5 Proven Tips for Better Sleep According to Science
Gentleman. Do you struggle to get a good night’s sleep? Do you find yourself sleeping after midnight and waking up close to noon? Does this affect your routine and goals? Or is that just me?
Turns out, it’s not just me. According to the 2019 Philips Global Sleep Survey, “44% of adults surveyed globally admit their sleep has worsened in the last five years” and “8 in 10 adults worldwide want to improve the quality of their sleep”.
It’s no surprise really, that given this ever-busy, light-filled, night-buzzing age of ours, we don’t want to go to sleep early. Needless to say, this is affecting our health on a global scale.
Now here’s the conundrum. When it comes to the practice of embodying a true Alpha Male, I work everyday to be a high-performing individual who manages time to maximize productivity. Guess what? This is all dependent on what time I start my day. If I start it let’s say before 8am, I find myself with a ton of time to get everything done. On the days I start it after 11am….not pretty.
For the past few years (yes, years), I have been trying to get my sleep right. Reading books & articles, watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts and even joining an online MasterClass. I think I’ve come across every science-backed tip & trick you can find. Yet, I was either too busy or not disciplined enough to make a change. Until recently. I have finally started to improve my sleep. It’s not easy, but my wake up times are definitely getting earlier and earlier.
So with the mission of helping all our brothers (and sisters) who join me in having a love-hate relationship with sleep, I am here to divulge all the information and tips I’ve learnt and implemented to get your sleep on track, so that you can maximize your day and ultimately take your success to the next level.
Why You Should Care About Sleeping Well
I think it’s no surprise to most people that sleep is a profoundly important part of our day and that it directly impacts our overall health and well-being. Anyone who’s had a bad night of sleep will attest to the aftermath. It’s not fun. The sleepiness, the inability to keep your eyes open and your heightened ability to have the brain of a snail.
We really do need to take a moment to highlight that lack of sleep has been linked to a myriad of health issues including:
- People who sleep less than seven hours per night are more likely to develop obesity
- People who sleep less than seven hours have an increased risk of developing diabetes
- Those who sleep less than six hours per night are 20-32% more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases
- Lack of sleep weakens your immune system, making you more susceptible to illness
- Lack of sleep affects your brain cognitive abilities as well as memory and mood
- Increased risk of car accidents (which can either ruin or end your life)
- Chronic (long-term) lack of sleep is associated with increased mortality. To be blunt, you’ll likely die sooner. Though interestingly, very long sleep durations seem to be worse for your mortality.
So there really is no shortage of reasons why you should prioritize your sleep. If not for your health alone, then for the affect is has on your day to day life. By sleeping better, you put yourself in a much better position to achieve your goals, because not only are you in better health to do things, but you give yourself time.
By sleeping well, waking up earlier and having more time in the day, you give youself more time to accomplish the things that you need to get done. At the end of the day, if you want to achieve those goals, you have to get the work done. This is why we mentioned maximizing your day as one of the ‘6 Time Management Tricks Successful People Use to Boost Their Productivity to 100%’.
“By sleeping well, waking up earlier and having more time in the day, you give youself more time to accomplish the things that you need to get done“
So naturally, having better sleep can bring you numerous benefits, such as:
- Better overall health (mental, cardiovascular, immune and everything else as mentioned above)
- Increased ability to wake up earlier, leading to more time in the day to accomplish all tasks more easily
- Improved decision-making since your mind is no longer a blur
- Better mood and less stress, making you feel more happy and relaxed
- Better relationship with others as you’re no longer Mr. Grumpypants
Hopefully this helps convince you to take a step in the right direction and see the importance of good sleep and what it can do for your life.
Now, all we need to do is develop good habits to get to this land of bliss. Easier said than done. Fortunately, there are many science-based tips we can follow to improve our sleep quality and wake up feeling better….usually.
How You Can Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Mastering your sleep is really about a few things, namely sleep quality, duration and your internal body clock. Without getting bogged down by all the tiny details, there are about 5 things you want to do to fix your sleep. Fortunately, they’re all quite straightforward, but like I mentioned earlier, easier said than done.
Sleep Schedule
The first and arguably most important thing to do is HAVE A CONSISTENT SLEEP SCHEDULE.
Your body has a natural clock called the Circadian Rhythm which is this pretty remarkable system that regulates every cell in your body in accordance with a 24-hour cycle.
This is where your discipline really comes in, but if you want any chance at all to make it easier for yourself to fall asleep and wake up more naturally, you need to go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday. Yes, even weekends (if you’re gonna complain, you can play around a bit, but try not to make it later by more than 2 hours or so).
“you need to go to bed and wake up at the same time everyday“
Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep each night, depending on what your body prefers. If you don’t know, I suggest starting with 7 hours so you can really maximize your day. If you still feel like a train wreck in the morning after a week of doing this, try shifting to 7.5 hours and so on. Obviously you don’t want to be changing your sleep schedule so much so often, but find what works for you.
