Lesson 7 explained why you should get up when you cannot sleep. This lesson introduces the companion rule: keep your bed for sleeping.

This means changing how you use your bed during the rest of the day and during periods when you are awake at night.

If you work, scroll, watch television, read or eat in bed, your body learns that the bed is a place for those activities. The same thing happens when you lie there worrying or repeatedly thinking through the events of the day.

Each repetition strengthens the association between your bed and being awake.

This is not about sleep hygiene in the usual self-help sense. It is about conditioning, the same process described in Lesson 7.

Your bed can become a signal for sleep. It can also become a signal for work, entertainment, worry or wakefulness, depending on what regularly happens there.

The rule is simple: use your bed only for sleep and sex. Other activities should take place somewhere else. This includes reading before sleep, even if you usually use it to wind down.

This change can be especially difficult if you work from home and have been using your bed as an office. In that situation, the association between bed and wakefulness may be stronger and may take longer to change.

The rule remains the same. Move your work, scrolling, television and other waking activities somewhere else. Each activity you remove from the bed makes the signal for sleep clearer.

There is one useful exception. If reading in bed helps you feel sleepy and you consistently fall asleep without difficulty, this rule may be less important for you.

The purpose of the rule is to rebuild the association between bed and sleep. If that association is already strong, you may not need to apply every part of the rule as strictly.

The same principle applies to many instructions in this program. They are designed for people whose connection between bed and sleep has weakened. If that is not one of your difficulties, you can use the instruction more flexibly.

For many people experiencing insomnia, however, the association needs to be rebuilt. Lessons 7 and 8 work together to do that:

• Get out of bed when you cannot sleep.
• Do not use your bed for other waking activities.

The association changes gradually over several weeks. As it becomes stronger, getting into bed can begin to feel like a reliable signal for sleep rather than an uncertain wait.