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HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Sleep Better Naturally — Utah Community Learning
Okay, before anyone panics about a shopping list — you don't need most of this. Here's the thing: the free changes (wake time, morning light, phone out of the bedroom) matter more than anything you can buy. This list is just so you're not standing in an aisle at Macey's wondering what you actually need versus what's marketing. I've bought some of this stuff myself and regretted half of it. I'll tell you which half.
Tier 1: Budget (start here, under $30 total)
- Cheap eye mask — a few bucks, and if you're only doing one thing off this whole list, this is a strong option. Blocks the 5:30am summer light that hits hard here at our elevation.
- A dark towel or old blanket to tape over a window if your curtains let light leak through the edges. Not elegant. Works.
- A notebook. Any notebook. This is genuinely the most important item on this list — mine's the same one I use for genealogy notes, honestly. Write down what you try and whether it worked. That's the whole method.
- Earplugs, the foam kind, if you've got a partner who snores (looking at Todd) or a house that creaks.
Tier 2: Mid-range ($30–$100)
- Blackout curtains. This was the first real thing I tried when we moved here and it changed Todd's whole life, not just mine. Look for ones with a foam or triple-weave backing, not just dark fabric — dark fabric alone still glows in strong morning light.
- A basic white noise machine. You can also just use a fan or an app on an old phone (charging in another room, not by your bed — we'll talk about that in class). Dean naps with one and goes down in eight minutes flat. I'm a little embarrassed my toddler had a better sleep setup than I did for a while.
- A room thermometer. Cheap, and it tells you if your bedroom's actually cool enough. Cool, dark, boring — that's the goal.
Tier 3: Nice-to-have (only if the free stuff already worked and you want to fine-tune)
- A humidifier. Our air here is dry, especially in winter, and dry air can mess with sleep more than people expect. If you get one — descale it regularly. Our water's hard enough that mine gunks up in about three weeks if I ignore it.
- A smart ring or sleep tracker. I wore one for three months. It mostly just confirmed what I already felt tired about. I still like mine, but I will not tell you to buy one to fix your sleep — it just watches you not sleep, which some people find useful and some people find is basically a stress machine strapped to their finger.
- A sunrise alarm clock, if you're someone who genuinely can't get outside for morning light (shift workers, this is more for you). Nice, not necessary, for most people.
Shopping notes
- Blackout curtains and eye masks are easy to find at any general store or the big warehouse stores off the freeway — no need for anything specialty.
- Skip the melatonin gummy display near the checkout for now. We'll talk about supplements in a later handout, but honestly, most people reach for a pill before they've tried the free stuff, and the free stuff works better. That's just been true in my own experience — might not be true for you, but it's worth testing first.
- If you're buying a thermometer or humidifier, you really don't need a fancy one. Basic works fine.
No worries at all if you show up to week one with none of this. Bring a notebook if you've got one. That's the actual assignment.
HandoutSleep Better Naturally — Cheat Sheet
Sleep Better Naturally — Cheat Sheet
Print this, stick it on the fridge, ignore the parts that don't apply to you. This is the whole class boiled down to what actually moved the needle for me. Pick one thing at a time, test it for a week, write down what happened. That's the method. There isn't a fancier one.
The One Rule (start here)
Same wake-up time, every day, weekends included. Not bedtime — wake time. This is the highest-leverage thing on this whole page. My mom's been doing this by accident for 60 years and sleeps like a rock. Set an alarm for the same time daily, even on Saturday. Give it two weeks before you judge it.
Light
- Morning: get real sunlight within an hour of waking. Ten minutes on the porch counts. This is doing more work than people think.
- Evening: dim the house starting a couple hours before bed. Lamps, not overheads. This one's cheaper than any gadget in this list and works better than most of them.
- Bedroom: blackout curtains if you can swing it. Utah morning light comes in hard in the summer — 5:30am and the room's bright. Todd didn't believe me on this one until he slept till 7.
