Sleep can be a real challenge for those that are trying to improve their health. Sleep impacts almost everything about our health including stabilizing our blood sugar, improving our mood, recovering from exercise, laying down new memories, and improving our mental performance. So, when we’re not sleeping, it can feel like nothing is right in our world. In this post, I want to give you 10 tips to sleep better TONIGHT. Of course, some of you will need something more than what I’m sharing today but for many, these interventions can really make a big difference.
So, before we get too far along, I want to give credit where credit is due. I was inspired to write this post after listening to Dr. Hyman’s Sleep Master Class. Many of the tips I’m sharing today come from his course, but I’ve really only just scratched the surface. His course is free so I recommend taking a look if you’d like a deep dive. Or consider hiring a Health Coach to help you get to the bottom of your sleep issues.
So, let’s first talk about the two main sleep issues that impact most of the population: falling asleep and staying asleep. These are commonly referred to in the sleep world as Sleep Onset Insomnia and Sleep Maintenance Insomnia.
Sleep Onset Insomnia is often caused by our busy minds that just can’t seem to chill out and go to bed. Work deadlines, relationship tension, and financial stress are just a few of the things that our minds like to go to town on when we’re trying to get some zzz’s.
Sleep Maintenance Insomnia is where you fall asleep like a baby but then you’re up several times in the night OR, you wake up, and then you just can’t fall back to sleep. The common culprits here tend to be conditions that have developed over long periods of time. These include caffeine dependency, blood sugar imbalances and chronic stress. Now before you panic about any time you’ve ever woken up in the night, waking can be a very normal part of our sleep. We cycle in and out of various stages of sleep throughout the night. A brief period of waking is nothing to get upset about. In fact, getting upset will probably make it harder for you to fall back to sleep, so just chill…
A big factor in getting better sleep is respecting and nurturing our circadian rhythm. When we fall asleep and wake up again is controlled internally by this natural process. But lots of things can influence (wreak havoc!) this rhythm which can really throw off our sleep. The following tips are things you can do today to help restore that rhythm.
1) Be routine
Ever been called a night owl or an early bird? There is some science to indicate that we all have a bit of pre-determined tendency. If we can embrace it, and support it, we can also support our circadian rhythm. Develop a sleep-wake cycle that works for you – no, the early bird does not always catch the worm. Whatever works for you, create a schedule and stick with it. This doesn’t just mean when you go to bed and wake up in the morning. It’s everything else in your day like when you eat, exercise, concentrate on your work, and just chill out. Routine and sleep are a match made in heaven so try to make your bedtime, mealtime, exercise and work time as routine as possible.
2) Get some light in your eyes
Light is one of the most important factors in regulating our circadian rhythm. When, and for how long we’re exposed to light are very important. Also critical are two key hormones that play a huge role in our circadian rhythm: cortisol and melatonin. Cortisol gets us fired up to face the day, and melatonin winds us down for sleep. Too much or too little of either one can wreak havoc on your health so we need to keep them in the Goldilocks zone – just right.
The light that comes in through our eyes triggers a number of mechanisms that eventually lead to cortisol production. As a result, we want to get light in the morning and throughout the early parts of the day. On the other hand, darkness stimulates melatonin production and suppresses cortisol, putting us in the right conditions for sleep.
Light exposure is actually more important than many might have thought. Studies have shown that light exposure for just 5 minutes in the morning has a bigger effect on sleep duration (almost an hour more of sleep!) than exercise. However, but exercise is still important – more on that later. So, try to get out first thing in the morning for 10 to 15 minutes. Don’t wear sunglasses at this time as you want some light in your eyes.
3) Get moving!
Yep, I warned you that the exercise factor was going to come up again. Just because a study showed it wasn’t as effective as morning light exposure, doesn’t mean it’s not important. It’s not even all that important what type of exercise you do, just that you do it! Exercise helps us to produce another helpful player in our circadian rhythm, adenosine. Adenosine is produced as we burn energy over the course of the day. The build-up of adenosine in our body throughout the day makes us feel relaxed and sleepy. Exercise has also been shown to increase the deep restorative phase of our sleep, decrease how long it takes us to fall asleep and help us to sleep a little longer. If you can, try to keep vigorous exercise to before noon. This avoids winding up your body in the evening when it should be winding down for bed.
4) Get MORE light
I know, I hear you. ‘Didn’t we already cover this one?’ Well, yes, but there’s more! Other factors related to light that we need to consider relate to light we get throughout the early parts of the day, not just first thing in the morning. That natural light reinforces the message to our body that it’s daytime and keeps us awake. To incorporate more light in the early parts of the day, try eating your lunch outside (weather permitting), go for an outdoor, mid-morning or mid-day walk, or do any other form of exercise that you can, outdoors. You might even want to try having walking meetings. This way you can walk and talk with your co-workers giving you some exercise, some light exposure, and a meeting checked off your ‘to do’ list, all at once.
