Help, I Can't Sleep in the Woods!

Advice for ignoring the creepy sounds outside your tent

Welcome back to Between A Mossy Rock And A Hard Place, the fortnightly advice column for all your outdoorsy conundrums!

This week’s question was asked by one of my friends¹, but remember that you can submit your own question for a future column!

Here’s the issue:

Help! I can’t fall asleep in the woods! I know the footsteps outside my tent are probably squirrels, but logic doesn’t work at 2 AM. If I manage to fall asleep, it’s only for a couple hours before I fall off the edge of my sleeping pad and then have to start the whole falling asleep process over again. I want to go on longer backpacking trips, but I’m worried I’ll be too sleep deprived by day three…

I’m sure you’ve already heard that falling asleep gets easier as you spend more time in your tent. While that’s true, it doesn’t help you get through those initial sleepless nights. After (a decent bit of) trial and error, I’ve gotten to the point where I now sleep better in my tent than in a hotel room. What worked for me won’t necessarily work for you—after all, we all have our own sleep quirks—but hopefully I can get you started on the path to more restful nights outside.