Top 7 Holiday Season Mistakes That Ruin Your Sleep

How can the chaos of the holidays be so exhausting and still leave me lying awake at night?

I’m going to go ahead and throw it out there right away: I am a huge fan of fall — give me those autumn leaves and pumpkins, please! You can keep the PSL, though, sorry not sorry.

October seems to have a way of bringing me back to myself; the cool, foggy mornings and crisp, vivid sunsets seem to have the same effect on me that the warm sunshine of spring has on those who can’t stand the winter months.

October has a dark side, though, and I’m not talking about Spooktober.

No, I’m talking about the kick-off of the Holiday Season and everything it entails: the maple and pumpkin drinks everywhere you look, and the seductively colored candies and sweets in nearly every grocery aisle.

You might be backing away from the screen in confusion — maybe even horror — thinking, “Micaelyn, what are you talking about? These are the best parts of the holiday season!”

And they are.

But they’re also a couple of the things that I know destroy my sleep if I overdo it — and goodness knows we all have a tendency to overdo it during the holidays.

Turns out, visions of sugar plum fairies aren’t always the best when you’re actually trying to get some rest.

7 things you do every holiday season that ruin your sleep

Let’s start breaking this down — here are the top 7 holiday season mistakes that ruin your sleep:

1. Too much sugar. This one should be fairly intuitive; starting with the PSLs and Halloween candy in October and ending with Christmas cookies and sugary New Years champagne, the holiday season is basically three straight months of overdosing on sugar. While I don’t recommend cutting out your holiday sweets purely from a mental health perspective — nothing would make me more depressed than not being able to have some pumpkin pie and spritz cookies — I do recommend setting consumption limits. Not so much around quantity, but around time: don’t eat sweets or drink sugary alcohol less than an hour before bed.

2. Too much artificial food dye. This one isn’t quite as top-of-mind, but can be just as important. When I was 8 years old, my mom took me to our pediatrician because I was having constant migraines. My father also has a history of migraines, so she said it was probably at least partly hereditary, but that the number one thing she recommended cutting out of my diet was artificial food dyes — especially Red-40 — and it made a huge difference. Artificial food dyes have been linked to a host of health issues, including hyperactivity and depression, both of which can have serious impacts on sleep. Try swapping out artificially colored candies this Halloween for natural options! This is a safe space, so let’s be honest: you’re the one who ends up eating most of your kids’ candy, anyway, so you might as well save yourself some suffering!

3. Abandoning routines. I’ve talked a LOT about how important it is to maintain a consistent bedtime routine, and it couldn’t be more important than during the holidays when literally everything is chaos. Our lizard brains thrive on consistency and predictability, and when we abandon our normal nightly routines it sends those lizard brains into a panic and makes it so much harder to quiet our minds when it comes time to sleep. Of course, you’re probably not going to stick to your 10 pm bedtime on Christmas or New Years Eve — which is completely fine! Just make sure you do your best to stick to the routine as much as possible outside those special occasions.

4. More screen time + less sunlight. Hands down, one of my favorite parts of the holidays is watching all our favorite movies — National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation being my family’s all-time favorite. But all that extra screen time (Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter marathons, anybody?) plus a decrease in overall sunlight can combine to create some serious problems for your circadian rhythms. The light emitted from our devices mimics the light from the sun, so when you queue up a film at 8 pm, the light from the TV screen can send your brain signals that it should be waking up rather than getting ready to go to sleep. If your brain gets lots of sunlight signals late at night, and very little real sunlight exposure during the day due to winter weather, you can see how your circadian rhythms can get completely upended.

5. More alcohol. Anyone who knows me knows that I love my wine, especially when I’m pairing it with delicious foods. Those folks also know that if I drink wine after 9 pm, I’ll be up by 4 with the sweats and I’ll never get back to sleep again. Obviously, not everyone drinks alcohol, but for those of us who do need to be extra mindful of our intake during the holidays. On its own it might not disrupt our sleep too much, but combined with all the other contributing factors, it can also be the thing that ultimately makes or breaks your night’s sleep.

6. Less time spent exercising. I’m not the best at maintaining a regular exercise routine the rest of the year, but it generally goes entirely out the window during the holidays. Between the travel, shopping, events, decorating, cleaning, and days on days spent in the kitchen, it’s usually the last thing on my list. This year, though, I’m going to make a point of prioritizing my exercize routine, not only because of what it does for my sleep, but of the emotional release — I can’t run away from the relatives that drive me crazy, but I can run it out on the elliptical!

7. Neglecting self-care + mental health. Moms, this one is specifically directed at you. The holidays come with so much expectation, and with that expectation comes a lot of pressure. We want to make wonderful memories for our children and our families, and we often end up neglecting ourselves trying to get there. Mental illnesses like depression and anxiety are only exacerbated when we don’t get enough sleep, and the worsening symptoms often make it harder to sleep — a vicious cycle I know many of us here are all too familiar with. So here’s my reminder, both for you and for myself this holiday season: don’t forget to take care of yourself — you can’t pour from an empty cup. I’ve personally found the Mindful Mamas app to be a fantastic resource for quick mental health check-ins and helpful guided meditations that are tailored to all kinds of different needs and scenarios. I don’t have any affiliation with the app or its developers and don’t get any kickback if you purchase it, it’s just a personal favorite that I highly recommend. It is a bit of an investment where apps are concerned ($69.99/year), but the sheer breadth of what they provide makes it completely worth it, in my opinion.