As I’ve talked about before, sleep isn’t my best friend. I feel like I throw myself at sleep sometimes and I just keep missing.

In addition, my sleep needs have changed as I’ve grown older. Until I was in my fifties, I could survive on just six hours of sleep. If I got six hours per night for six nights, then a bit more on the seventh, I was just fine.

My needs changed slowly. I only needed seven hours a night for quite a few years. I still resented it, but I could work around it.

Now, I need eight hours of sleep at night. Everything in my life is so much better if I can get in eight hours of sleep. I feel better overall, my brain works better, I’m emotionally more stable, physically more capable, etc.

And that’s part of the problem. I need at a minimum nine and a half hours of being in bed for me to get eight hours of sleep. Ten hours is actually optimal. I take a long time to fall asleep, then I don’t sleep soundly. According to my Fitbit (A.K.A. the Tyrant of Movement), it currently takes me an average of thirty-two minutes to fall asleep.

The good news? I’ve been bringing that number down. It used to be thirty-nine minutes.

In addition, there are some nights when I am only in bed for nine hours, yet I get almost eight hours of sleep.

What have I primarily changed to improve my sleep numbers?

Resting before I go to sleep.

There is a lot of talk about how you need to have “good sleep hygiene” to get good sleep.

This is when I’d like to point out that every BODY is different. What my “good sleep hygiene” looks like is not necessarily going to be what other people do.

For example, I was trying to get back into meditation. I had an app that I was using to meditate every night. I had a couple of months of a streak going. However, I’ve given it up.

Why?

Because I was either falling asleep while I was trying to meditate, or I’d watch my heart rate rise during it. I couldn’t ever find a relaxing meditation.

Now, the meditation app also had a bunch of meditations that were specifically to give you different techniques to help you fall asleep. Those were helpful. But after doing three different month-long sessions of those, I feel as though I have all the tools I need.

So if meditation wasn’t actually relaxing for me, what was?

One of the most important tools I’ve been using to help me figure this out has been my Fitbit. I pay attention to my heart rate when I’m doing stuff at night.

The biggest takeaway for me is that there isn’t anything that consistently relaxes me. I need to pay attention and ask myself what I need that night, not just assume that X will do the trick.

For example, reading. I love to read at night. Reading almost always relaxes me. It brings my heart rate down to whatever my resting heart rate is that day—somewhere between sixty-six to sixty-nine beats per minute.

Reading while knitting (I’m reading on my Kindle) is more relaxing. It will generally drop my heart rate to a little below my resting heart rate by at least one, and sometimes two, beats.

However, that is also going to depend on what I’m reading. If I’m at the end of an exciting book, reading will not lower my heart rate. I need to finish the book during lunch and start something new for reading to be relaxing for me again.

Playing games on my phone, particularly when I’m practicing long deep breaths, can be a form of meditation for me, and bring my heart rate down.

My latest trick, though, is possibly going to sound strange.

Watching TikTok videos.

I watch with the sound turned off. I am primarily watching people make art: doing acrylic pour, marbling, painting, woodworking, cake and cookie decorating, chocolate work, spun/blown sugar work, people working with resin, building houses, tiling floors, and so on. Every once in a while I’ll watch DIY videos, but those aren’t as restful.

Watching TikTok videos is the only thing I’ve ever done that gets my heart rate to drop significantly. I’m not fighting off sleep, I’m engaged with whatever I’m watching. But my heart rate goes down to sixty-two beats per minute or lower.

Relaxing to that extent for fifteen to twenty minutes before I go to sleep has been very good for my overall quality of sleep.

“Experts” would tell me that I was doing it wrong. I shouldn’t be looking at my phone before I go to sleep, that light is supposedly disturbing to me, etc.

Here’s where I reiterate that every BODY is different.

And the latest thing I’ve found that actually works for me is watching TikTok videos.

If you’re having difficulties, maybe you should try it. Who knows? It might work for you too.

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