Tired but Can’t Sleep? Here Are 12 Tweaks That Will Make It Effortless

If you’re going to pick one, let it be number 12

Photo by HUA LING on Unsplash

Did you know sleeping 7 hours in 10 days is the equivalent of not sleeping for 24 hours?

Besides exercising and eating healthy food, sleeping is the other ingredient for increasing longevity — the real elixir of life. The problem is, we often underestimate it. The various misconceptions associated with it push us farther from the truth. Take, for example, the popular term, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. It’s completely misleading. Avoiding sleep welcomes an array of health problems, including memory loss, lack of focus, cancer, and heart diseases.

“Routinely sleeping less than 6 hours or 7 hours a night demolishes your immune system more than doubling your risk for cancer.” — Matthew Walker.

A lot of studies refute Matthew Walker’s idea that shorter sleep implies a shorter lifespan. In his book “Why we sleep”, Walker talks about the biggest benefits of sleep. He explains that adults, with very few exceptions, need 8 hours of sleep at night to maintain good health of our mental, emotional, and physical capabilities.

Like many people, I knew sleeping was important, but I misconstrued the extent of it. Reading Matthew Walker’s book — and doing additional research to corroborate facts devoid of evidence — gave me new insight. Sleep boosts cognitive abilities like learning, memory, and focus. However, in these modern times, our electronic devices consume our days and nights, making it harder every day to fall asleep.

Have you ever felt exhausted but then, when your head hits the pillow, you simply can’t go to sleep? I’ve been there. You’ve been there. We’ve all been there.

In this article, I will give a lot of references to Matthew Walker’s tips for better sleep. Here are 12 hacks that will make you sleep faster.

1) Assess your sleep needs

It’s important to know your body, and this requires experimentation. Don’t be one of those people who say, “I’m fine sleeping 6 hours”. You don’t know that. Few people need less than 7 hours of sleep. In fact, those who boast about how little sleep they get, even when they feel terrific afterward, are misleading themselves.

“The sleep-deprived don’t know they’re sleep-deprived,” says Matthew Walker, and sleep deprivation is a serious matter. Only 3% of people in the world have a rare genetic mutation that allows them to sleep 6 hours a night and feel fantastic. Some people may need 9 hours of sleep; others in the same age group will need less. To figure out how many hours of sleep you need, count back 7.5 hours from your normal wake-up time and use that as your bedtime for a week.

I did that. I know for sure that I need 7.5 hours of sleep. If I get less than that, I feel irritable. Sleeping an hour more results in a slight headache. I know all this because I experimented. Give yourself permission to do the same.

2) Don’t “sleep procrastinate”

Set a sleep schedule. Try to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. When you do that, your body gets used to it. It’s good for its circadian rhythm, which is the natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours.

Honestly, I know it’s a hard one to do. I often procrastinate sleep, especially when I have a lot to think about. It’s a work in progress. Because I love waking up early at 6 — sometimes 5 — to write, I know I need to sleep at 9 or 10. It sounds simple, but honestly, it’s difficult. I kind of have to force myself to do it.

Sleep doesn’t happen with a click of a button; you need a good 10 to 30 minutes before falling asleep, and when you sleep early, you need to cut off interfering distractions, which cause procrastination, thus leading to more frustration.

“The most important advice I can give people who are struggling with sleep or want to get good-quality sleep, is to keep it regular.” — says Matthew Walker.

3) Try waking up without the alarm clock

The sound of the alarm clock is a nightmare. It has a measurable increase in our stress levels, and worse, when we hit the snooze button, we get that repeated stress trauma every morning. So what if I said you could wake up without that annoying sound? Well, that means two things first:

• You should get enough sleep
• You should sleep and wake up at the same time every day

It’s also an excellent way to figure out how much sleep you need.

