# What to do when you can’t sleep

> If you can’t sleep, stay where you are at first, stop trying, and give your mind something gentle to do. If lying there has clearly turned into a struggle — roughly 15 to 20 minutes, guessed rather than timed — get up, keep the light low, do something dull, and go back when you feel sleepy. Don’t check the clock. Tomorrow, get up at your usual time.

Source: https://dreamsheeps.space/blog/what-to-do-when-you-cant-sleep
Published: 2026-10-14 · Updated: 2026-10-14

## What should you do first when you can’t sleep?

Nothing dramatic. Stay where you are, let go of falling asleep *now*, and give your attention something gentle to hold.

Letting go comes first because effort is the problem. Sleep is largely automatic, and attending to it or trying to produce it can get in its way (Espie and colleagues, 2006). In a 1996 experiment, people who normally slept well, told to fall asleep as fast as they could with rousing marches playing, took longer than people told to fall asleep whenever they liked (Ansfield, Wegner and Bowser, 1996). A mind that is busy at 1 a.m. is carrying that kind of load.

Something to hold comes second, because an empty mind is not on offer. Picture one calm, interesting scene in detail, or a run of unrelated objects — a pear, a lighthouse, a mitten. In a 2002 study of 41 people with insomnia, those who occupied their minds with imagery fell asleep sooner, and had fewer unwanted thoughts, than those given no instructions (Harvey and Payne, 2002). [How to fall asleep fast](https://dreamsheeps.space/how-to-fall-asleep) ranks the other in-bed techniques by their evidence, and [racing thoughts at night](https://dreamsheeps.space/racing-thoughts-at-night) is for the mind that will not let go.

## Should you get out of bed if you can’t sleep?

Yes — once lying there has clearly stopped being restful and turned into a struggle, and not before. Getting up is the heart of stimulus control, one of the oldest behavioural treatments for insomnia. A 2006 review of 37 studies counted it among five psychological treatments that met the criteria for empirically supported treatment (Morin and colleagues, 2006), and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s 2021 guideline suggests it for chronic insomnia (Edinger and colleagues, 2021).

The original instructions were written in 1972 by the psychologist Richard Bootzin, for a 25-year-old man who had struggled to fall asleep for 4 or 5 years. In our words, they fit in four lines:

1. Lie down intending to sleep only when you are sleepy.
2. Don’t read or watch television in the bedroom.
3. If you can’t fall asleep, get up and go into another room. Stay up as long as you like, then go back to bed to sleep.
4. If you still can’t fall asleep, do it again — as often as you need to, all night.

By the end of 2 weeks, about half his nights passed without his needing to get up at all (Bootzin, 1972). One man is a story, not a trial; the trials came later. The usual explanation is that a bed becomes a cue for whatever usually happens in it — [the bed is a cue](https://dreamsheeps.space/learn/bed-is-a-cue) explains that in full.

### How long is too long?

Bootzin gave no number, on purpose: a footnote explains that anything more specific would have produced clock-watching and made falling asleep harder. Later versions often say 15 to 20 minutes (Dautovich and colleagues, 2010). Take that as a feeling, not a measurement. The question is whether lying there has stopped being restful, not what the time says.

### When getting up is not a good idea

One caution from the clinical literature: getting out of bed in the night is not advised for people with epilepsy, mania or a parasomnia such as sleepwalking, or for anyone at risk of falling (Dautovich and colleagues, 2010). If that is you, ask a doctor what to do instead.

## What should you do once you are up?

Something dull, somewhere dim, until you feel sleepy — then back to bed.

- *Keep the light low.* Enough to see by and not trip, and no more: the aim is to stay sleepy, not to start the day, and the body clock reads light ([light is the clock](https://dreamsheeps.space/learn/light-is-the-clock)).
- *Choose something undemanding.* A dull book, folding laundry, sitting with a warm drink that has no caffeine in it. Bootzin asked for nothing more than staying up until sleepy.
- *Avoid anything with a pull.* Work, email, the news, a series, a game: whatever you want to finish is a reason to stay awake, and a phone is all of them at once.
- *Go back when you are sleepy, not when it is late.* Heavy eyes and a nodding head are the signal; being worn out is not quite the same thing. If it turns into a struggle again, get up again. That is the plan working, not failing.

## Why shouldn’t you check the time?

Because the number becomes the thing you think about. In the first of two experiments by Tang, Schmidt and Harvey (2007), good and poor sleepers told to watch a clock as they tried to get to sleep worried more and took longer to fall asleep than those told not to. In the second, people with insomnia who watched a clock overestimated how long they had taken by more than people who watched a neutral display.

