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Now, here's this week's Sunday Morning Life Hack.
The Problem
We tend to take sleep for granted.
While it’s easy to ignore sleep, especially for young people who recover more quickly from late nights, it can be quite challenging to follow a routine that leads to the seven to nine hours of good sleep that most adults need. The rigors of work, parenthood, grandparenthood, community activities, late-night TV, and other pursuits can all factor into restlessness, intermittent sleep, and even insomnia.
Poor sleep hygiene (habits that help you sleep soundly) also interferes with your body’s ability to reboot. While you’re likely familiar with bad sleep hygiene, it’s worth mentioning a few of the biggest contributors to non-restorative sleep.
High-fat and high-sugar diets, late-night dinners, alcohol consumption close to bedtime, heavy evening exercise, long naps, and blue light from mobile devices are a few sleep inhibitors. There are others, though, that you may not consider.
While late-night exercise is risky, not exercising at all may be more impactful on how well you sleep; lack of movement throughout the day can lead to nighttime energy or agitation. In short, everything you do during the day impacts how well you sleep at night, and most people don’t take sound sleep seriously, which is a huge blockade on the road to health and longevity.
The Hack
Improve your sleep hygiene
If this Hack didn't include the word "sleep" in front of the word "hygiene," you might be offended. When people think about hygiene, most default to washing their hair, using deoderants, and brushing their teeth; think, I want to avoid being smelly. Sleep hygiend is something entirely different.
Sleep hygiene includes any or all of these:
- monitoring bedtimes
- before-bed habits
- monitoring eating time
- your sleep environment
- comfortability of bed and pillow
- what you do in bed
- monitoring the quality of your sleep
You may know people who claim to function just fine on four to six hours of slumber. By and large, adults need seven to nine hours of restful sleep, including the requisite amount of light, deep, and REM sleep. Please note that we’re talking about actual sleep—not the hours you spend in your bed. But how does one consistently get this seemingly insane amount of sleep?
And by the way, sex releases hormones that make you drowsy and encourage sleep (double bonus!).
What you can do tomorrow (or tonight)
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Start a sleep routine. This is not a novel strategy; you may have read about sleep hygiene. Still, if you’re as serious about sleep as you should be, it’s time to start a routine of your own. Consider any of these impactful steps, and commit to at least one today:
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Settle on a one-hour sleep window: think about when you’re typically sleepy, and plan to go to bed each night sometime in that sixty-minute window.
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Reflect on what you do daily within two hours of your sleep window and try to eliminate activities that corrupt restorative sleep: vigorous exercise, heavy meals, sugary snacks, stress, a lot of alcohol, and blue light from screens.
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Eat your heavy meals at breakfast or lunch; light dinners influence better sleep.
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Take a hot shower, bath, or sauna an hour or two before sleep. There’s sound research backing the impact of warming up the body before bed.
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Meditate in the hour or two before sleep. Tons of free mobile apps can help you wind down in the evening.
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Identify your biggest sleep deterrent. Many insomniacs have no idea why they don’t sleep, and sadly, some are often given poor advice by doctors who are not sleep experts. Sleep experts identify poor eating habits, lack of daily exercise, and inconsistent bed times as common deterrents to impactful sleep. Decide your issues and eliminate them, as soon as possible.
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Turn off or move your bedroom television. Watching TV in bed is a surefire way to toss and turn throughout the night. Studies reveal that the negative impacts of the blue light radiating from your TV or other screens are plentiful. Want to start sleeping soundly tonight? Turn off the bedroom TV or move it to another room (this goes double for your mobile devices).
- Give your noisy partner the boot. A partner who snores or flips around like a fish can be a huge disruptor of sleep. It's okay to sleep in separate rooms; it's even become trendy in recent years, as awareness of the power of good sleep is now prevalent in the health and fitness community. Mind you, we're not discouraging romance. Feel free to cuddle or have sex before you or your partner scurry off. And by the way, sex releases hormones that make you drowsy and encourage sleep (double bonus!).
Bonus Hack
Leverage the power of wearable tech. With the exploding popularity of watches, rings, and other devices that use bio sensors to monitor health, it's become easier than ever to know not just how much you sleep but the quality of your sleep.
Going to bed at 10PM and getting up at 6AM doesn't mean you got 8 hours of sleep. You may get up to pee, wake from a nightmare and think about it for 10 minutes, or toss and turn. These events disrupt your sleep and may jar you from all-important deep or REM sleep.
Your wearable device can tell you precisely when you were asleep and when you were awake. It can tell you what percentage of sleep was light, deep, and REM. Knowing this plays a large role in your sleep hygiene.
Consider buying or upgrading a watch or ring today. We don't promote any particular kind. Ask a friend about this. Or just search the web for "best wearable tech," and you'll find tons of good info.
Resource
Portions of this Hack are excerpted from Hacking Life After 50, with permission from the publisher.
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