The Most Practical Toolkit For a Better Sleep

7 min readAug 11, 2022

These are my notes from The Huberman Lab Podcast episode #84 + some of my own research. I am a BIG fan of Dr. Huberman and his podcast.

Even though Andrew had already touched on many of these topics before, it was a summary of the practical tools to enhance sleep.

I have been doing almost all of these practices for the past year and all I can say is they DO work. By improving my sleep I was able to improve every aspect of my life. I have been able to focus for longer periods of time. I have a better mood. I improved my gym performance. And probably a ton of other things that I don’t even notice.

Sleep

Sleep is the foundation of mental and physical health and performance of all kinds.

It controls the immune system, skin health, appearance, longevity, age-related cognitive decline, and many more things. There’s nothing that is unaffected by sleep.

The brain and the Nervous System control everything. For the brain and body to determine what to do, it needs cues and inputs (stimuli). So, the stimuli that you provide determine what your body does.

Summary — The main tools for sleep:

Light.
Darkness (absence of light).
Temperature — when the body is cooling down, there is a greater tendency to fall and stay asleep.
Food (what we eat, when we eat, and what amount).
Exercise (it makes us more alert in the immediate hours after the workout because it increases body temperature).
Caffeine.
Supplements.
Digital tools: NSDR scripts, self-hypnosis, Yoga Nidra.

How To Build The Ideal 24-Hour Cycle For Sleep

Note: This is what’s IDEAL. It doesn’t mean that if you don’t do every single thing outlined here you are going to die of poor sleep. Take as many things as you can and apply them at your will, but don’t overstress about it.

There are 3 critical periods within the day.

In each of these periods, we should be doing different things in order to prepare for a great sleep at night.

It’s super important to understand that a night of good sleep does not come only from the hour before going to bed. Instead, it’s the accumulation of behaviors we do during the entire day that leads to enhanced sleep.

First Critical Period

The first critical period happens in the first 3–4 hours after waking up.

What happens when you wake up?

Your body temperature increases, which in turn increases cortisol. It’s ok for cortisol to raise when you wake up, even though it’s often thought of as the “stress hormone”. You don’t want to have your cortisol peak later in the day.

Cortisol enhances the immune system and increases metabolism and the ability to focus and move your body.

It’s healthy to get your daily cortisol peak early in the morning. How?

TOOL #1: View bright sunlight within 30–60 minutes after waking.

Light viewing is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness throughout the day and has a profound effect to fall and stay asleep at night.
Don’t wear sunglasses (eyeglasses and contact are fine).
Look towards the sun.
If you wake up before the sun is out, artificial light is ok (if you want to be awake). But when the sun is out, go out. Artificial light cannot replace sunlight. However, artificial light can disrupt your sleep at night.
On cloudy days, you especially need to get outside… on a clear day, you need 5 minutes of sunlight. On a cloudy day, 10 minutes. On a rainy day, 20–30 minutes.
It doesn’t work through a window. You need to be outside.
If you live in a place with very little bright sunlight, there are artificial stimulators… Ring lights, a drawing LED tablet.
If you miss one day, the next day try to make it up with twice as much duration.
Lightmeter app: measures LUX (light intensity).

TOOL #2: Deliberate cold exposure

Cold exposure wakes you up due to the adrenaline release. It will also increase your core body temperature. (Yes, I didn’t get that wrong… Cold increases core body temperature).

TOOL #3: Exercise

Exercise increases core body temperature, so it’s good to do it in the morning.

TOOL #4: Caffeine

Caffeine is an adenosine blocker. Adenosine makes us sleepy. It is something that builds up for as long as we are awake and it’s at its peak prior to going to sleep.
TIP #1: Delay the intake for 90–120 minutes to avoid the afternoon crash.
TIP #2: Avoid caffeine after 2 pm.
TIP #3: Even if you think you can drink coffee at 10 pm and “sleep fine”, data shows that caffeine late in the day disrupts the architecture of sleep. In other words, you could be sleeping much better.

TOOL #5: Nutrition

If you eat early in the day, you support a biological clock mechanism that would make you more alert.
Amounts: if you eat a very large meal, it’s going to divert a lot of resources from your body, and that would make you sleepy.

