The ultimate guide to finally fix your sleep
All you ever wanted to know and understand about sleep, and more - part 2
Let’s face it, your sleep is probably not as good as it could be. When was the last time you woke up and felt so refreshed that you couldn’t wait to jump out of bed and start the day?… exactly! So let’s talk about how to fix that.
Your bed, your environment, and your behavior are what makes or breaks your sleep.
Let's start with your bed because that's the most obvious and the easiest to fix; If you don't have a comfortable mattress, and pillow that fits your sleeping style, then you probably won't get the rest you need.
How would you know what is your sleeping style, and what kind of mattress you need? You can simply order a new mattress, or go to a mattress store, get a mattress to try it out - see if your sleep improves - if not, take advantage of that 90 days return policy that most places have.
Basically, there are three sleeping positions: 1. sleeping on the side - the most common sleep position among adults. About 54% of adults sleep in this position.
2. sleeping on your back - About 38% of people tend to sleep on their back, making it the second most common position to sleep in. 3. sleeping on your stomach - Only about 7% of the adult population sleep on their stomachs. 1
The idea would be to keep your spine aligned; so, if you sleep on your side, the mattress should be softer, for the wider parts of your body to be able to ‘sink in’ a little, so that when you look at your spine from the back, it would be in a continuous straight line.
If you want to take it to the next level you can set up your laptop or webcam and shoot a video of yourself sleeping (and if that sounds too creepy, no problem, you can also go to a sleep lab and let -other people- watch you sleep…).
Alright, so let's say you found a good mattress, pillow, and blanket, and still, you are not sleeping very well and you just don't feel like you are getting that deep rest that everybody is talking about.
Let’s widen our focus to your environment. Make sure your bedroom stays nice and cool and is not above 68 degrees Fahrenheit (~20 degrees Celcius). As mentioned in part 1, Your body temperature mediates sleep.
If you don't have an AC, at least get a fan and do everything possible to cool down the room. The fan can have a nice side effect in that it'll carry away the CO2 you exhale during sleep and make sure you get fresh air with every breath. If you have allergies - especially dust mite allergy - a fan with a HEPA filter might be worth the money.
Remove all clocks from your bedroom (Yes, that includes your phone as well). A clock, especially a visible one, creates mental pressure, and directs, unnecessarily, your attention to the passage of time (which could lead to a feeling of “why am I not falling asleep already?! it’s been… x… hours).
Now let's come to my personal favorite when it comes to sleep: Light!
Make sure you sleep in a mostly dark room. Two hours before you go to sleep you should avoid screens and artificial light- especially blue light, like on your Tv, phone, or Laptop screen. The blue LED light will set back your melatonin production and even if you fall asleep right away it will take you way longer to reach that deep REM sleep.
Remember: just because you can fall asleep right away (thanks to your Adenosine), it doesn’t mean you are having quality sleep.
If you have to work/watch/read on a laptop or screen, you can install something like f.lux and use the night mode (or black and white mode) on your devices (the darker, the redder- the better). In addition, you can wear blue-light-blocking glasses.
Artificial light before bedtime is one of the major reasons people don't sleep well.
In that regard, our bathrooms can be problematic as well- since we want to see ourselves in the mirror we tend to have very bright lights installed there. So, when you go to the toilet before you go to sleep your eyes are flooded with bright light signaling to the brain that it’s time to wake up - which is of course exactly the opposite of what you want.
Here is a quick fix for the bathroom light situation:
Install two bathroom lights - one for the morning and during the day, and one for the nighttime. (There are many innovative home solutions for these kinds of things, but I really don’t see why this needs to be overengineered, when a secondary 20$ lamp, or even a battery-powered table lamp, will do the trick just fine.)
In addition to that, it helps to have an alarm on your phone set for two hours before you go sleep - this would be a great time to brush your teeth and get all the things done that require a strong light.2 This will also be a good time to switch off your TV (or at least turn the 'night mode' on), and go get the book you've been wanting to read for so long.
Alright, let's move on to the last, and the most difficult part that affects your sleep: Your daily routine.
