How to Get Your Best Sleep in the Backcountry
The first night I spent sleeping outdoors alone, I tossed and turned under the night-silhouette of the Rocky Mountains and a star-filled sky, convinced that every whisper in the wind was a bear coming for my Cliff Bars. By sunrise, I realized my biggest problem wasn’t wildlife—it was poor sleep. Since then, I’ve learned that getting real rest in the wild is less about toughing it out and more about preparation and self-soothing your nervous system. Whether you’re backpacking in the high Rockies or exploring red rock country from your Wildland basecamp, you may know that the key to deep rest when sleeping outdoors lies in choosing comfortable and reliable gear and staying warm.
What might surprise you is that incorporating body-relaxing practices, which help wind down the nervous system, are essential to your rest while sleeping outdoors. Backcountry sleep rituals can turn a rough night into natural rejuvenation. Below are five ways I have learned to relax the body and mind, and to get the sleep that is important for energy, mood, and mental clarity on the trail.
Choose a Camp With Sleep in Mind
When I choose a camp, I consider selecting my safe zone and my zen zone simultaneously. The terrain, location, and surrounding environment directly affect your cozy den when sleeping outdoors. A good site is secure and sheltered, which influences how deeply you rest. Set your shelter up on a flat, level surface to prevent rolling off your sleeping pad or elevating your feet above your head. A proper camp considers warmth. When its cold, choose a place that gets early light in the morning. Avoid low-lying areas, where cold air and moisture pool as this keeps you warmer and drier through the night. Natural features like ridges and boulders can act as wind barriers.
Noise and light are also key considerations: camping away from busy trails, water sources, snoring neighbors, or creeky trees (also check for widow-maker hazards) reduces disturbances from wildlife, fellow campers, and early morning sunlight. Wind exposure matters too—nestling your tent behind natural windbreaks like boulders or trees can prevent flapping fabric that might wake you. Even minor adjustments, such as facing your tent door away from the prevailing wind, can save you from tossing around in your sleeping bag all night so you are snug and safe for truly restorative sleep.
Yoga Nidra (Non-Sleep Deep Rest Recordings)
When I worked Search and Rescue at a backcountry medical clinic, I was on call 24/7 and had irregular sleep hours. I read an article on Yoga Nidra, which a neuroscientist and sleep expert from Stanford, Dr. Andrew Huberman, coined as Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR). Practicing a 30-minute session of Yoga Nidra, a deep rest meditation practice, could provide the benefits of three to four hours of solid sleep. I started the practice on my backcountry tours and felt so rejuvenated that I trained to become a teacher. Now, I offer guided Yoga Nidra sessions on my Wildland guided trips to help guests sleeping outdoors relax and calm their nervous systems for satisfying rest. According to Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman, “NSDR protocols can help you relax, reduce stress, and fall asleep more easily, as well as replace sleep to some extent” (Huberman Lab Podcast, Episode 83).
Yoga Nidra and NSDR recordings are techniques supported by scientific research that help your body and mind relax deeply. They are especially useful when sleeping outdoors, where your body is on alert to a new environment and out of its comfort zone. As a guide, I often find that a significant cause of unrest among backpackers is anxiety about new situations and challenges in the wilderness. A 2022 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that a single Yoga Nidra session reduced anxiety by 20% and improved sleep quality scores by 35%. For campers and backpackers, listening to a Yoga Nidra or NSDR recording before bed can help the body relax from overstimulation in a strange environment, physical exertion, variable temperatures, and outdoor sounds.
Melatonin
One of the benefits of sleeping outdoors is that it allows us to connect with our body’s superpower for sleeping outdoors, which is in-tune with nature and is our internal guide for when to sleep and wake – the circadian rhythm. Melatonin, a natural hormone secreted by the pineal gland, helps regulate this sleep-wake cycle. In the backcountry, that rhythm can easily get disrupted by factors like daylight hours that are different from your customary timezone, jet lag, or exposure to artificial light from headlamps or screentime in your sleeping bag. Taking a melatonin supplement signals to your body that it’s nighttime. If you wake with the sun, you align your rhythm with daylight, and this resets your body for better sleep on multi-day trips.
Having guided several hikes in the alpine at high altitudes, I find melatonin helpful, as high altitudes can disrupt sleep patterns. When I travel, it helps me sleep in new time zones. However, melatonin works best as an aid to a sleep routine—it’s not a “knock-out” pill but a timing cue for your biological clock to wind down for sleeping outdoors. Combined with good sleep hygiene (such as avoiding Netflix downloads in your tent right before sleep, selecting a level spot to pitch your tent, packing a properly warm sleeping bag, and using a sleep mask), melatonin can help restore natural, restorative rest cycles so you can enjoy falling asleep to the sounds of nature.
Sleep Mask
A sleep mask can make a surprisingly big difference when you’re trying to sleep outdoors, where light is rarely under your control. Whether it’s an early sunrise or the glow from nearby campers’ headlamps, even small amounts of light can disrupt melatonin production—the hormone that signals your body it’s time to rest. A sleep mask blocks light sources and sleep-disrupting blue lights from electronics, creating a cocoon of darkness that helps your brain stay in the “nighty-night” zone.
A sleep mask can make it easier to sleep all night or fall back asleep if you wake up when a camper blasts your tent with their headlamp or when a bright full moon rises. You can find ultralight sleep masks online, as well as structured masks that don’t put pressure on your eyes. If you prioritize lightweight and multi-use gear, a bandana or buff can double as an ultralight light-blocking eye cover.
Bedtime Yoga and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)
After completing my thru-hike of the Colorado Trail, I developed the habit of stretching every night before bed. After long hiking days of 25 to 30 miles, I wanted to take care of my body to prevent injury. Stretching helped me feel vital and energized for the duration of a thru-hike but what surprised me was how each night, I felt deeply relaxed as I settled into my sleeping bag. As a hiking guide and yoga teacher, I enjoy sharing bedtime yoga with my groups, and if you’re planning your own trip, download “Yin Yoga for Sleep” videos on your phone if you want to cultivate a bedtime yoga practice. If you are short on time, a Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) body scan can be an effective alternative.
Yin yoga prepares you for sleep because it helps release the physical tension accumulated from a day of hiking and calms the mind’s restlessness—two significant barriers to sleeping outdoors. Yin yoga consists of long, passive holds that provide a gentle massage to your nervous system and relax your deep connective tissues. In many poses, you can stretch out on your sleeping pad, and in Yin, you settle into each pose for several minutes and slow your breath; your heart rate decreases, and your body shifts into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” mode.