How To Fall Asleep Without the TV

So many people can’t fall asleep without a TV. If you are one of them, I’ll tell you exactly what to do in order to be able to fall asleep without your TV. Mostly, you can’t fall asleep without your TV because you are used to lying down after a hard day of work and zapping through the channels. It became the most usual and comfortable activity for you when you are at home. Or you grew up spending the evening in front of a television and when you fell asleep, your parents brought you to the bed. However, there are some risks and dangers when you fall asleep with your TV every day. After reading this, you’ll know exactly what to do in order to free yourself from your TV and to fall asleep on your own.

Quick Answer: To fall asleep without the TV you will need to build new habits. In this guide, I’ll show you two definite strategies to stop falling asleep with the TV only. The first one is absolute abstinence from watching TV in the evening. The second strategy employs the idea of spending the last hour of the day with something that will promote your sleep.

Here’s what we are going to cover.

  • Why can you only fall asleep with the TV?
  • How to Fall Asleep Without The TV – 2 Working Strategies
  • What can you do without the TV in the evening?
  • Dangers Of Falling Asleep With the TV
  • Why it’s the Right Decision To Go To Bed Without TV

Why can you only fall asleep with the TV?

As already said in the introduction, only being able to fall asleep with the TV has most likely become a habit to you. But that something you can be happy about because habits can be broken. If it was a disease, it would be a much bigger problem.

Also, there’s another reason why you only fall asleep with your TV. That is, the dim light and the colors of the TV calm down your eyes. They slowly shut down. The background music and voices have a meditative effect on you. It’s like the TV creates good conditions for you to fall asleep.

The main cause is still that it has become a habit. And it is not a very healthy one, because you feel tired every morning when you wake up. Here’s what to do to stop depending on the TV.

How to stop falling asleep with the TV only – 2 Working Strategies

There are two strategies you can apply tonight, that will help you to stop falling asleep only with your TV.

Hard Reset – Complete Abstinence from your TV

The first strategy is to quit your bad habit using complete abstinence. From tonight on, you will not sit in front of the TV anymore. By completely quitting the television sessions in the evening your body will first feel attacked because you broke the easy and addictive habit. But in the long term, complete abstinence incredibly effective. You will achieve the fastest results. Within approximately 1-2 weeks, your sleep schedule will have adapted and stabilized and you will be able to keep falling asleep without the TV. The downside to abstinence though is, that you have a high risk of relapsing. Sometimes you might miss falling asleep with your TV and when you start watching the TV again, you are likely to fail this strategy. Complete abstinence to break a habit is an awesome strategy, but it takes a lot of willpower. 

Spend the last hour of the day doing something you like

If you don’t want to stop watching the TV then you are better off with the second strategy. It is very obvious, but trust me, it will work. Set an alarm at a specific time every single day at which you will definitely turn off the TV, for example, at 10 pm. This time should be chosen to be about 1 hour before you actually want to go to bed. When you watch the TV you can relax and do whatever you want. But when the alarm goes off, you have to turn off the TV and go to bed. When you then go to bed you might not be able to fall asleep easily because you are used to falling asleep with your television only.

So, what you can do now is to spend the rest of the night (the one hour you left as a buffer when setting the alarm) with something you enjoy. But it should not be electronics. By doing that you ensure that you softly get used to not depending on technology to fall asleep anymore. I like to spend the hour reading or cleaning my room. But you can do whatever you want. Draw something or maybe write a diary. Spend the last hour of the day doing something you enjoy. On top of that, you accomplish something that you wouldn’t have the time for when you were watching the TV. By doing this strategy for about 3-4 weeks, you should have built a solid habit and you’ll comfortably be able to fall asleep without the TV.

How to speed up the process

Here are two things that you can do to make sure you get the best sleep results as soon as possible. The first idea is to reward yourself every morning when you have fallen asleep without the TV. A reward could be a piece of your favorite chocolate or a delicious coffee. By rewarding yourself you increase the chance of building that habit.

