awake in bed (eating, working, watching TV, or even just tossing and turning when you can’t sleep), it can actually create a negative cycle that makes it more difficult to fall asleep over time.
Stimulus control helps you develop habits that strengthen your brain’s association between your bed and sleeping while weakening those cues that keep you awake.
The end goal?
To fall asleep faster and achieve a deeper, more restorative sleep with fewer mid-night wakeups.
How Can You Get Started With Stimulus Control?
Stimulus control is a great intro therapy for sleep because it requires no equipment, it costs nothing, and the instructions can fit on an index card:
- Set an alarm to wake you up at the same time every day
- Only go to bed when you’re sleepy (not just tired, but actually feeling your eyes trying to close)
- If you’re unable to fall asleep—whether at the beginning or in the middle of the night—get out of bed and only return when you feel you could fall asleep
- Avoid excessive napping during the day (excessive meaning anything more than about 30 minutes)
On top of that, the golden rule of stimulus control is to avoid doing any waking hour activities in your bedroom.
As Kick Sleep Specialist Dr. Dimitriu likes to say: Anything that isn’t sleeping or sex should stay out of the bedroom.
That means none of the following should be done in your sleep space:
- Eating
- Watching TV
- Working
- Talking
- Using cell phones
Why?
Well, the idea here is to help your brain associate your bed with just sleep - and nothing else. So when you do climb into bed, crawl under the covers, and close your eyes at the end of a long day - you’ll fall asleep.