The Bedroom Itself
Cool, dark, boring. That's the whole formula. - Cooler than you think — our air is dry here and dry air tricks you into thinking a room's fine when it's actually warm. - Humidifier if your throat's dry in the morning, but descale it regularly — hard water gunks them up fast. - Fully dark. No glowing chargers, no streetlight through the blinds. - Boring. Nothing to look at, nothing to do. If your bedroom is also your office, that's working against you.
Evening Wind-Down
- Phone charges outside the bedroom. Kitchen counter, hallway, anywhere but next to the bed. This was the hardest change I made and the one that mattered most. "Just reading in bed" on my phone until midnight was the actual problem, not the solution.
- Hot bath, about an hour before bed. Feels silly. It's the temperature drop afterward that helps you fall asleep. I resisted this one and now I won't skip it.
- Watch the evening wine. I blamed my mattress, my kid, my mother's TV for my 3am wake-ups. It was the glass of wine. Cut it for two weeks as a test if you want a real answer instead of a guess.
What I'd Skip (for now)
- Melatonin gummies and magnesium powders before you've done the free stuff above. Not saying they're fake. Saying most people reach for the pill before they've moved their phone out of the bedroom, and the phone thing works better.
- A sleep tracker, if the goal is fixing your sleep. Great for curiosity. Bad for your head if you start getting anxious about your "score" — and I've watched that happen to people, which is a genuinely sad kind of funny.
The 3am Problem
If you wake up and your brain starts running a meeting: I'm honest that I only have about a 60% success rate here myself. What I do — - Don't check the time. - Don't reach for the phone. - Get up and sit in another room with a low light if 20 minutes pass and you're still wired. Go back when you're sleepy, not when you think you should be.
Your Notebook
Same idea I use for everything, sleep included: one change, one week, write down what happened. Half of what I tried didn't pan out. The notebook's the point, not any single trick in it.
Not My Lane
Snoring that's actually apnea, restless legs, insomnia that's stuck around for months — see a doctor. I'm not one, and this cheat sheet isn't a substitute for that conversation.
WorksheetHandout 3: Your One-Week Sleep Experiment
Handout 3: Your One-Week Sleep Experiment
This is the whole method. Everything else in this course is just background for this piece of paper. Pick one change, try it for seven nights, write down what actually happened. Not what you think should happen. What happened.
I still have a drawer full of notebook pages where the answer was "nothing, actually." That's useful information too.
---
Step 1: Pick ONE thing
Don't do all of these at once. You won't know what worked. Circle one.
- [ ] Get up at the same time every day, including weekends
- [ ] Get 10 minutes of real outdoor light within an hour of waking
- [ ] Phone charges outside the bedroom, starting one hour before lights out
- [ ] Cut evening alcohol for the week
- [ ] Bedroom goes fully dark (blackout curtains, tape over the little lights)
- [ ] Bedroom goes a few degrees cooler than usual
- [ ] Hot bath or shower 60-90 minutes before bed
If you don't know where to start, start with the wake time one. It's the one that moved the needle most for me, and it's free.
Step 2: Track it. Every night, same four questions.
Photocopy this part or just draw your own grid. Seven rows, one per night.
Night Bedtime Wake time Woke in the night? (Y/N, when) How I felt in the morning (1-5) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Keep it next to the bed. If you wait till morning to remember, you'll fudge it. I always fudge it.
Step 3: Notice, don't judge
At the end of the week, answer these honestly:
- Did the change actually happen most nights, or did I mean to and life got in the way? (No shame here. Just be accurate.)
- Did I fall asleep faster, wake up less, or feel better in the morning — any of the three?
- Was there a night this didn't work? What was different about that night?
- Would I keep doing this even without a worksheet telling me to?
Step 4: Keep, drop, or adjust
- Keep it if it helped and it wasn't miserable to do.
- Drop it if a week gave you nothing. Not every good idea is good for you specifically.
