How to Recover From Sleep Disruptions During the Pandemic
Steps to break bad sleep habits and create a foundation for a healthy lifestyle.
Posted August 13, 2020 | Reviewed by Matt Huston
It would be difficult to find someone whose life has not been disrupted by the pandemic. Nowhere is that more evident than in our routines, including work and sleep schedules. Beyond schedule disruptions, the stress of coping with so many changes may have provided an additional sleep disruption for some.
Our sleep is guided by our circadian rhythm , a biological clock that is influenced by the environment around us. The amount of sunlight we are exposed to, physical activity, social interaction, occupational demands, and timing of meals—collectively referred to as “zeitgebers” or “time-givers” in German—provide cues to our body about when we should be sleeping or awake. In other words, with the factors that anchor our sleep disrupted, sleep patterns can and will shift over time.
As stay-at-home restrictions relax for many communities and life returns to a new normal, our bodies will need to recalibrate and readjust. The following are some recommendations to adjust sleep back to normal.
Everyone has a circadian rhythm that directs your body's sleeping and waking, and this is often not aligned to society’s demands. Adolescents and young adults are often biologically predisposed to have a “night-owl” pattern of staying up late and sleeping in. Without the structure provided by school, a work commute, or the ability to exercise at a gym, our sleep will revert to a natural sleep window or even become irregular. Therefore, the first step is often to start tracking sleep through a sleep diary . Collecting a week’s worth of data (i.e., when you go to bed, how long it takes to fall asleep, how many awakenings each night, and when you got out of bed) will help you determine when your natural sleep window is, and how different it is from when you will need to sleep and wake up once life returns to normal.
An alternative to manually maintaining a sleep diary is to use a wearable device, such as a smart-watch or fitness watch, that tracks sleep through activity and heart rate. A recent study in the journal Sleep showed that consumer wearables are just as effective at determining when you are asleep and awake as existing, established research devices.
Creating the Right Conditions
After reviewing your sleep schedule, you should have a better idea of whether you tend to be a night owl or an early bird. From there, making an adjustment is a slow, steady process. Start by practicing healthy sleep hygiene:
Take Small, Progressive Steps
Being too ambitious in adjusting your sleep can exacerbate insomnia or cause excessive sleepiness during the day. Building practices for good sleep is a methodical process and taking these steps can help.
As life returns, hopefully soon, to a sense of normalcy, having a sleep pattern back in line with societal demands will have you primed to hit the ground running again.
Chester Wu, MD is the director of Menninger's Sleep Medicine program. He completed his psychiatry residency training at Baylor College of Medicine and a fellowship in Sleep Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He earned his medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch and his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University, where he graduated summa cum laude.
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