Waking Up Refreshed Worksheet
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Looking for a waking up refreshed worksheet to share with clients? As a therapist, you may be familiar with clients' sleep problems.
Some folks may struggle to juggle everything in their life and don’t get sufficient rest, and others may struggle with insomnia, chronic fatigue, or poor sleeping habits.
Whatever the reason, this waking up refreshed worksheet can help clients establish healthier habits. We’ve included tips to sleep better, information on how to wake up feeling refreshed, and the downloadable waking up refreshed worksheet includes tips and a sleep log to provide as a handout to clients.
Effects of poor sleep on mental health
Poor sleep is associated with many adverse effects, and can even lead to chronic health problems.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sleep deprivation affects one in three adults.
Poor or insufficient sleep may be caused by:
- Not getting enough sleep
- Sleeping at different times of the day, instead of overnight
- Not sleeping well and not getting enough of the right types of sleep
- Having a sleep disorder, like sleep apnea that causes poor quality sleep
Nearly 40% of American adults report falling asleep during the day at least once a month and an estimated 50 to 70 million Americans have sleep disorders.
The effects of poor sleep can lead to several physical and mental health problems, according to National Institutes of Health (NIH), including:
- Injuries
- Loss of productivity
- Difficulty learning
- Impaired driving
- Difficulty judging other people’s responses
- Greater likelihood of death
- Behavioral issues in children and adolescents
- Mood swings, causing irritability and impacts to social functioning
- Heart disease
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes
- Stroke
- Depression
- Increased risk of falls in older adults
While culturally we may think it's possible to get by on little sleep, these effects show that to be a myth—which is why it’s so important to help clients learn how to wake up feeling refreshed.
Tips to sleep better for clients
Better sleep comes down to creating the right conditions for a restful sleep in order to get enough sleep.
How much sleep do you need?
The amount of sleep we need varies depending on factors like age and sex. It can also vary from person-to-person.
You can determine how much sleep you need using a sleep calculator, or the NIH general guidelines for the amount of sleep we should aim for, which includes:
- Newborns (4 to 12 months): 12 to 16 hours a day
- Children (1 to 2 years old): 11 to 14 hours a day
- Children (3 to 5 years old): 10 to 13 hours per day
- Children (6 to 12 years old): 9 to 12 hours a day
- Adolescents (13 to 18): 8 to 10 hours a day
- Adults (18 and over): at least 7 hours each day
How to wake up feeling refreshed
If your clients are wondering how to wake up refreshed and energized, these tips can help. The key is practicing good sleep hygiene, or creating the right conditions for deep, restful sleep.
Here are several tips for how to wake up feeling refreshed:
- Limiting caffeine during the afternoon and evening hours
- Avoiding large meals before bed
- Going to bed at the same time every day, including weekends
- Creating the right environment: Make your bedroom cool, quiet, and comfortable, with no electronic devices, like TVs, computers, and cell phones
- Staying active during the day
- Limiting alcohol intake
- Use a sleep monitor, like an app, which evaluates quality of sleep
- Try not to hit snooze
- Prepare your day the night before: Lay out your outfit, pre-prepare your coffee and breakfast, or have your workout clothes ready to go
Sleep hygiene takes practice—it doesn’t happen overnight.
Sometimes life will get in the way, especially if your client has young children who may wake in the middle of the night.
There are often other factors impacting sleep quality, such as anxiety, stressors, academic challenges, and life events.
As a therapist, you can help your clients work through these emotional and life-related difficulties to get them back on track for sound sleep.
There may also be times when additional help is needed. Untreated medical conditions, like sleep apnea or diabetes, can severely impact the quality of sleep and overall well-being of your clients.
If your client is getting the recommended amount of sleep and asking you “Why do I not wake up feeling refreshed?” then this is where you may need to make a referral to a medical professional, such as their primary care provider, for an assessment.
It’s also worth noting that some clients, such as shift workers, don’t have the option to sleep at night, and, therefore, end up working against their body clocks. While it is not impossible to get quality sleep as a shift worker, it may be more challenging. The key is to encourage the same sleep hygiene habits whenever possible.
How to use the waking up refreshed worksheet
The waking up refreshed worksheet can be downloaded for free at the top of this article. It contains 10 tips to encourage healthy and restful sleep, along with a sleep log that clients can use to track their sleep habits over a period of time.
Therapists can use the waking up refreshed worksheet in several ways:
- In session as a psychoeducation tool
- As a virtual handout for telehealth sessions
- For clients to remind themselves of sleep hygiene tips and to report back at the next session
- As an aid to identify challenges impacting your client’s sleep
- To increase awareness for medical intervention
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