- Adjust it if it half-worked. Maybe blackout curtains helped but the room got too warm. Fix the one variable, don't scrap the whole thing.
A few honest notes before you start
- If you're waking at 3am and can't get back down more than half the time, don't panic and don't force it. Get up, do something boring and dim-lit for 15 minutes, go back when you're actually sleepy. Works for me maybe 60% of the time. I'm not going to pretend it's better than that.
- Trackers and rings are fine for curiosity. This worksheet is for fixing. Don't let a sleep score talk you out of trusting your own notes.
- If you've got loud snoring with gasping, legs that won't settle, or you're exhausted no matter what you try — that's outside what a worksheet like this can help with. See a doctor. That's not me being lawyer-ly, that's a real line.
Bring this sheet back next week. We'll compare notes and pick the next experiment.
HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide — When It's Not Working Yet
Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide — When It's Not Working Yet
Every single person in this class hits a snag around week two. That's normal, not a sign you're doing it wrong. Here's the stuff that trips people up most, and what I'd try. This worked for me, might not for you — but it's worth a shot before you give up.
1. "I did blackout curtains and I still wake up at 5:30." Check for light leaking around the edges, not just through the fabric. That early summer light here is brutal and it finds every gap. Todd's second set has the little velcro side strips. Fixed it in one night.
2. "I'm doing everything right and still waking at 3am." Ask yourself what you drank last night. Wine, even one glass, was my whole problem for a stretch and I did not want to hear it. Try cutting it for two weeks straight and actually track it. Don't trust your memory on this, write it down.
3. "I keep changing my bedtime to try to fix this." Wrong lever. Fix your wake time first, same time every day, weekends too. My mom's done this by accident for 60 years and sleeps like a rock. Bedtime will sort itself out once your wake time is locked in. Give it two weeks before you judge it.
4. "I bought a smart ring and now I'm more stressed about sleep." Heck, I get this one a lot. The ring is for curiosity, not for fixing. If checking your sleep score is making you anxious at 11pm, take it off for a while. The data doesn't sleep for you.
5. "I read in bed to wind down and it's not working." The phone is probably the wind-down that's actually keeping you up. This was the hardest change I made, no exaggeration. I moved my phone charger to the kitchen. Took about a week to stop reaching for it out of habit.
6. "My room feels stuffy and I still can't get comfortable." Cool, dark, boring is the goal. Dry air out here means you probably want it colder than feels right, plus a humidifier helps. If you're running one, descale it regularly — hard water gunks them up fast and then they stop working right.
7. "We just moved here (or I'm visiting from lower elevation) and sleep is a mess." Actually hang on, let me make sure I'm not overselling this one. Elevation (we're around 4,600 ft) is a real factor for the first week or two after you arrive. Your body adjusts. If it's been a month and it's still bad, it's probably something else on this list.
8. "My partner snores and I'm sure that's why I'm awake." Maybe. But track a few nights when they're gone, business trip, whatever, and see if you still wake up. I was sure Todd's snoring was my problem until I checked. Sometimes the obvious cause isn't it. Nasal strips are cheap, worth trying anyway.
9. "I tried a hot bath before bed and it didn't do anything the first night." Give it more than one try. It felt ridiculous to me too, a grown woman in the tub at 9pm, but the temperature drop afterward is what does the work, and that takes a couple nights to notice.
10. "None of this is working and I'm exhausted." If you're dealing with loud snoring plus gasping, legs that won't settle, or insomnia that's gone on for months no matter what you change, that's outside my lane. Please see a doctor. This class is for tuning up normal sleep, not diagnosing a disorder.
The actual method, if you forget everything else: change one thing, give it a week, write down what happened. Half of what I've tried didn't pan out. The notebook is the point, not any single trick.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —wait, say that part again, about the ring, because I don't think I knew that.
BROOKE: Which part, the three months?
JESS: The three months of wearing it and it just... told you what you already knew.