“Your internal body clock will strengthen and you will start to wake naturally at a time that suits you,” says Lisa Artis, an advisor for the sleep council. “However, if not setting an alarm is going to make you anxious about sleeping in and missing a train or an important meeting, you should set the alarm,” she adds. “Otherwise, you will spend most of your time in bed worrying you won’t get enough sleep.”

Here are a couple of things that worked for me, 1. I used affirmations. I repeated saying, “I’m going to wake up at 6:00 AM”. I said that about ten times. It doesn’t sound like much, but it worked. My brain recorded these affirmations. Even when I was asleep, I knew I had to wake up at a specific time. It helped me do that effortlessly, using only my brain’s clock. 2. I left my window open and removed the blinds. I woke up with the sun. If this doesn’t work for you, use a sunlight lamp or another bright light.

4) Enjoy your morning caffeine dose before 2:00 PM

Sorry, caffeine lovers, but this is bad news for you, especially if you like drinking coffee or tea in the afternoon or evening. Caffeine stays in your system for approximately 5 to 8 hours — depending on how much you drank — before it dissipates completely. It dulls Adenosine, which is a chemical that makes you sleepy. That means the morning is the best time to consume caffeine.

I drink tea first thing in the morning. When I drink it in the afternoon, it always affects my sleep.

“Avoid caffeine. Coffee, colas, certain teas, and chocolate contain the stimulant caffeine, and its effects can take as long as eight hours to wear off fully. Therefore, a cup of coffee in the later afternoon can make it hard for you to fall asleep at night.” — Matthew Walker.

5) Exercise regularly

This helped me a lot during the quarantine when I could not go to the gym. Instead, I exercised regularly at home or I went for a run. The more physically active you are, the better sleep quality you get. It’s been proven repeatedly that exercise — even if it’s a 30-minute walk or run — affects sleep enormously.

However, vigorous exercise too late in the day — 1 to 2 hours before bedtime — will elevate your heart rate, making it harder to fall asleep. So, avoid exercising before going to sleep.

6) Don’t nap after 3:00 PM

I hate napping and I never understood why people do it. So, avoiding it is perfectly fine by me. I know that, for most people, the ideal time to nap is between 3 PM and 6 PM. These afternoon naps refresh and restore energy, but napping late in the day negatively impacts your sleep at night.

“Naps can help make up for lost sleep, but late afternoon naps can make it harder to fall asleep at night.” — Matthew Walker.

7) Avoid enormous meals and drinking too many fluids at night

Large meals cause indigestion, which then disrupts sleep. A light snack 2 to 3 hours before sleeping is more ideal than a large meal. The latter will make you sleepy, but will also affect the quality of your sleep. For example, eating high-carbohydrate food has been proven to impair the quality of sleep. In fact, it increases the number of awakenings at night and reduces the amount of deep sleep you get.

In addition, drinking too many liquids — water, tea, sodas, alcoholic drinks, etc — will cause frequent awakenings to urinate.

8) Ditch electronics and grab a book

You knew this one was coming. If I had to choose one sleep deterrent, it would be our modern-day electronic devices — TVs, iPads, smartphones, laptops. Ironically, they’re the reason you’re reading this article, but they’re very much responsible for any sleep impairment you might be facing.

And, let’s be honest, we all know this; we all know the blue light harms our eyes and delays the time when we actually go to sleep. Also, the sounds and blinking lights cause repeated awakenings when sleeping next to electronic devices. Yet, our daytime and nighttime electronics use is through the roof. We continue to live with them.

When you watch funny YouTube videos at night, you get excited. You laugh and you enjoy yourself. At night, you’re not supposed to do that, you’re supposed to relax. Technology affects the brain. It obstructs the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for your sleep-wake cycle. Instead, what you can do is help this hormone by doing something relaxing, such as reading a book or listening to music.