Let's face it - there could be so many things wrong with you, we will never have enough time to cover all of them... I’m kidding, of course, you are a wonderful human being, and you are just perfect the way you are. However, there are some things that you do on a daily basis that potentially could affect your sleep quality:
Caffeine and other stimulating substances; Stay away from them in the 10 h before going to bed. In addition to that, try to avoid caffeine for 90 min after you wake up. Wait, what? Yes unfortunately you heard that right. Drinking caffeine right when you wake up (and also right after a big meal by the way), is bad for your normal wake and sleep cycle. 3
Avoid eating a big meal 4h before you go to sleep; that being said, most people sleep better if they consume at least some carbs for dinner.
Light: Wait! We talked about that before. Yes, but now I’m actually referring to sunlight. Get natural light into your eyes early in the morning shortly after you wake up. How short? The faster the better! but if it's within 90min of waking it's probably still beneficial. The same goes for the sunset. If you can look at the setting sun in the afternoon, go for it4, it will help your body understand that it's time to release some Melatonin. If you live far north - buy one of those SAD lamps and incorporate it into your morning routine.
Exercise: Doing sports during the day has lots of health benefits, and can also help you sleep better, but don't work out too close to your bedtime - make sure you have a 4h buffer (better make it 6). This again is explained by the fact that working out raises your body temperature.
Bonus tip: A great way to get both of those done together, is jumping rope while looking east in the morning, to get that sunlight exposure.5If you are a shift worker, do everything you can to get a new job6. I’m not kidding. With all the data we now have on shift workers, it is very detrimental to your health. Even some extra pay for night shifts won’t make up for it. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow - our bodies can compensate a lot - but you should have a plan to find another job, and start working on it if you value your health.
Your mindset: If you find yourself constantly worrying, you can try to “brain dump” everything that is in your head on a piece of paper or notebook for 5 min each night before you go to sleep.7 Write down your ideas, thoughts, worries everything that comes to mind, and get it out of your head.
Another thing you can try is meditation. I know no one likes doing it, but it works, so I have to mention it here. Maybe try to take yourself out on a mental walk in a nice calming environment.Your behavior and your routine: Have a wind-down routine each night before you go to sleep. Find out what works for you (brain dump, meditate, read, listen to a relaxing audiobook or music…) After all, we do it for our kids, and they are (kind of) humans too, you know.
Alright, uh… that was a lot of information, if you want to get the most out of this extensive post, be sure to bookmark it and send it to a friend, so you can both try to implement these tips into your routines and help each other out.
After you are done trying and optimizing everything above, you can come back and dive deeper into the realm of sleep improvement.
What can you do, or take, to further improve your sleep quality?
There is a time and a place for sleeping pills, they are a short-term solution for certain conditions. However, they should be one of the latest options and almost never taken for a long period of time. Cognitive behavior therapy, for example, is way more effective - after working with therapists, it’s not uncommon for the effects of this kind of therapy to last for a decade. Read that again - a decade!
A lot of people reach towards alcohol to help them fall asleep. Unfortunately, alcohol is not a sleeping aid. It does sedate your cortex a little bit, but sedation is not the same as sleep. One glass of wine already has a measurable effect on your sleep quality, (Significant reduction in REM sleep and up to 50% drop in growth hormone release) So why do so many people reach for alcohol as a sleeping aid?
Here is what happens: You are losing consciousness faster when you are sedated, but it’s not the same as falling asleep. In addition to that, alcohol will make you wake up many more times throughout the night. Your sleep will be littered with little awakenings throughout the night and you won’t feel great, refreshed, or restored. This will just make you want to reach for another glass of wine the next night… don’t start the cycle and stay away from alcohol as a sleeping aid.
The second place for self-medication probably goes to Cannabis. A lot of people report that after smoking some weed they sleep better, or fall asleep faster. While it is true that CBD actually might be beneficial for sleep, THC is pretty bad.
Granted, THC can speed up the time it takes you to fall asleep, however, it seems that as alcohol does, it blocks REM sleep significantly. The second reason against THC as a sleeping aid is that it can create pretty nasty dependency issues, and when you stop using it it can actually lead to insomnia.