BROOKE: Oh yeah. Heck yes, let's start there actually. Okay so, welcome, this is Sleep Better Naturally, episode one, I'm Brooke.
JESS: And I'm Jess, I produce these things and I ask the annoying questions.
BROOKE: They're not annoying.
JESS: Some of them are annoying.
BROOKE: Fair. So the ring thing — I bought one of those smart rings, two hundred bucks, wore it three months straight. And I loved having the data, I'm a numbers person, I'm a contractor, I like a spreadsheet. But here's the thing. It never fixed anything. It just watched me not sleep and then handed me a report about it in the morning.
JESS: Which is somehow worse.
BROOKE: It's worse! Because now you've got a sleep score to be anxious about, on top of the actual not sleeping. I've watched people spiral over a number that's basically just vibes with a battery in it. So — I still wear mine, I'm not telling anyone to throw theirs out. But I tell people in class, don't buy one thinking it'll fix your sleep. It's for curiosity. It is not a fix.
JESS: Okay that's — I want to sit with that for a second because I feel like that's kind of the whole class in one sentence.
BROOKE: It kind of is. Most of what I teach isn't gadgets. It's removing dumb obstacles you didn't notice were obstacles.
JESS: Give me one. Something somebody listening right now could actually do tonight.
BROOKE: Tonight — move your phone out of your room. Charge it in the kitchen.
JESS: That's it?
BROOKE: That's the one that wrecked me the most to admit, honestly. I had this whole story where I was "reading in bed to wind down," real virtuous, very cozy. Actually hang on, let me make sure I'm not romanticizing this — no, I fact-checked myself on this one for real, I tracked it in my notebook. Nights I was on my phone past eleven, worse sleep, every time. The wind-down was the problem. So I moved the charger to the kitchen counter and that was, hands down, the hardest change I've made in this whole process. Harder than the wine thing.
JESS: Wait there's a wine thing?
BROOKE: That's a different episode. 😂
JESS: Fine, fine. Okay, so — moving the phone. Anybody can do that tonight, no class required.
BROOKE: Worth a shot. That's all I'll say. This worked for me, might not for you, but it's free and it takes ninety seconds.
JESS: Tell the elevation story though, because I think people around here specifically will want that one.
BROOKE: Oh, this is a good one because I was wrong. So when we first moved to American Fork, I was sleeping terribly, and I decided — with zero evidence, just vibes — that it was the elevation. We're what, forty-six hundred feet up here, and I was like, that's it, my body's mad about the air.
JESS: Very confident diagnosis.
BROOKE: Extremely confident. So I went and actually looked into it, because that's what I do, I get curious and then I go find out if I'm making things up. And it turns out — elevation is a real thing for the first week or two after you arrive. Your body's adjusting, breathing's a little different at night, totally legit. But after that it settles. So months later, still blaming the mountain? Not the mountain. That one goes in my notebook under "things I was sure about that weren't true." I've got a whole page for those.
JESS: I love that you keep a page for being wrong.
BROOKE: Half my notebook is being wrong. That's kind of the method. You try one thing, you watch what happens, you write it down, and sometimes what happens is "nope, that wasn't it, scratch that."
JESS: Okay, so people leave today with — move the phone to the kitchen, and don't blame the mountain.
BROOKE: 😂 That's a good tagline actually.
JESS: I'm putting it on the flyer.
BROOKE: No worries at all if you do. Next session we're getting into the wake-time thing, which is my actual number one opinion, the one I'll defend to anybody. It's not about when you go to bed, it's about when you get up, same time every day, weekends included. My mom's been doing this by accident for sixty years and sleeps like a rock and thinks I'm being fussy about the whole rest of it.
JESS: I can't wait to meet Blair eventually.
BROOKE: She'd tell you all of this is nonsense and then go to bed at nine-fifteen on the dot.
JESS: See you all next time.
