Let’s talk a bit about sleep. It’s January 2020 and lots of people are coming up with new year resolutions and starting new diets, new fitness plans and generally have new motivation to go out and get healthier and perform better.

Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash

What I’d like you to consider, when thinking about what areas to focus on this year, is to maybe try and sleep a bit better and incorporate new habits towards getting better sleep hygiene.

The research about sleep, and it’s vital importance is widespread and growing. Gone are the days where we proudly brag about how little sleep we function on and phrases such as ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’ because the reality is, that if you follow that mantra, then you’ll be dead sooner than expected.

Let’s have a quick look at the research, although if this is a topic that interests you, please do and go do some more extensive research and maybe pick up Matthew Walker’s book: ‘Why we Sleep’.

Scientists say that quality sleep is as important to health as food and water are. It helps you to survive and thrive. Some of the side effects of sleep deprivation include:

memory troubles

mood changes

weakened immunity

trouble concentrating

poor response time and increased risk of accidents

high blood pressure

weight gain

risk for diabetes

low sex drive

risk of heart disease

poor balance

early aging

Photo by Sylvie Tittel on Unsplash

Sleep stage overview

There are effectively 3 stages of sleep. These are light sleep, deep sleep and REM or rapid eye movement sleep. Both light sleep and deep sleep are sometimes combined into what’s known as N-REM or non rapid eye movement sleep. What’s interesting is that they all serve a crucial purpose meaning that you need all of them in order to get a good nights’ sleep. Just trying to skip light sleep and going straight into deep sleep, or maybe skipping out on REM sleep and just having light sleep and deep sleep just won’t cut it.

Light Sleep: This is the first stage of sleep where you can be easily awakened and forms up to 50% of the time we’re asleep. Whilst dreams to occur during this stage of sleep, they aren’t as vivid and don’t form as much as a narrative as those that occur during REM sleep. The most important function of light sleep, according to neuroscientists is that memory is ‘backed up’ during this stage meaning that memories are transferred from short-term to long-term storage and transfers information such as facts and memories from one section of the brain to another. This makes light sleep crucial for learning and is probably why university students nap so much. I miss those naps.

Deep Sleep: Deep sleep is the most refreshing sleep, as subjectively described by people after they wake up. Unfortunately, the older we get the less deep sleep we get.Deep sleep is a time of accelerated tissue repair. In growing children, this is a time of physical growth. Human growth hormone is released in the first deep sleep episode of the night, and the period is associated with rejuvenation. Common childhood sleep disorders such as nocturnal enuresis, night terrors, and sleepwalking happen during this period.

REM Sleep: The name refers to the characteristic twitching of the eyelids and surrounding muscles. Sleepers in the REM stage appear immobile except for their breathing and fluttering eyes. The large skeletal muscles are paralyzed (atonia). An area called the pons in the base of the brain signals the spinal cord to shut down neurons. This is thought to be evolution’s solution to the brain’s playing out of stories in dreams. if the sleeper could move around, he or she would play out dreams and perhaps endanger themselves or others.

The entire cycle of these phases, which ends in REM sleep usually takes about 90 minutes, which is why it’s a good idea to think of sleep in 90 minute blocks, or 4–5 phases rather than just a fixed amount of hours.

I like using this sleep calculator app (https://sleepcalculator.com/) and plug in what time I need to wake up and it’ll tell be what time to go to bed to ensure I wake after a full sleep cycle.

Now that you know a bit more about sleep and the importance of getting enough of it, let’s dive into how you can ensure you improve your sleep quality.

Watch this video if you’re not convinced:

Sleep hacks

Sleep timing: The first step to getting better sleep is to ensure you go to sleep, and get up at the same time everyday. This includes the weekend. Your body learns to get into the rhythm and you’ll find it much easier to fall asleep at night and you’ll find yourself waking up naturally at the same time every day. You can use the sleep calculator above to figure out what times will suit you best to go to sleep everyday.

