Seven Sleep Secrets for a Stone-Cold Slumber
Improve your sleep with seven actionable things you can start doing today
An alarming statistic I came across recently is that 70% of Americans report insufficient sleep at least one night a month. These sleep deprived individuals then become hazards for others. For example, in a 2010 report American Automobile Association estimated that one out of every six (16.5%) deadly traffic accidents, and one out of eight (12.5%) crashes requiring hospitalization was due to drowsy driving.
The effects of sleep deprivation are also well known and include:
While we have seen examples showing the benefits of sleep deprivation, as was the case with 60% of depressed patients who reported an increase in mood following acute sleep deprivation for one night. In most cases, depriving yourself of quality sleep is likely not in your best interest.
Recent years have seen a slew of books being published around the topic of sleep, the most popular being Why We Sleep Matthew Walker. While the book has faced some scrutiny, it does highlight a trend that good sleep hygiene is becoming a key pillar of leading a healthy life.
With all that said, it’s near impossible to come up with a set of recommendations that will work for everyone. This is partly why Walker received pushback for trying to push a one-size-fits-all sleep regiment on everyone. Instead a better approach is to conduct N-of-1 experiments with your sleep to come to your own conclusions. Yes some things will tend to generalize to the majority of the population (for example avoiding stimulants 2 hours before bed) but other tactics will be specific to the individual.
To that end, before even discussing the strategies I’ve discovered after years tweaking my sleep routine, I encourage you to start tracking your sleep. Doing so will help establish a baseline for what good and bad sleep looks like. If you aren’t measuring it, you can’t manage it. In my case, I use the Withings sleep mat, a device that fits under my mattress. It tracks a myriad of things such as your heart rate, sleep cycle, respiration rate, and snoring.
The metric that I review regularly is their composite sleep score which is scaled from 1 to 100 and consists of:
- Duration (total time spent sleeping)
- Depth (part of night spent in restorative phases, deep sleep and REM sleep)
- Regularity (consistency between your bed- and rise-times)
- Interruptions (time spent awake)
- Time to sleep (time it took to fall asleep)
- Time to get up (time it took to get out of bed)
Using their API I can also pull this data into my journal template for a quick review at the end of the day.
Once you’ve set up a system for tracking, whether with a hardware device or a smartphone app, you can begin experimenting. Below I’ve highlighted seven of the most influential changes that have helped me feel well rested and achieve a high sleep score that I encourage you to test out for yourself.
Treat your bedroom as a sacred sleep sanctuary
First and foremost you should treat your bedroom as a sacred sleep sanctuary. This means eliminating the use of electronics in the room, or at the very minimum not using them while in bed.
A key component of any good sleep sanctuary is the absence of light and noise. In every bedroom that I’ve slept in over the last five years I’ve taken great pains to apply blackout window film on my bedroom windows so that no light gets in.
Sound-proofing a bedroom starts with identifying the source for the noise. Sometimes it’s coming from your door, in which case a door draft can be an effective solution. Other times it’s from outside your window, in which case you might want to consider getting soundproof curtains and window inserts. The other potential solution is to simply use white noise, like rain from an Alexa or the sound of a fan.
After experimenting with various configurations of sleep masks and ear plugs while traveling, I found that this sleep mask and ear plugs to be the most effective for me.
Follow a consistent sleep schedule
An important concept related to sleep is that of the circadian rhythm, which is the body’s way of regulating your sleep-wake cycle. By having an irregular sleep schedule you risk disturbing this biological process which can result in shallower, fragmented, and lower-quality sleep. In my case I’ve found that going to sleep at 10pm and waking up between 6–8am to be what works best for myself as I typically wake up right when the sun rises. Again experiment and see what works for you, as long as you settle on something consistent.
I also recommend creating an evening ritual to signal the end of a day. My own evening ritual begins when my Withing smart lights turn to a red hue at 8pm. This signals to me that it’s time to wind down my day, and begin my evening journal. Once I’m done journalling, I’ll shut down all my electronics and go for a walk. When I come back, I’ll spend the rest of the evening winding down with piano, meditation and reading fiction to get my mind primed and ready for sleep. My biggest blocker to sleep is a self-involved mind that gets lost in thinking about my life. So by inhabiting a fictional world before sleep, entering the dream world becomes a lot easier. By 10pm I’ll have brushed my teeth and be in bed.
Use sleep supplements sparingly
The subject of sleep supplements is difficult because on the one hand I can recognize how effective they are at facilitating sleep. Yet at the same time, there’s an inherent danger of becoming dependent on a supplement that can disrupt your brain’s natural ability to generate the hormones necessary for sleep. That’s why I recommend you have some basic rules around taking sleep supplements rather than popping them every night lest you develop an ever growing tolerance that brings you back to square one with insomnia.
Personally I use sleep supplements only as a last resort, whether because I’ve been tossing and turning for at least an hour, or because I know beforehand that I’ll have trouble falling asleep that night (likely because I drank coffee at 3pm).
The ones that I’ve found to be the most effective are melatonin in small doses like 2.5mg, magnesium glycinate and Hemp Oil.
No Stimulants 9 hours before sleep
The one consistent thing I’ve noticed in my data is that anytime I drink caffeine after 2pm, I’m bound to have difficulty falling asleep and will be forced to take melatonin. I’ve also found that I get less deep sleep, often over-sleeping my natural wake up time and waking up feeling tired.
Be mindful of light
As I mentioned earlier, I have my Withings smart lights turn to a red color at 8pm to signal the beginning of my evening routine and minimize my blue light exposure which can suppress melatonin production. I also stop using electronics after 8pm, again to minimize blue light exposure.
At an earlier point in my life I went as far as to wear blue light blocking glasses, but I found them to be more of a nuisance than an aid however your experience may vary.
Exercise
While it’s recommended that you avoid exercising close to bedtime, it is recommended that you apply some stress to your body throughout the day in the form of exercise. Whether it’s by running, weight lifting or some other physical activity, the stress from the activity will make it much easier for you to fall asleep.
Avoid drinking liquids 2 hours before bed
Since interruptions are a part of lowering the quality of your sleep, you want to minimize the number of times you wake up in the night. Drinking liquids, particularly alcohol before bed guarantees you waking up several times in the night.
For the nights that I do wake up needing to use the bathroom, I’ve resigned to keeping this jug by my bed to avoid making the round trip to the bathroom and further disrupting my sleep.
The topics covered above should set you well on your way to design your own sleep experiments in your quest to optimize sleep. Once you’ve established a way to track your sleep and run a few experiments, eventually you’ll settle on something that works for you. If you’ve had other things help improve your sleep, I’d love for you to share them in the comments below.
