Ok, first off, a small but significant admission, the following ramble is one stolen and poorly regurgitated from a book called, “Why We Sleep and the Science of Dreams” by Dr Matthew Walker. For the full story I encourage you to pick it up. It’s a truly eye-opening read about sleep and the importance of it.
The point of this ramble is that we come from a culture where often it’s tempting to think we can get by without sleep. That we can make up for lost sleep or that it’s productive to “push through” and deprive ourselves of a good night’s sleep.
From what I understand there are three biological systems in play when it comes to sleep:
- Adenosine is a sleep hormone that build up in your body throughout the day increasing sleep pressure and so increasing your need to / want to go to sleep.
- Circadian Rhythm a roughly 24-hour cycle that regulates when you go to sleep.
- Melatonin is a sleep hormone which regulates your sleep/wake cycle. Basically, it blows the whistle and tells you when to sleep.
There are twelve basic steps that are recommended by Sleep Doctors (I didn’t know that was a thing either). I’m going to list those things here as, in my opinion, we all could do with some tips on how to get better sleep. Also, I hope by writing some of this stuff down I’ll figure out how much attention I was paying whilst reading on the train…
- Stick to a sleep schedule. We are creatures of habit and changes in the sleeping pattern are difficult to adjust to. Consider setting an alarm to go to sleep by rather than awake to. Unfortunately it is not actually possible to make-up for lost sleep. Once you lose sleep the damage, so to speak, is already done.
- Exercise helps sleep but not too close to bedtime. It’s recommended that you get at least thirty minutes of exercise a day, but you should be avoiding doing that 2-3 hours before bedtime.
- Caffeine/nicotine can take up to 8 hours to get out of your system so drinking tea, coffee, cola, eating chocolate late at night can affect your sleep. Caffeine delays adenosine for reaching your brain but the adenosine still builds, so once the caffeine wears off, you’re in trouble. Also check these webs made by spiders when exposed to different chemicals:
In short, you’d probably be a more productive and well-fed spider on LSD than caffeine. Real talk.
- Avoid alcohol before bed time. Whilst booze may help you unwind or relax it does not promote a healthy and natural nights sleep. Heavy use disrupts rapid eye movement during sleep and, when the alcohol wears off, you my well wake up.
- Big meals before bedtime can create indigestion so are to be avoided. Also drinking too much will make you wake up to go pee.
- Avoid medication that can disrupt your sleep. That’s one for your doctor but some medication can mess with your sleep. Certainly cold medicine often has caffeine in it for example. But I’m not a doctor.
- Avoid naps after 3pm, naps help to make up for sleep but late naps can make it harder to sleep at night. The more adenosine at bedtime you have the better.
- Try to relax before you go to bed i.e. don’t go from busy to “right, and now bedtime” begin to wind down. Read, do something calming in preparation. Also, being a yoga guy, I strongly recommend finding a Yoga Nidra or Restorative Yoga class to attend.
- Hot baths before bedtime help. When you come out of the bath the blood rushes to the surface of your skin, which cools you down faster. Your body likes to be cool, around 17.5 c in order to sleep.
- Try to sleep in a dark bedroom as this helps stimulate the melatonin (I don’t remember the science). Keep the bedroom cool (as per point 9) and keep distractions away, including tablet and phone screen time/light sources. Maybe buy a glow-in-the-dark watch and leave your phone downstairs. It’ll be ok.
- Exposing yourself to at least 30 minutes of natural sunlight helps too. So get outside for a walk at lunch.
- Don’t lie in bed awake. You get worried and anxious about falling asleep. Get up and do something and then try again in a while. I need to work on that one.
Ok. Hopefully that was helpful, as I say, it’s a watered -down “that’s what Damian remembers” list. Please read the book if you found this as interesting as I did.
Be good.
