How To Fall Asleep On Christmas Eve

Getting excited for Christmas is one of the best parts of the year. The only downside (and we say this lightly!) is the impact on how we fall asleep on Christmas Eve.

Particularly for youngsters, Christmas Eve can become unbearably exciting, making sleep almost impossible until you’ve been told that the big red guy won’t visit if you don’t fall asleep. But it’s not only children who struggle to nod off on Christmas Eve, even adults do too!

Apart from those lucky, organised few who have everything ready, the majority of us are running around like headless chickens trying to tie up loose ends before the big day. To help, we’ve compiled our best tips for getting to sleep on Christmas Eve:

Avoid caffeine

When you have a cup of coffee, the caffeine stimulates all the nerves in your frontal lobes – waking your brain, boosting adrenaline and blocking sleep-inducing chemicals. Caffeine also increases your chances of developing a headache and can make your heart rate jump, causing you to feel more awake and disrupting your wind down time.

Stay busy in the day

Make sure you have a well-planned day so that the weight of productivity sends you into a deep slumber. Hopefully, gifts will already be wrapped so you can concentrate on the big day. The best way to guarantee a fully productive day is to make a check-list of what needs to be bought, wrapped, cooked and decorated. All the energy that might have kept you awake at night will be depleted, leaving you to sleep like a baby.

Watch classic holiday movies.

Nothing puts you to sleep quite like a late-night film. Elf, Home Alone and Miracle on 64th Street are just a few of our favourites!

Use warming lights

Cosy lighting can also help with getting to sleep – and if you’re lucky enough to be around a roaring fire, that will work wonders. Unlike the bright and blue lights that come from electrical devices, which reduce melatonin and delay sleep, the kind of warm orange light you get sitting in front of a fire helps to soothe the brain and prepare us for sleep.

Mind the sugar

One of the best things about Christmas is the food! Lots of delicious sweets, chocolate, cakes and pies – plus of course all the sugary drinks. But whilst it’s lovely to indulge, keep an eye on how much sugar you are consuming. Sugar can stimulate the body (we’ve all heard of “sugar highs”) which can then have a negative effect on the quality of sleep.

However you’re spending Christmas this year, we hope it’s peaceful and merry.