BROOKE: Heck yes. Go move your charger.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but wait, you can't just drop "I made him try nasal strips" and move on, I need the full timeline.
BROOKE: Ha, okay, okay. So this was maybe month two of us living here. I was waking up at like 2, 3am, every night, and I was so sure it was Todd snoring. Dead sure. I even moved to the guest room for a few nights to test it.
JESS: Did that help?
BROOKE: Nope. Still woke up. So then I actually started tracking it — nights he was traveling for work versus nights he was home — and I woke up the same amount either way.
JESS: No way.
BROOKE: Yeah, it wasn't him at all. It was — we'll get to what it actually was, that's a different episode. But here's the thing, I was SO ready to blame the obvious cause. It was right there next to me, snoring. Made total sense. Just wasn't true.
JESS: But you still made him try the strips.
BROOKE: I mean, heck yes I did, the man snores like a table saw. Wrong culprit for my problem, still annoying for its own reasons. 😂
JESS: I love that you tracked it though. Like you ran an actual experiment on your own marriage.
BROOKE: That's the notebook. Same one I use for genealogy stuff, actually, which Todd thinks is very funny, that my sleep data and my great-great-grandmother's birth records are in the same spiral notebook.
JESS: What's in it, like, specifically?
BROOKE: Just — what I changed, and then what happened. That's it. Not fancy. "Slept in guest room, still woke at 2:40." "Todd traveling, woke at 3:10 anyway." You start to see patterns real fast when you write it down instead of just vibing about it in your head.
JESS: Okay, give the people something they can do tonight. Not after the class, tonight.
BROOKE: Tonight — check your evening light. Actually hang on, let me make sure I'm saying this right, because I get the two things backwards sometimes myself. Morning light, go get some, ten minutes on the porch, it helps set your clock for that night. Evening light is the one people don't think about at all. If you're sitting in a bright kitchen at 9pm scrolling your phone, your brain thinks it's still afternoon.
JESS: So dim the lamps.
BROOKE: Dim the lamps, and if you can, get the phone out of the bedroom entirely. That one's harder than it sounds, I'm not gonna pretend it's easy. It was genuinely the hardest change I made, moving my phone to charge in the kitchen instead of on my nightstand. But it moved the needle more than almost anything else I tried.
JESS: More than the fancy stuff?
BROOKE: Way more. This worked for me — might not for everybody — but I'd start there before you buy anything.
JESS: Okay, last thing, next session. What are we doing?
BROOKE: Next time we're getting into temperature and the bedroom itself — cool, dark, boring, that's my whole philosophy in three words. We'll talk about why it's drier up here than people expect, what that does overnight, and whether you actually need a humidifier or if you're just gonna clog it with our hard water and regret it.
JESS: Foreshadowing.
BROOKE: A little bit. Bring questions about your own room setup, we'll troubleshoot live. No worries at all if you think your setup's fine, we'll find something anyway. 🥰
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but that's the part people don't believe when you say it out loud.
BROOKE: I know. It sounds fake. "Your bedroom should be boring." People want the secret and the secret is boring on purpose.
JESS: Cool, dark, boring. Say it again for the people in back.
BROOKE: Cool, dark, boring. That's the whole bedroom philosophy. Not cozy. Not Instagram-y. Boring, like nothing interesting is allowed to happen in there except sleep.
JESS: We're on episode three of Sleep Better Naturally, by the way, for anyone just tuning in. I'm Jess, I produce the class podcasts here at Community Learning, and this is Brooke, who is not a doctor —
BROOKE: Never claimed to be.
JESS: — but has apparently fixed her own sleep through what I can only describe as aggressive note-taking.
BROOKE: [laughs] That's fair. Okay, can I tell you about the notebook? Because I think this is actually the whole method, not just a cute detail.
JESS: Please.