Second Critical Period

The second critical period happens in the afternoon.

You should try not to ingest caffeine.

TOOL #6: Naps

Don’t nap if it disrupts your night sleep. Don’t make them longer than 90 minutes. Though naps can be very good for a lot of people, you don’t have to nap…

TOOL #7: Relaxation Protocols

Yoga nidra, NSDR scripts, self-hypnosis: can be helpful at midafternoon if you get sleepy.

Note about Exercise: If you exercise very intensely, it’s going to delay the circadian clock (you are gonna want to go to sleep later).

TOOL #8: View Sunlight Again

Sunlight to the eyes in the evening hours signals the body that sleep is coming.
It also serves an additional purpose: you protect your Nervous System against the negative effects of artificial light at night.

Third Critical Period

The third critical period goes from 6/7 pm all the way thru sleep.

TOOL #9: Avoid Bright Lights!

Avoid bright artificial light of any color.
Early in the day… you need a lot of light to be alert. But at night, it takes very little light to make you alert and disrupt your sleep.
Light will suppress melatonin levels, which is needed for sleep.
TIP: Dim the lights, and try to not use overhead lights. Floor lamps are good.
TIP #2: Candle lights and moonlight are the best because of the low-light intensity.
TIP #3: If you are watching TV or working with laptop, Dim the light as much as possible.

TOOL #10: Hot Baths

Hot baths or saunas are good because they would drop core body temperature and facilitate sleep.
Taking a cold shower is a bad idea

TOOL #11: Make your sleep environment cool.

TOOL #12: Make your sleep environment as dark as you can.

TOOL #13: Avoid Alcohol and THC

The sleep that you get after alcohol or THC is disrupted sleep. You may get asleep faster when you are drunk, but data shows that it’s terrible for sleep and you don’t rest well in that condition.

TOOL #14: Supplements

30–60 minutes prior to sleep, try these 3 supplements:

Magnesium threonate: 145mg. If it gives you gastric discomfort, don’t use it.
Apigenin: 50mg.
Theanine: 100mg-400mg. It can cause vivid dreams.

Every 3rd or 4th night, Andrew takes:

2g of Glycine
100mg of GABA
Myo-inositol: 900mg

What about Melatonin? It could help you fall asleep. But the doses that are usually sold are far greater than what the body needs. Don’ t take it chronically.

TOOL #15: Falling Back Asleep

If you have trouble falling back asleep in the middle of the night, try:

Hypnosis: Reveri app (it is not free)
Non-sleep deep rest
Yoga Nidra

TOOL #16: Eye Masks

Eye masks are good for staying asleep, provided that they are not too tight.

Note about Earplugs: it’s highly individual

TOOL #17: Elevate Your Feet

Elevating your feet by 3–5 degrees enhances glymphatic washout.

TOOL #18: Nasal Breathing

Sleep apnea is very dangerous to have.

Train yourself to be a nose breather while you sleep. How? Tape your mouth. Another way is to try doing cardio only doing nasal breathing.

TOOL #19: Sleep Schedule Consistency

You should keep a consistent sleep schedule. Wake up at the same time each day and go to sleep when you first start to feel sleepy.

TOOL #20: Recovering From a Late Night

If there’s a night that you went to sleep later than usual, the next morning you DEFINITELY want to push your caffeine intake as much as possible.

Why? Caffeine particularly disrupts what it’s called “compensatory sleep”.

You can try some of the deep relaxation tools to “compensate” for the lack of sleep.

TOOL #21: Shift Your Wake Times

The temperature minimum is the time within the 24-hour cycle in which the body temperature is at its lowest.

This happens 2 hours before your typical wake-up time.

If you do things that make you alert (light, caffeine, exercise) a few hours before your temperature minimum, that’s going to make a shift such that you want to wake up later. And vice versa.

This is useful for Jet lag and for shift workers.

I hope you found this useful, but I still highly recommend watching the entire episode.

I post these notes for every Huberman Lab episode. If you liked it, please feel free to check out the ones that are already published as well.

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