Just by doing this, you’ll pretty much fix your sleep and see a tremendous difference already. The hard part for most is sticking to this. Either going to bed early or waking up early regardless (or both) is what’s challenging for you. This is where the rest of the tips come in as they will hopefully make things a bit easier for you.
Sleep Environment
Once you have an idea of what your sleep schedule should be, the next thing to consider is your sleep environment. This ties in with your morning and night routines, which we’ll talk about in just a bit, but you want to make sure that your environment will actually help you sleep faster and more soundly.
Temperature
Annoyingly enough, there are quite a handful of things that can mess with your sleep. One of those things is temperature. Before falling asleep, our core body temperature actually starts to decrease and generally drops by about 1-2 degrees when we’re asleep. So in order to leverage this, make sure your room is cool. The optimal room temperature for sleep is about 15.6-20°C (or 60-68°F). Yeah that’s fairly cold, but think about how heightened your sleep is in the winter when you can cozy up in your bed while it’s cold. So help your circadian rhythm and keep your room cool in the hours prior to your bedtime so you can feel sleepier and fall asleep faster.
“Make sure your room is cool. The optimal room temperature for sleep is about 15.6-20°C (or 60-68°F)“
Light
Another factor to consider, unsurprisingly enough, is light. Your body is not going to feel sleepy if your room is lit light a sports stadium. Dim those lights people.
You’ve also probably heard of blue light now with all mobile phones incorporating some form of ‘night mode’ and with the rise in popularity of blue light glasses. Basically, blue light suppresses the body’s release of melatonin, which is a hormone that your brain produces in response to darkness to make you sleepy. You obviously want your body to know that it’s time to sleep so try to make sure of at least these two things:
- Try to avoid any bright blue lights after 6pm. Keep warm lights on and start to dim them, especially after 8-9pm, depending on your bedtime. The earlier the better.
- Switch on your phone’s night mode. This makes the screen ‘warmer’ and reduces the sheer amount of blue light your eyes are exposed to. Try to avoid using your phone entirely about 1 hour before bed.
On a side note, the opposite is true for when you wake up. Your body needs that bright light. We’ll discuss this in our morning routine below.
Your Bed
Your bed is obviously a very key element to your sleep. You spend about 1/3 of your life sleeping, if not, you’re probably in bed scrolling on social media anyway (I sure hope not).
So do yourself a favour and invest in quality bedding that you are going to be comfortable in and will actually enjoy sleeping in. Especially if like me, you’re not overly fond of going to bed, having something nice can actually make you look forward to hitting the sack at the end of a busy day.
- A comfortable mattress appropriate for your sleeping positions
- A supportive pillow, also appropriate for your sleeping positions
- A comforter for that added softness
- A nice set of bedsheets with fancy terminology like high thread counts and Egyptian cotton
- A cozy quilt/duvet to keep you comfortable and warm enough
Alpha Tip
Try to associate your bed with sleeping. Avoid just randomly being in bed during the day. By properly going to bed later in the night when you’re sleepy, your brain will associate your bed and the time with sleeping, so you’ll feel sleepier and likely fall asleep faster. This is an extra nuance that you can try if you really want to fine-tune your sleep.
Night Routine
If you truly want to sleep earlier, it’s really quite important to make sure your body knows when it’s time to sleep. Creating a relaxing night routine can make a world of difference in making you actually feel sleepy so you can fall asleep faster.
It’s usually these crucial hours where people do everything they’re not supposed to. Late dinners, bright lights, binging TV, social media and the list goes on. Look, do whatever makes you happy, but at least do it smartly. Be disciplined and keep things controlled, incorporate better ways of doing these things etc.
“Creating a relaxing night routine can make a world of difference in making you actually feel sleepy so you can fall asleep faster“
Everybody’s got different preferences on what they like to do before bed, but some of the things that would benefit you to include in the last 1-2 hours before your bedtime would be:
Morning Routine
With your schedule, environment and night routine all covered, you’ve pretty much conquered your night. But there is another part to the equation, and it’s one that a lot of people (myself included) struggle with as well, and that’s waking up and actually getting yourself out of bed.
Sometimes, even when you think you’ve done everything right, you wake up feeling like you got hit with that giant anvil from Looney Tunes (I feel you Wile E. Coyote). Waking up is just difficult. This is why you need to have some things in place in order to sort yourself out within the first hour of you waking up.
Arguably the most important thing you need here is sunlight. This is highly advocated by Stanford Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman and scientific studies. As early as you can, get some sunlight exposure in your eyes for at least 5-10 minutes. This is going to help your circadian body clock know that it’s morning and regulate it so that you will feel awake at the right time and sleepy at the right time later on at night. If you live in a country with little sunlight or have not much light exposure in your bedroom, you may be interested in a sunlight alarm clock such as the Philips SmartSleep light.
