My insomnia has prevented me from sleeping before 3 a.m. or later for years. I started doing yoga before bed and now, I'm asleep by midnight.

• I've dealt with insomnia since college. My anxiety and depression exacerbate it.
• I frequently find myself awake until 4 a.m. or later.

For me, ever since I was a kid, bedtime has always been more of a time for stress than relaxation, even before I was an insomniac. I would get into bed and immediately start to expect the worst, bracing myself for the seemingly inevitable anxiety attacks.

Medication wasn't the answer for me

I went to the campus-health center, and the on-call doctor prescribed me sleeping pills. Filled with the hope for a good night's sleep, I took my first dose. But even the medication wasn't enough to give me the rest I was looking for. I remember my roommate coming home and finding me in a loopy state, lying in bed and playing my ukulele rather than actually sleeping. In retrospect, I realize that the sleeping pills didn't take away the root cause of my insomnia, which is arguably the most important factor.

Now, I go through phases. Sometimes I'm blessed with a stretch of time when I can sleep "normally," but other times, when my insomnia is at its worst, there are instances where I might be up until 3, 4, or 5 a.m. and beyond, watching the light slowly creep in through my window, groaning and beating myself up for not being asleep yet. Even taking Klonopin, which a doctor prescribed to me for panic attacks and not specifically for insomnia, doesn't always help me relax enough to do the trick. And even if it did, I don't want to be using it as often as I find myself unable to get sleep on my own.

I decided to try doing yoga before bed

Things finally took a turn for the better recently when I decided to incorporate yoga into my otherwise-nonexistent bedtime routine. It started one night when I was having an anxiety attack in bed and randomly felt inspired to search for a bedtime yoga video on YouTube. While it didn't completely stop the anxiety attack, I did feel better. I could breathe a bit easier and felt like I had broken the cycle of just lying there and wishing I was sleeping.

So I started to wonder, what would happen if I actually started doing this nightly, before I even got into bed and tried to sleep in the first place? If I tried doing yoga at night before it became a necessity, maybe it could have a positive effect on my sleep. So I decided to give it a try, even though I wasn't sure how much it would help.

My new nightly ritual began with lighting a candle, putting on some relaxing music, and pressing play on one of the videos from my list of saved bedtime yoga videos on YouTube. These are not sweaty, strenuous sequences — no downward dogs, thank God. They're relaxing, lazy flows that involve only sitting and lying down.

Soon, I realized sleep was coming more easily

After the first few nights, I realized I was falling asleep easier and getting super tired during savasana, or the "corpse pose," before I even got into bed. I knew I was onto something. I decided, for once in my life, that I was going to stick to a healthy habit for real, and I made it a goal to do this every single night for a month. To be honest, I'm shocked that I did.

This isn't just a magic insomnia treatment for me — research over the years has shown the benefits of yoga for sleep. A 2020 review of 19 studies analyzing over 1,800 women found that the majority of those surveyed who did yoga experienced reduced insomnia and better sleep compared to those surveyed who did not do yoga. Another 2022 study showed that regular yoga practice could improve symptoms of anxiety, depression, and insomnia. The researchers noted that yoga could be a potential alternative to cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, which is often the first-line non-pharmaceutical treatment for chronic insomnia.

Now, instead of falling asleep at 4 a.m., I'm asleep before midnight

Scientific research aside, here's why I think yoga really helps me: it provides a buffer between my waking life and my sleep. Instead of going straight from whatever I was doing that night into bed and hoping for the best, yoga provides me with a dedicated time to wind down and come into my body after plenty of time spent in my head all day. Plus, while I'm doing it, I keep my eyes closed most of the time, just listening to the audio and following the instructor's cues, giving myself a break from staring at screens all day.

And while I know many people tout breathing exercises as a great way to relax before bed, breathing exercises alone are quite triggering for me. It feels much more natural to breathe deeply when it's linked to movement, like a big, juicy stretch. I can focus more on the sensations in my body — the lengthening in my sides, the release of my hips, and the rolling out of kinks in my neck. This is a welcome change from just lying in bed, praying that I'll magically get tired, and hoping my mind will quiet on its own. As the relaxing flow continues, my brain follows.

These days, I'm far more likely to fall asleep before midnight, sometimes even before 11 p.m. — something that used to be unheard of for me. Bedtime has become much less dreaded and much healthier than it's ever been. That's not to say every night's perfect, but there's been so much progress — and that's enough for me.