It’s more tempting to watch a movie on Netflix, I know, but when you read frequently at night, you’ll notice an improvement in the quality of your sleep. Guaranteed, and there’s a good study conducted in 2009 by researchers at the University of Sussex to back that up. It says that six minutes of reading reduces stress by 68%, clearing the mind and preparing the body for sleep.

Six minutes isn’t a lot of time. If that’s all it takes to get a good night’s slumber, it’s more than worth it, which is why I always include reading as part of my bedtime ritual. Here’s what you can do if you’re serious about ditching electronics to sleep faster:

• Avoid using electronic devices 1 hour before bedtime
• Put your phone where you can’t reach it when lying in bed
• Always have a book on your bedside table
• Reduce lights in your bedroom and instead use a lamp to read a book
• Read for 5 to 30 minutes (or more). Your eyes will eventually start to close. That’s your cue!

9) Cool body and room temperature

It’s easier to sleep when it’s cold than when it’s hot, right? There’s a perfect explanation for that.

“Your body needs to drop its core temperature by about 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit to initiate sleep and then to stay asleep. And it’s the reason you will always find it easier to fall asleep in a room that’s too cold than too hot. So aim for a bedroom temperature of around 65 degrees or about 18 degrees Celsius. That’s going to be optimal for the sleep of most people.” — Matthew Walker.

So what can you do to sleep at a cold room temperature of 18 degrees?

• Leave all your windows wide open
• Invest in a fan
• Shut off screens and computers
• Limit hot meals
• Take cold showers
• Turn off the lights
• Hang a wet sheet in front of an open window
• Dress light
• Tie up your hair if it’s long

10) No more sleeping pills!

Sleeping pills do more harm than good. They’re like alcohol; it won’t make your problems go away, it’ll just temporarily sedate you. Likewise, sleeping pills are illusive. They make you think you’re getting a good night’s sleep, when in fact you are not getting any benefits from sleep, which is quite bad in the long term.

The dangers of sleeping pills vary. According to the Addiction Center, the dangerous effects of sleep medications range from seizures, minor fatigue, coma, overdoses, to depressed breathing. Some people also experience allergic reactions from sleeping pills that can cause difficulty breathing, chest pain, nausea, and swelling.

11) Don’t lie in bed awake for over 20 minutes

The more you do that, the more stressed you’ll be, making it even harder to fall asleep.

See if this rings any bells: you feel tired and you go straight to your bed. However, when you close your eyes, sleep just wouldn’t come. You lie awake for a while. Now, you’re getting frustrated. It makes little sense. Since you’re exhausted and sleepy, it should be fairly easy, right? You’d think sleeping should be immediate as soon as your head hits the pillow, but it doesn’t happen.

Well, many things contribute to the disruption of your sleep, as explained throughout this article, so you can’t be certain of what’s causing it.

Now, what can you do to counter this vicious cycle?

Don’t lie in bed. Get up and do something else, preferably a relaxing activity like yoga, reading, listening to classical music, prayer, meditation, taking a bath or a shower, and breathing exercises.

“If you are starting to feel anxious or worried, get up, do some relaxing activity until you feel sleepy. The anxiety of not being able to sleep can make it harder to fall asleep.” — Matthew Walker.

12) The military’s hack to sleep in 120 seconds

Because of their unpredictable schedules, pilots and military people use this technique to sleep whenever and wherever they want. 96% of pilots who use it sleep in 2 minutes, regardless of caffeine consumption and their surrounding distractions. If they can do that in times of war, it doesn’t matter how stressed or anxious you are. There is no excuse for it not to work. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Choose the most comfortable position for you in bed
2. Close your eyes and relax all 43 muscles in your face
3. Next up, drop your shoulders, your arms, your neck, and then let your legs go limp
4. Clear your mind. Don’t let any thoughts creep in. Focus on your breathing, not on that task, meeting, class, or anything that you plan on doing the next day
5. Go to your happy place. Think about happy memories: a wonderful place you’ve visited in the past; a serene setting that always relaxes you.

Sleep well.