Sleep Chronotype: Another way to help you get better sleep, and figure out what time you should be sleeping, is to find out your sleep chronotype. We all know people who are morning people and others who are night owls. Your chronotype is what determines this and Dr Breus has come up with four distinct types: Bear, Lion, Wolf and Dolphin.

Bear

Most people fall into the bear chronotype category. Bears’ sleep-wake patterns follow the sun, and they have no difficulty sleeping. Bears are most ready for intense tasks smack in the middle of the morning, and they feel a dip in the mid-afternoon.

Overall, bears have steady energy and get things done. They can maintain productivity all day as long as they don’t try to push past the mid-afternoon recharge period. Bears tend to be friendly people-people.

Lion

Lions wake up early. These are the go-getters, the leaders, the type-A movers and shakers. They might not reach for a cup of coffee until a little before lunch, and their most productive hours have already passed by that time. Because of their action-packed mornings, they tend to fizzle out in the evening and turn in early.

Wolf

Wolves are on the nocturnal end of the spectrum. They get a later start to their day and ride the productivity wave while the rest of the world winds down. Interestingly, wolves have two peak periods: from noon to 2:00 pm and again just as most of the working world is clocking out.

Wolves tend to be makers — writers, artists, coders. The creative areas of the wolf’s brain light up when the sun goes down. More often than not, wolf types tend toward introversion and crave their alone time.

The wolf chronotype schedules later meetings and invites you to dinner just past the restaurant’s dinner rush.

Dolphin

Dolphins may or may not have a regular sleep routine. As light sleepers, they frequently wake throughout the night and often do not sleep enough. Dolphins struggle to fall asleep, ruminating over the day’s failures.

Dolphins’ extreme intelligence and tendency toward perfectionism probably explain why they spend so much time chewing over the day. They do their best work from mid-morning through early afternoon.

If you can’t figure it out from the descriptions, then you can take this handy quiz: https://thepowerofwhenquiz.com/

The Bedroom

Ensure you sleep in a room that is completely dark. You want to black out all natural light and if possible, also black out any LED lights coming from devices such as TV stand-by, alarm clocks and anything else that emits light. Ideally you should have no devices in your bedroom. You bedroom is for sex and sleeping, keep all the electronics in the other rooms.

Blue light emitting devices

Blue light, or junk light is artificial light that is emitted from all your device screen, including your TV and your smart phone. This also includes light sources such as LED lights. These light sources mess with the melatonin production in your body and tell your body that it’s daytime, time to be awake. In order to allow your brain to signal the production of melatonin, the hormone that tells the body it’s time for sleep, it’s best you refrain from using your laptop, ipad, smart phone and any other sources of blue light up to two hours before bed.

If this is impossible for you, and I know that for a lot of people it is, then ensure you use dark mode on your laptop in the apps and the operating system. And use night shift on your iphone (or android equivalent). You can automate this process for your screen to start shifting away from blue light at the same time everyday.

Relax

It may sound obvious but a great way to aid your sleep is to find a way to relax and de-stress. My personal recommendation is to start a daily meditation practice but you could also have a warm bath or shower. Or you could have some sleep tea that contains chamomile and lavender. Or maybe it’s reading a few chapters in a book. But finding a way to wind down before bed will help you get to sleep faster.

Temperature

The temperature of your bedroom matters. Make sure that it’s around 60–67 degrees fahrenheit or 15–19 degrees celsius. Your body temperature drops when you sleep and ensuring your room is nice and cool will help with this process.

Caffeine

We all love caffeine. It’s our drug of choice for many people. And I’d definitely recommend you enjoy a few cups a day since there are many benefits. But if you’re working on your sleep, I’d recommend having a daily cut off time. I personally stop having any kind of caffeine between 3 and 4pm. I usually go to bed around 9–10pm so aim to switch away from caffeine about 5–6 hours before you go to bed.

Nicotine and alcohol

Studies have shown both nicotine and alcohol to have negative effects on sleep quality so it’s best to avoid both of those just before bed too! So much for a night cap.