So within the first 1-2 hours of waking up, you want to have a morning routine that covers a good bit of the important things to not only help you wake up better, but also get your day off to a good start. Some things you should consider including in your morning routine:
Alpha Tip
Talking to someone (social communication) also helps with waking up. If you struggle to wake up and keep falling back asleep, consider having someone call you in the morning. The communication with someone just for a few minutes can help snap you out of it and wake you up.
Control Your Intake
By managing the first 4 steps, you’ll be well on your way to improving your sleep and having better days to live your life. Now we’ll focus on some points to fine tune in case you still experience some issues with falling asleep or staying asleep.
Caffeine
Caffeine is a stimulant. We literally drink it to stay awake. So I don’t think I need to explain much when I say avoid it later in the day. The half-life of caffeine is on average about 5 hours. That means it takes about 5 hours for half of the caffeine to leave your system. Yes, it takes about 10 hours to clear completely.
So the general rule of thumb is to cut off caffeine by 2-3pm. Hey don’t get mad at me, that’s your biology. However, everyone’s an individual and some people can drink a cup of coffee and knock out like a baby (hi dad). So try it out for yourself and see. If you have no issues falling asleep and staying asleep, do whatever you want.
Food
This one was a surprise to me when I first found out about it, but you know how I mentioned in the beginning that the circadian rhythm regulates every cell in your body? Well that extends to your meals and more specifically, the timing of it.
An interesting study found that eating within 3 hours of bedtime makes you more likely to wake up during the night which basically disturbs your sleep. There is also talk that consistent meal timings can affect your overall circadian rhythm. The supposed best times to have your meals according to science would be:
- Breakfast – Between 6:00-9:00am
- Lunch – Between 12:00-3:00pm
- Dinner – Between 6:00-9:00pm
I for one am trying to improve my meal timings on most days and I must say, the consistency is nice. I can never fall asleep when I’m full. It’s just too uncomfortable. So this helps me get to bed and feel a bit better. I also don’t like going to sleep hungry (fine lines isn’t it). The solution is smart snacking. I have grown to love fruits as a snack when I’m hungry. I have a whole bunch of fruits and feel like I’ve struck the right balance between eating enough but not too much. Greek yoghurt (with some toppings) is also a great option.
Alcohol
Alcohol is bad for you in so many ways and sleep is no exception. Alcohol is known to disrupt your sleep cycle and lead to fragmented sleep. So avoid it at all costs if you know what’s good for your health.
How to Reset Your Sleep
Alright, now that we’ve covered all the important things to focus on in order to fix your sleep, we’ll quickly go over some step by step procedures you can do today to reset your sleep if it’s pretty bad right now.
I learned a lot from Dr. Matthew Walker and Dr. Andrew Huberman, two of the leading names in sleep science and combined, they cover everything you can imagine to optimize your sleep routine. They even have a full video/podcast series together which you can check out if you’re interested to learn more.
The Reset Protocol
- Set your alarm clock for the time that you want to wake up. If you’re a late sleeper, this is going to be particularly difficult in the beginning, but it obviously gets better with time.
- If it’s not too late already, try to get your night routine in 1-2hrs before bed.
- Wake up and push yourself to get out of bed. Maybe bright lights in the room or someone calling you can help you be more alert.
- Begin your morning routine and get your sunlight exposure as soon as possible. 5-10 mins if it’s nice and bright or about 20 minutes if it’s more cloudy.
- Try to throw in some movement. Jumping jacks, pushups, anything. By this point, you should be more alert than when you woke up. If you’re a cold shower/ice bath person, go ahead and do that too. That’ll definitely get you up and running.
- Go about your day. Have your breakfast, coffee, go to work etc.
- Later in the evening, try to visually see the sunset and the light getting dimmer. If this is not possible, just dim your lights later, about 2hrs before bed.
- Try to get your dinner in before 9pm and begin your night routine. Cool your room, dim the lights, have a cup of tea etc.
- Since you struggled in the morning and are probably sleep deprived, your body will likely feel sleepier and you should have an easier time going to sleep.
- Repeat repeat repeat. If you’ve now slept earlier, it should be easier for you to naturally wake up earlier at your set time. They say about 3 days of doing this should suffice, but I’ve found that it took a bit longer for me. So keep at it for at least a week and watch the transformation.
Conclusion
Well there you have it. There’s a lot that can go into getting a good night’s sleep but it’s worth it, if not for the health benefits alone, but for the fact that you can truly take control of your day and get the most of out of it.
It’s certainly easier said that done, but by implementing simple yet effective strategies such as maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, creating a conducive sleep environment, establishing routines and controlling factors such as light exposure, diet and caffeine intake, you can optimize your sleep quality and basically not feel like crap.
I highly recommend you join me on this journey and give these a try. See where good sleep takes you. To dreamland and beyond.
Stay Healthy Gentleman