Another idea to speed up the process is to overcome the difficulties of falling asleep without your television on the first nights. As you know, your TV makes you feel comfortable at night. It produces nice and soft light and sometimes there’s calm background music which causes you to fall asleep. You can also do that without your TV. When you spend the evening without your TV, dim the lights and open up a video on youtube that has nice and soft colors and calm music. 

Here’s one video I can recommend to you which I would personally use. The warm light of the fire and the calm music will really get your body prepared for sleep.

By choosing your own video, your own music and doing something you like you have much more control over your sleep now. Having control over your sleep and tiredness is a great step toward your goal: Not depending on anything to fall asleep.

What can you do without the TV in the evening?

Even though we already discussed some things you can do, here’s a list of even more stuff you can do in the evening. And I promise you, every morning you wake up you will be thankful that you didn’t waste your time in front of the TV.

Here are a few productive things to do that do not involve electronics:

  • reading books
  • playing an instrument
  • create something yourself (DIY)
  • prepare food for the next day
  • write a diary entry
  • plan your next day with a To-Do List
  • tidy your room
  • sit outside
  • meditate

Dangers Of Falling Asleep With the TV

Congratulations! You are now on the right path. Because when you do fall asleep with your TV every day, there are some dangers you face. Here are some of them.

First, the blue light of the TV shifts your sleep rhythm every night. If you fall asleep with your TV every night, you practically don’t even have a solid sleep rhythm anymore (here’s a study about it). That’s one reason why you will wake up really tired every morning. On top of that, falling asleep with your TV is even linked to weight gain. How crazy is that?

Waking up in the middle of the night destroys your sleep rhytm

Also at some time during the night (mostly 2-3 am), you will wake up and realize that you fell asleep. Now you have to turn on the lights, get up and go to the bathroom. You might even have to take the stairs and then you’ll have to change clothes and brush your teeth in order to prepare for going to bed. All of that brings your heart rate up and you’ll wake up more and more. Especially because all these things usually take more than just a few minutes. After doing your bedtime preparation you are basically awake again. That means it will take additional time to fall asleep a second time and the next morning you will wake up extremely tired. All of that is unnecessary.

On top of that, the lack of sleep harms your immune system really badly. That’s why people who fall asleep in front of the TV often suffer from becoming sick more often. Additionally, you will feel less happy and wake up with a nearly depressive mood every morning. Sleep is incredibly important for the development of your brain and the refreshing and restoring of your body. And that’s the way your brain signals you that you need to sleep more.

Why it’s the Right Decision to go to Bed Without the TV

When you start going to bed without the TV you will first struggle. But after a few weeks, you will start noticing all of the benefits. The first and also most important benefit of going to bed without watching the TV is that you will simply fall asleep on your own and you’ll establish a solid sleep schedule. When you have a sleep schedule you will wake up much more refreshed than ever before. That essentially eliminates all of the problems you had when you fell asleep with the TV only.

You will not become sick that often anymore as your immune system becomes stronger and stronger every week. Also, you’ll feel healthier. You will be happier when you are well-rested. On top of that, you will look younger (for real – the look of your face changes when you sleep poorly vs. when you sleep well). You will age slower and you’ll simply have a solid sleep rhythm that reliably gets you to sleep every single night without the need for a TV.

How To Fall Asleep Without the TV – The Outline

When it comes to falling asleep without the TV, you have just one option. Quit watching the TV right before you go to bed. You can use the time you save by doing something productive that you enjoy. And on top of that, you will get used to falling asleep without the TV and build a solid sleeping habit and schedule. Also, you will feel much better and all the downsides of falling asleep with your TV only – which include being tired and exhausted every morning – will be gone.

It’s a great decision to quit the TV in the evening and this is your time to start!

If you want to learn more about sleep and read more guides on sleep improvement, definitely go and check out the other sleep guides here on mindinsiders!

I am always happy to hear from you in the comments below!