3 Rules For Better Sleep
Three research-backed techniques to get better sleep.
Sleep occupies almost a third of our life, but most of us give surprisingly little care to it.
You can’t talk about living a fulfilling, healthy, and productive life without talking about sleep.
Early on in my life, I didn’t care about sleep, nor does my friends. All-Nighters were a badge of honor, and daily sleeplessness was a routine, whether it’s sacrificing sleep for a fun night out with your friends or studying for exams at night. We don’t make sleep as much of a priority as other areas of our lives.
Importance of sleep:
Ignoring the importance of sleep is often the result of a significant misunderstanding. Sleep isn’t lost time, or just a way to rest our bodies.
Instead, it’s a critical function, during which your body balances and regulates its vital systems and controlling almost everything from growth to circulation and immune system.
According to Matthew Walker, Author of Why We Sleep says in his book:
“Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. ”
— Matthew Walker
He goes on saying:
“It can also disrupt blood sugar levels, block your arteries and cause major psychiatric conditions including anxiety and depression.”
— Matthew Walker
I’m pretty sure that’s enough to wake you up to the benefits of sleep. It would be best if you started taking sleep seriously. So, I want to share three rules to help you get better and healthier sleep.
Rule#1: Get 8 hours of sleep, not 8 hours in bed.
How much sleep people need varies, but the national sleep foundation recommends an average of eight hours for adults. Some might be able to function on a little less some might need more, and it requires some experimentation to truly understand how much sleep you need.
40% of Americans still say that they get less than seven hours of sleep every night.
Getting a full eight hours of sleep requires more than just being in bed for eight hours each night. This might be one of the biggest misconceptions.
One of my biggest mistakes is that I assumed that If I were in bed for eight hours, I’d be getting around eight hours of sleep, but I didn’t factor in a few things. It usually takes me about 30 minutes to get to sleep. After tracking my sleep, I realized that I was consistently getting less than eight hours of sleep, and sometimes I’d have nights of fewer than six hours.
So, I started getting in bed a little bit before my sleeping time. I’d often give myself nine hours in bed to get a full night’s sleep.
It would be best if you also planned for potential sleep disruptions. The quality of your sleep is directly related to your ability to stay asleep if you have constant interruptions. Organize your environment in a way that gives you the best shot at getting eight hours of sleep. Play white noise or rain sounds to drown out traffic noise, get blinds to block the sunlight from coming in too early.
Rule#2: Don’t look at screens within 1 hour of bedtime.
Being honest with you guys, this is the rule I break the most. Often I would find myself watching movies, scrolling through endless feeds of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter just before going to sleep. I know this isn’t the best or healthiest night routine, as research has shown looking at screens just before sleeping harms our health.
According to The National Sleep Foundation:
“Using screens before bed delays your body’s internal clock suppresses the release of sleep-induced hormone melatonin and makes it more difficult to fall asleep.”
Why night mode isn’t the solution?
Most computers and mobiles now have the ability to change to a night mode, and this acts to change the color temperature of your screen warmer, but some research has shown that this might make the problem even worse.
A recent study found that brightness has more of an effect than color temperature. So, a glowing screen blue or not will still confuse the brain into thinking that it’s daytime.
Better solution:
The better solution is to avoid all screens one hour before bed altogether. One way I’ve found is to replace that habit with something else. This way, you’re keeping yourself busy and comfortable by doing something else.
If you cut out screens and expect yourself to sit and meditate for an hour, you’re going to break, and you’re going to fail. Replace it with something better.
You can even set the alarm one hour before bed. When it goes off, turn all screens off, dim the lights of your house and start a new positive night routine. Perhaps, make a cup of mint tea, play board game, or read one of your favorite books.
I already spend enough time looking at screens during my eight work hours and watching tv shows. So, if you are anything like me the earlier, you turn off screens and dim lights fo your house the more likely you are to get to sleep much quicker.
Rule#3: Don’t consume caffeine 10 hours before bed.
I love coffee, and I’m sure you probably love it too. Over 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day. Matthew Walker calls it the most widely used and abused psychoactive stimulant in the world.
Caffeine works by blocking your adenosine receptors, which promote sleepiness. So, it doesn’t give you boost energy as much as it masks the fact that you’re tired.
Caffeine has a half-life of around five hours. So, by the time you finish your last cup of coffee, it’s going to take you 10 hours from that point to get rid of all caffeine in your body.
So, if you want to get better sleep, cut yourself from caffeine at least 10 hours before bed. So, since I go to bed around 11 pm each night, that means I should not have a cup of coffee after 1 pm.
If you find yourself sluggish and tired later in the afternoon without a second cup of coffee, it’s probably an indicator that you’re not getting enough sleep by cutting yourself from caffeine 10 hours before bed. You’re much more likely to get to sleep quicker and also have fewer sleep disruptions, improving your overall sleep health.
I would also recommend avoiding any beverages 1–2 hours before going to bed.
Conclusion
I know how pushing off sleep does negatively impact your well-being as well as your mental health.
So, of course, there’s going to be these late nights, there’s going to be these times when you have to complete the project late at night. So, it’s not possible to get full quality sleep every single night, but you can try to make it better and get good sleep more often.
To quickly summarise:
- Get 8 Hours of Sleep, Not 8 hours in bed.
- Don’t look at screens within 1 hour of bedtime.
- Don’t drink caffeine 10 hours before bed.
So, I hope you guys have gotten a few things out of this article. It would be best if you start taking sleep seriously and applies the rules taught in this article.
Sources: The article is written based on my experiments, Ted Talks, Matt D’Avella Videos, and The National Sleep Foundation Articles.
