Regarding your sleep, there's nothing more important than protecting and promoting sleep hygiene. However, if you find yourself feeling like you're missing out—whether you're at home scrolling social media or hearing from your friends who are out for the night—you may feel tempted to go so you don't experience the fear of missing out or FOMO. Everything in life should be done in moderation, but how do you balance your sleep health and your desire to be involved in what's going on in your social circle?
In this article, we’ll explore how to strike a balance between FOMO and sleep hygiene, prioritizing your health while ensuring that you don’t feel like you’re missing out while ensuring you get the best sleep. We’ll provide some practical strategies so that you can make changes to your routine but, ultimately, still enjoy great sleep and better mental health.
Set Boundaries with Your Technology
It’s no secret that the more you scroll, the less you sleep. If you experience bad FOMO, you might create some sleep problems for yourself in the long term. Studies have shown that FOMO and the use of social media before bed are actually connected to an increased potential for sleep disorders (Source: PubMed). So, if you want to protect your health and limit your experiences with FOMO, try setting boundaries with your technology.
If you scroll for a little bit of time, it's not going to hurt you. However, try to make a cut-off time. If you go to bed around 10 pm and want to ensure you get enough rest, put your phone down and limit your access to it around 9 pm or even 9:30 pm. When in doubt, try crowding out this habit with something else, like reading. People love reading before bed, and it can help you relax while also limiting your desire to look over social media and see what everyone you know is up to.
Practice Mindfulness and Stress Management
One of the worst impacts of FOMO driven by the use of, for instance, social media is the fact that it can create worry and even rumination for you. When you use social media at night, you are hurting your body’s potential to relax. In fact, researchers confirmed that rumination and less sleepiness were directly tied to FOMO. This can be harmful to your sleep hygiene and provide you with far less of an opportunity to maintain your sleep health. That’s why you should practice mindfulness and relieve your stress.
After setting clear boundaries with your technology use, you should incorporate activities like meditating or exercising every day. Find time for activities that make you feel good, especially before you go to bed, and you’ll prioritize your sleep hygiene without sacrificing too much. You may be able to limit your doom scrolling by a few minutes, but in turn, you’ll feel more relaxed, ready for sleep, and ultimately, much more rested when the morning arrives.
Prioritize Your Sleep Hygiene Practices
To combat the challenges that you may face with FOMO, one of the best things you can do is prioritize your sleep hygiene and then allow for some time to scroll as you please. Healthy doses of socialization are beneficial, but you need to take steps to ensure you are healthy, too. When it comes to your sleep hygiene, there are several well-researched interventions you can add to your daily routine:
- Maintain a Consistent Sleep Schedule: Go to bed at roughly the same time each night and wake up around the same time to ensure that your circadian rhythm is regular.
- Create the Right Sleep Environment: You don’t want to be too hot or too cold, nor do you want too much artificial light. Make your space suitable for sleep and relaxing so you have no trouble resting.
- Live a Healthy Lifestyle: Sleep hygiene isn’t just about your sleep health but also about your overall health. Work out regularly and eat good food, and you’ll begin to see a difference in your overall sleep hygiene.
Even if you work shifts and find yourself with an abnormal sleep schedule and a bit of FOMO, this can help you regulate and maintain some consistency in your sleep hygiene. However, another critical step that can help you balance—even limit—your FOMO is establishing a bedtime routine that not only fits your needs but makes you feel relaxed.
Establish a Relaxing Bedtime Routine
If nothing else, establishing a relaxing bedtime routine can help you prioritize your sleep hygiene, even if you do opt to scroll for a few minutes to satisfy your curiosity. You can create any routine that you like, but there are plenty of stress-relieving activities that you can add, including:
- Listening to soothing sounds
- Taking a warm bath to relax]
- Drinking herbal bedtime tea
- Finishing a to-do list for tomorrow
- Doing some light bedtime yoga
- Enjoying a sleep story
- Journaling
No matter what you choose, there are so many options to help you maintain your sleep hygiene. The most important thing is to tailor your bedtime routine to you. If you don’t like baths, don’t take one! You can take a shower and incorporate some soothing essential oils.
Regardless of how you create the ideal sleep routine for you, it will help you feel excited to wind down, potentially even limiting your FOMO and helping you truly get the best sleep possible.
How Will You Balance FOMO and Sleep Hygiene?
Balancing FOMO and sleep hygiene is not difficult, but you must understand that it is about priorities. Your health is paramount, but it's hard to ignore the curiosity that builds within you to check what's going on online with your friends. You don't have to say goodbye to socialization after a specific time, but you can turn your attention to yourself, your needs, and your rest.
What steps will you take to improve your sleep hygiene? We hope that this article was informative and helped you see the changes you can make to enjoy the best sleep ever.