Then comes the arithmetic: “six hours if I fall asleep now”, and half an hour later, “five and a half”. That is worry about tomorrow, and in Harvey’s cognitive model of insomnia, worry about sleep and its consequences is what keeps the arousal going (Harvey, 2002). Turn the clock to the wall, put the phone out of reach, and let the night go unmeasured.

## What if you wake in the night and can’t get back to sleep?

The same plan, in the same order. Brief wakings between sleep cycles are normal and mostly forgotten; what turns one into an hour is what follows it — the time check, the arithmetic, the verdict on tomorrow ([waking at 3 a.m. is normal](https://dreamsheeps.space/learn/waking-at-three)). So leave the clock alone, give your mind something gentle, and get up only if lying there turns into a struggle. Keep the lights off and the phone face down: a bright screen at 4 a.m. is an invitation to start the day.

## What should you do the next day?

Very little, which is the hard part. After a bad night the temptation is to make up for it — a lie-in, a nap, an extra coffee, a drink to make sure of tonight — and each of those borrows from the next night.

- *Get up at your usual time.* A regular wake time is part of stimulus control itself (Dautovich and colleagues, 2010), and it keeps your body clock where it was.
- *Skip the late nap.* In the two-process model of sleep, the pressure to sleep builds the longer you are awake and is discharged by sleep (Borbély and colleagues, 2016); a nap late in the afternoon spends what you were saving for bedtime ([sleep pressure and the body clock](https://dreamsheeps.space/learn/two-processes)).
- *Don’t add caffeine late in the day.* An afternoon coffee is still in your system at bedtime ([caffeine has a very long tail](https://dreamsheeps.space/learn/caffeine-tail)).
- *Don’t plan on a nightcap.* Alcohol helps you lose consciousness sooner and takes it back from the second half of the night ([alcohol is a sedative, not a sleep aid](https://dreamsheeps.space/learn/alcohol-is-sedation)).

Then go to bed when you are sleepy, not early to catch up. After a short night, the pressure to sleep is already on your side, as long as nothing spends it first.

## When is it more than a bad night?

When you can’t sleep on most nights, it has gone on for months, and it is affecting your days. Then see a doctor. For chronic insomnia, cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) — which includes the getting-up plan on this page, alongside other parts — is the first treatment recommended by the American College of Physicians (Qaseem and colleagues, 2016), and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends it strongly (Edinger and colleagues, 2021). The steps here are for an ordinary bad night, not a substitute for care.

## Sources

1. [Bootzin (1972) — Stimulus control treatment for insomnia. Proceedings of the 80th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association 7, 395–396](https://www.med.upenn.edu/cbti/assets/user-content/documents/Bootzin%201972.pdf)
2. [Morin et al. (2006) — Psychological and behavioral treatment of insomnia: update of the recent evidence (1998–2004). Sleep 29(11), 1398–1414](https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/29.11.1398)
3. [Edinger et al. (2021) — Behavioral and psychological treatments for chronic insomnia disorder in adults: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine clinical practice guideline. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 17(2), 255–262](https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.8986)
4. [Dautovich et al. (2010) — Tackling sleeplessness: psychological treatment options for insomnia. Nature and Science of Sleep 2, 23–37](https://doi.org/10.2147/nss.s7063)
5. [Tang, Schmidt & Harvey (2007) — Sleeping with the enemy: clock monitoring in the maintenance of insomnia. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 38(1), 40–55](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2005.07.004)
6. [Harvey (2002) — A cognitive model of insomnia. Behaviour Research and Therapy 40(8), 869–893](https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(01)00061-4)
7. [Espie et al. (2006) — The attention–intention–effort pathway in the development of psychophysiologic insomnia: a theoretical review. Sleep Medicine Reviews](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2006.03.002)
8. [Ansfield, Wegner & Bowser (1996) — Ironic effects of sleep urgency. Behaviour Research and Therapy 34(7), 523–531](https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(96)00031-9)
9. [Harvey & Payne (2002) — The management of unwanted pre-sleep thoughts in insomnia: distraction with imagery versus general distraction. Behaviour Research and Therapy 40(3), 267–277](https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(01)00012-2)
10. [Borbély et al. (2016) — The two-process model of sleep regulation: a reappraisal. Journal of Sleep Research 25(2), 131–143](https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12371)
11. [Qaseem et al. (2016) — Management of chronic insomnia disorder in adults: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians. Annals of Internal Medicine](https://doi.org/10.7326/M15-2175)

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Sheeps is for the lying-there part: a new plotless story, written for you, that gives a busy mind harmless scenes to hold, with sentences that shrink and pauses that grow until it ends in silence. Radio is the sparser option — single concrete words with a pause you set after each, the structured shuffle with no story around it. Neither will get you out of bed when that is what the night needs. Sheeps on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6749510901