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unknowingly trained yourself to be alert in bed. In this chapter, you will learn to identify and banish culprits that could be causing this problem. You will also learn how getting out of bed when your mind is noisy will train your mind to be quiet in bed.
    How the Brain Learns to Become Active in Bed
    Does the following scenario sound familiar to you? “I was absolutely exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open. But when I got into bed, it was like a switch turned on, and I was wide awake.” The scenario described is very common for those who have sleep problems. So, how is it that you can feel so sleepy outside of bed, but once in bed, you become completely awake? The answer may be your bed itself. Before you rush off to buy a new mattress, however, consider the following.
    Animals, including humans, learn to associate stimuli (as Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate the sound of a bell with the sight of food; see chapter 1) and can form very powerful associations between stimuli without intending to. Let’s say you get food poisoning after eating at a restaurant. The next time you go to that restaurant, you may feel physically ill, even though the offending food is no longer there. Why does this happen? The answer is because unconsciously, you now associate the restaurant with feeling sick. Strong associations are formed in the presence of strong physical reactions, and that one experience was all it took for your body to link the restaurant with the following unpleasant involuntary response to the food. Your body identifies the restaurant, accurately or inaccurately, as one of the causes of your illness. The restaurant is now a cue for your body to feel sick. Associations that do not involve such a visceral response often require repeated similar experiences (or “pairings” of stimuli) to take effect, but the mechanism by which these associations are learned is more or less the same.
    What does this have to do with an overactive mind in bed? Consider your bed as a stimulus. (In psychology, a stimulus is simply something that may or may not influence behavior, not necessarily something you would consider “stimulating”—though it can be.) If you have spent many nights tossing and turning in bed, or lying in bed while upset and unable to sleep, your bed has often been paired with tossing and turning, or being upset and not sleeping; perhaps your bed alone has become a cue for tossing and turning and being upset.
    Turn Your Bed into a Cue for Sleep, Not Alertness
    If your bed has become a cue for “switching on” alertness, anxiety, or frustration, you need to learn how to turn off the switch. Since repeated pairings of your bed with being awake and alert are the cause of the problem, you need to un-pair your bed with alertness and begin to pair it with sleep. To retrain your body and mind to rest instead of becoming active in bed, follow the six simple rules below. We have already mentioned the first four, but we will discuss them as they relate to retraining your body to be asleep in bed.
     
Do not nap.
Avoid wakeful activities in bed.
Be in bed only when asleep (or very close to sleep).
Get out of bed at the same time every day.
Get out of bed if unable to sleep.
Take your active mind out of bed.
    Rule 1: Do Not Nap
    Napping includes attempting to nap (unsuccessfully), dozing, or nodding off. The reason we ask you to refrain from napping is that you need to associate sleep with only one location (your bed) and one time (your sleep window). Dozing is usually an unintentional habit, so avoiding it takes some planning. Most people doze in a particular setting or at a particular time of day, for example while watching television in the evening. If you sometimes fall asleep by accident while watching television in the evening, use some preventative strategies: Do not lie down or recline on the furniture; sit up straight. Perhaps you can incorporate some light activity, such as folding laundry, while you watch