How to Sleep Smarter in 2025: Achieving Your Sleep Resolutions

4 min

Recent studies have shown that only 9% of people will stick to their resolutions throughout the entire year, but why is that? While many people find themselves pressured to create a resolution without the intent to follow through, others find it difficult to adopt behaviors that can become habits, which is often the key to accomplishing a resolution.

Here are a few general tips that can help you stick to and achieve any type of resolution:

• Make your goals realistic: Don’t try to make a huge change all at once that isn’t going to be manageable in the long run.
• Start small and work your way up: Research shows that a “small changes approach” helps to alter your behavior in a way that is more likely to become permanent.
• Ask for accountability: Regularly checking in with friends or loved ones will help you stay more accountable to your goals rather than just keeping it to yourself.
• Don’t be too hard on yourself: Remember that the goals you are setting are to help yourself, so showing yourself a bit of forgiveness and recognizing it’s going to take time will help your journey be a more positive one.

How to Achieve Sleep-Related Resolutions

Because quality sleep is essential to all aspects of our wellness—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—it is not a surprise that 90% of people have attempted to implement new habits to improve their sleep. From scheduling consistent bedtimes to limiting caffeine, food, or alcohol before bed to creating a bedtime routine, embracing simple lifestyle changes can help to benefit your overall quality of sleep. Let’s explore a few small steps you can take to make it easier to achieve these goals.

Destress Before Bed

Stress is one of the top hindrances that can keep us from falling and staying asleep. If you can address your stress before your head hits the pillow, it can bring you one step closer to allowing your body to relax to get the rest your body needs (and help you better deal with day-to-day stress).

When it comes to destressing before bed, there are several proven strategies to calm your consciousness. Meditation, yoga, and deep breathing exercises, such as The 4-7-8 Breath, are all effective ways to help loosen tension in your body and quiet your mind to prepare for sleep. Additionally, if you find you have a racing mind that distracts you from falling asleep, place a journal or notepad by your bed. This will allow you to jot down pressing thoughts to revisit in the morning and can be a helpful tactic to distance your mind from mental clutter.

Make Bedtime Easier

Achieving a bigger goal is about adopting smaller, more achievable habits along the way. For example, if you recognize roadblocks that make getting restful sleep more difficult, modifying your nighttime routine or reconfiguring your sleep space to avoid those roadblocks can make a significant difference in achieving your larger sleep-related goals.

Create a Comfortable, Inviting Sleep Space

By ensuring your bed is comfortable and inviting, you’ll likely be more inclined to climb under the covers and get the restful sleep you need. Additionally, finding bedding that helps promote better sleep by offering ideal temperature and support can also make it easier to achieve quality sleep. Here are some suggestions for improving your sleep space:

• Consider adding a mattress and pillow protector to avoid allergens and irritants while you sleep.
• Use naturally thermoregulating sheets to achieve your ideal temperature no matter the time of year.
• Layer up with various quilts, coverlets, or duvets to add warmth and comfort to your sleep space.
• Find a pillow that provides your ideal support and loft level for more comfortable sleep.

Sources:

1. “10 New Year’s Resolutions that Can Improve Your Sleep But a Third of People Never Try.” Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/new-years-resolutions-that-you-can-keep-for-better-sleep
2. “Bedtime Routines for Adults.” Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/bedtime-routine-for-adults
3. “Making Health Habitual: The Psychology of ‘Habit-Formation’ and General Practice.” British Journal of General Practice. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3505409/
4. “New Year’s Resolutions Statistics and Trends [2024].” DriveResearch. https://www.driveresearch.com/market-research-company-blog/new-years-resolutions-statistics/
5. “Sleep Tips: 6 Steps to Better Sleep.” Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/sleep/art-20048379#:~:text=1.,schedule%20and%20wake%2Dup%20time.
6. “What Does It Really Take to Build a New Habit?” Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/02/what-does-it-really-take-to-build-a-new-habit

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