So what about CBD? It might be “helping” with sleep, or at least not disrupting it like THC or alcohol, however, the data is in no way clear yet and it's still too early to draw a conclusion.8 There is some strong evidence that it can reduce anxiety by relaxing the amygdala part of your brain9. So if CBD helps you sleep, you might also benefit from other anti-anxiety treatments as well.
There is, however, one problem with a lot of CBD oils that you buy freely on the market - the concentration on the label does in no way correlate with the actual CDB content. So, if you are taking CBD, make sure it’s from a safe, and high-quality supplier, like a pharmacy, or at least tested by an independent laboratory.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room - Melatonin supplements - You went this far in a post about sleep, without reading about it, and yet, most people recommend it as the first thing to take if your sleep is not good.
Well, now it’s time. Most people have heard about it, and know that it has something to do with sleep. A lot of them might actually be quick to point out melatonin as a natural sleep aid. Ah… if it was only that easy… Your body makes melatonin every day, Melatonin starts to rise in your body coming dusk. It’s a very simple, yet elegant, mechanism. When you lose light, which acts as the natural brake pedal for melatonin, it starts to rise. (Now you understand why artificial lights might be a problem for your sleep…)
Melatonin essentially tells the body when it’s day and when it’s night (the ‘time keeper’), and in that way, it tells your body when to be awake and when to sleep. It, therefore, helps with the timing and the onset of sleep but it does not help with sleep itself.
Let me repeat that: it tells your body when it is time to fall asleep but it has no way of actually making you sleep (It’s basically the 24h timekeeper of your body that’s it).
Ok, so now we can talk about melatonin as a supplement: it turns out, that in healthy adults, melatonin is not beneficial for sleep (that being said, it seems that melatonin seems to drop the body temperature... there it is again...), so, if you benefit from taking melatonin you might be able to achieve the same results by switching off the lights and taking a hot bath in the evening.10
Melatonin does seem to have an effect on older people (>65y), who have trouble falling or staying asleep. The doses that helped people with deficiencies were between 0.1 and 0.3 mg of melatonin. When you compare that with the average supplement (2-5 mg), you’ll notice that this dose is way lower. Don’t reach for those supplements!
What about all the other things you hear or read about aiding sleep? Listen, I’m sure that there is some truth to the findings that Kiwis, tart cherries, turkey, and whatnot can help with sleep. However, if you follow all the things we’ve discussed above AND learn about the basics of sleep, then you won’t need to eat cherries to sleep well - I promise.
Alright, with that I’m leaving you for today and tonight.
Have a great day.
GNF
As always let me know what you think in the comments or answer this email. I read every email myself and try to answer quickly.
This information was mainly taken from this article.
This has a nice side effect; Because you already brushed your teeth, you will find yourself less likely to snack before you go to sleep. Try it, and tell me if it works the same for you.
If you're like me and you need that coffee taste in the morning just get a decent decaf - you won't miss a thing I promise. For the tea lovers out there yes there actually is such a thing as decaf tea and it's even tasty - who would have thought?
Don’t stare directly at the sun! it's enough if you are just outside.
I stole that one from Tim Ferriss
Get another job, or at least find an arrangement in your current job, in which you won’t work shifts anymore.
This is also referred to as “freewriting”- when you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing down whatever comes into your mind
It seems that in small doses (5-10mg) CBD can actually be wake-promoting. Only above 25mg, can it be sedating, and or sleep-promoting. In some animal models, CBD seems to create a hypothermia profile, which means that it cools the body down. Thermoregulation (a mechanism by which mammals maintain body temperature with tightly controlled self-regulation independent of external temperatures), would be a strong candidate for sleep-mediating properties. In very recent studies, it seems that CBD might be able to alter the signaling of adenosine in a way that makes your brain more sensitive to adenosine, and therefore, feel more tired and ready to fall asleep.
The Amygdala is the integrative center for emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation. The Amygdala was shown to perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision-making, and emotional responses (including fear, anxiety, and aggression).
Not too close to your bedtime, ideally 1-2h before.