BROOKE: So I keep this little notebook. Same kind I use for genealogy stuff, actually, which — different hobby, don't get me started. But when I was trying to fix my sleep I started writing down every single change I tried and whether it helped. Blackout curtains, yes. Wine before bed, no, definitely no. The hot bath thing, yes. Phone out of the bedroom, yes, but it was the hardest one.
JESS: How much of it didn't work?
BROOKE: Honestly? Half. Maybe more than half. I tried breathing apps, I tried this weird pillow spray, I tried going to bed an hour earlier which just meant I laid there an hour longer being mad about it.
JESS: [laughing] Being mad in bed, very restful.
BROOKE: Extremely restful. But here's the thing — the notebook isn't about finding one magic fix. It's about testing one thing at a time so you actually know what worked. Most people change four things at once and then have no idea which one mattered.
JESS: So it's like — a jobsite log, but for your body.
BROOKE: Oh, I like that. Yeah. You wouldn't just start swapping out wiring and plumbing at the same time and hope you figure out later what fixed the short. Same idea.
JESS: Okay give the people a tip they can use tonight. Something that doesn't require signing up for anything.
BROOKE: Move your phone out of the bedroom. Charge it in the kitchen.
JESS: That's it?
BROOKE: That's it. I fought this one hard, by the way, I want to be honest about that. I had this whole story that I was "just reading" on my phone to wind down, and I fact-checked myself on that — actually hang on, let me make sure I'm remembering this right — yeah, it was a solid week where I was reading in bed till midnight telling myself it was relaxing, and it was actually the exact opposite of winding down. Bright screen, my brain going a mile a minute reading other people's drama. So I moved the phone to the kitchen to charge overnight. Bought a five dollar alarm clock. Hardest change I made, genuinely, and the one that moved the needle the most.
JESS: No phone in the room. Free. Doable by Tuesday.
BROOKE: Doable by Tuesday, that's exactly the bar. If it's not doable by Tuesday I don't teach it.
JESS: Okay, and cool-dark-boring, you already gave us that one.
BROOKE: Cool-dark-boring is free too, mostly. Dial your thermostat down a couple degrees at night, get real blackout curtains, don't put anything stimulating in there. Our air out here is so dry you might actually want it a little colder than you'd think, and if you run a humidifier — which, up here, worth it — descale the thing regularly or the hard water gunks it up fast.
JESS: Noted, for my own house.
BROOKE: [laughs] I'm not just saying it into a microphone, I do actually descale mine, it's a whole Saturday chore.
JESS: Okay, so, next session. What are we covering?
BROOKE: Next time we're getting into light, specifically morning light, because I think it's the most underrated thing in this whole topic. Everybody's worried about their evening routine and their melatonin gummies and meanwhile they haven't been in actual sunlight in three days. We're gonna talk about why ten minutes on the porch in the morning does more than most supplements, and I'll admit up front I used to be pretty skeptical of the whole "get outside" advice because it sounded too simple to be real.
JESS: And now?
BROOKE: Now I'm the annoying person standing on my porch in a bathrobe at 6:45am. Todd thinks I've lost it.
JESS: [laughing] Has he ordered a robe of his own yet.
BROOKE: Give him time. He's still catching up on the blackout curtains thing, he only just admitted those were a good call.
JESS: Alright, bring a notebook next week, people, apparently that's the actual homework.
BROOKE: Heck yes. Same time, same room. See you then.
Videos worth your time
Hand-picked by your instructor, with notes on what to watch for.
- 6 steps to help you sleep better | A Doctors guideDoctor O'Donovan
Watch for the six clear, doctor-explained steps and try picking just one to start with tonight.
- HOW TO SLEEP BETTER | 10 natural sleep hacks to fall asleep fastDownshiftology
Notice how each of the ten hacks targets a different part of your evening routine so you can pick a few that fit your life.
- Tips For Better Rest and A Healthier Sleep RoutineCleveland Clinic
Pay attention to how the doctor links a regular sleep schedule to feeling more rested, and jot down which habit you want to try first.
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