Scent

Now we’re getting into a bit more gimmicky things. When I decided I really wanted to improve my sleep a few years ago, and focus on getting high quality sleep, I left no stone unturned. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what worked and what didn’t since I implemented all of these ‘hacks’ at once. And in some way, it doesn’t really matter if it works. If it puts your mind at ease that it’ll help you sleep, there’s always the placebo effect.

That leads me into the wide array of sleep products now on the market. I’m referring to sleep candles, pillow sprays, rub ons, diffusers, the lot. And you’ve guessed it, I tried them all. Here are my favourites:

White Company Sleep Diffuser: it smells great and lasts a long time.

This Works Pillow Spray: I keep getting these as gifts so I have one for home and keep one in my travel bag.

Supplements

I try not too rely too much on supplements to sleep. And let me make it clear, I’m not referring to and would not recommend sleeping pills of any sort. They knock you unconscious but do not give you the high quality sleep you’re looking for.

ZMA: This stands for Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6. This is a great combination to take before bed which not only helps with sleep (and gives you pretty bizarre dreams) but also aids with muscle recovery from workouts. So in my eyes it kills two birds with one stone. And I enjoy the dreams too. DO NOT TAKE TOO MUCH. YOU WILL GET THE SHITS!

L-Tryptophan: This is an amino acid that has multiple great effects. Your body changes L-tryptophan into a brain chemical called serotonin which helps control your mood and sleep. Not only does this help you sleep but it can also help tackle depression. As with ZMA above. Don’t take too much, it can give you the runs!

Reishi Mushroom: Known as the Queen of Mushrooms, Mushroom of Immortality, Lingzhi mushroom, Ganoderma Lucidum, or straightforward reishi, this mushroom has been used to support well-being for over 2,000 years in China and Japan. Reishi supports sleep, stress and your immune system. Personally I’ve got the Four Sigmatic Reishi hot chocolate which I sometimes enjoy before bed.

Melatonin: Now this is pretty near impossible too get in the UK but you can get it abroad. I got mine from the US. I use this very sparingly and only if I really have to get sleep. Melatonin is the hormone that actually regulates sleep. Both the supplements above aid in melatonin production which is why I prefer to use them. You can also naturally improve your melatonin regulation by implementing the sleep hygiene ‘hacks’ detailed above. So I’d only resort to this in dire times of need.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash

WiFi and EMF

Now we’re going another step further. Wireless routers give off electromagnetic radiation in the low-gigahertz frequency. So the more WiFi devices we have around us, the more exposure to EMF we endure.

Increasingly, scientists and researchers are uncovering the health risks of EMFs. Depending on the level and the length of exposure, those risks can range from insomnia and headaches to tumors.

An easy way to avoid this is to just either get a smart plug that turns off your wifi router every day at a certain time and turns back on in the morning (or you could just do this manually). Or you can just ban wifi devices from the bedroom at night. I personally leave my phone in the other room when I sleep now. It also stops me getting the blue light. I sleep with an apple watch currently (until I get my Oura ring when I get married) to track my sleep, so I switch off the wifi and put it in airplane mode. I also switch of notifications and put it into ‘cinema’ mode to stop it lighting up.

Sleep Tracking

Finally, if you really want to geek out about you sleep, you can look into sleep tracking. I used to use the Sleep Cycle app on my phone to track my sleep and wake me up after a sleep cycle. It doesn’t work well however when there’s multiple people in the bed and also breaks my rule of having a phone in the bedroom.

I currently use my apple watch in conjunction with an app called SleepWatch. But as previously mentioned, I’m looking to move to the Oura ring. I’ll post an update when I get it.

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, you must really want to sleep. It’s really all about implementing a few good sleep habits and working on your sleep hygiene. You can go ahead and try all of the above but if you really had to choose just one or two, then I’d go for standardising your bedtime and wake up times and eliminating caffeine after 4pm.

Happy Sleeping

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