5) Avoid napping… maybe…
Remember that adenosine we talked about when I was encouraging you to get moving? It builds up during the day creating our sleep drive. Well, it also drops when we sleep. That means when we take an afternoon nap, it lowers our build-up of adenosine which decreases our sleep drive.
Now, this doesn’t mean I’m telling everyone that they should stop napping. Napping can be super helpful for a lot of people. If you’re a routine napper and don’t have trouble falling asleep at night, by all means, keep napping. Where the problem occurs is when we start using napping to compensate for our inability to sleep at night.
If you have trouble falling asleep, wake up tired and then rely on an afternoon nap, you may be perpetuating the problem. The cycle starts with not being able to fall asleep. This means you don’t enough sleep on a given night, so you take a nap to address your sleepiness. The nap lowers adenosine which lowers your sleepiness. When nighttime rolls around, you find yourself not being able to fall asleep. You don’t get enough sleep again so you’re tired the next morning and want to take another nap…and the cycle continues…
If you’ve fallen into this pattern, you may need to ‘white knuckle’ your way through a few sleepy afternoons. You need a break from naps to get adenosine levels topped up and your circadian rhythm back on track. During these sleepy times, try taking a walk, doing some yoga or stretching or perhaps some light housework. These activities can both keep you awake and build up more adenosine in your system.
6) Step away from the coffee
Now, I’m not poo-pooing coffee. What we have to be careful about here is the timing of that caffeine. Caffeine is another factor that can reduce your sleep drive. It blocks the adenosine receptors in your body. No adenosine means no drive to sleep. Now you know why you get that nice little jolt after you down a cup!
The half-life of caffeine is about seven hours. That means that after seven hours, half of the caffeine you had in that morning coffee has left your body. So, when you have another cup mid-afternoon, you add another good wack of caffeine to your system. You block your adenosine receptors and block your sleep drive when you’re getting ready for bed.
Caffeine metabolism is highly person-specific. For some, caffeine is a major issue and just cutting it out afternoon may make a big difference. Others will say they don’t find caffeine affects their sleep. Just be warned that studies have shown that even if you don’t have any trouble falling asleep after caffeine, it may impact the quality of your sleep. Results vary from person to person. We’re all different, so you just have to see how you respond. Try cutting out afternoon coffee or switching to decaf and see how easily you fall asleep AND how well-rested you feel in the morning.
7) Try a bedtime snack
What? Eat before bed? Before you call me crazy, I’m not proposing a solution here but rather an experiment to try. We discussed how environmental factors like when we’re exposed to light, when we sleep and when we eat can all influence our sleep cycle. Another influence is our blood sugar.
A diet that creates a lot of blood sugar highs and lows causes a lot of stress on our body. Those blood sugar crashes can cause an increase in cortisol and adrenaline which are released to raise your blood sugar back up again. These two hormones are also responsible for waking you up so if your blood sugar drops at night, it can wake you up.
If you find yourself waking up around 2 or 3 am, you may have an issue with blood sugar control. Try having a handful of nuts or seeds just before you go to bed and then see if this prevents the nighttime waking. Now, this isn’t a long-term solution. We don’t want to get into a habit of eating before bed, but this can be a short-term fix until you learn to make some dietary changes that will keep your blood sugar more stable.
8) Calm down
Those stress hormones we talked about that respond to low blood sugar, also respond to stress – work, kids, school, finances, over-exercising, health problems, etc. When we’re chronically stressed, we can get chronically elevated cortisol. We know that cortisol needs to come down at night, while melatonin goes up, so we can sleep. If we’re chronically stressed, cortisol may be elevated at night which may prevent us from falling asleep or, staying asleep.
So, adopting some practices to reduce our day-to-day stress and drop our cortisol levels may help your sleep considerably. Of course, you’ll want to take some time to examine some of the major stressors in your life. There may be some big issues there to address but likely nothing you’re going to fix today. In the meantime, try meditating for a few minutes before bed – starting with just 5 minutes and then increase from there as you get more comfortable with it. You may also want to try a soak in an Epsom or magnesium salts bath, listen to calming music, do some breathing exercises or try journaling to clear your mind.
Stress reduction is very personal, so you’ll have to experiment to see what works for you. Many of these suggestions likely don’t come as a surprise to you. However, we often disregard these simple things that can actually be really effective. Think about how you spend your hours just before bed and what you can do to improve how you spend them.
9) Put the phone down
While doing things to help us chill out before bed is important, it’s equally important to remove things that don’t help us relax and de-stress. Our electronic devices are a good place to start. Social media, work email, the news, usually aren’t all that relaxing, so consider designating a time before bed when you set aside these devices for the day. Equally these devices shine a lot of bright light into our eyes which is the last thing we want just before bed. We need melatonin to rise so we want dim lighting where we can get it.
This goes for TV too. Try reading in the hours before bed instead of watching TV. Now if that Netflix addiction is just too hard to kick right now, try to end your evening of TV watching with something low stress and happy as opposed to something along the lines of a psycho killer documentary. We’re trying to be calm before we go to bed, not freaked out by a madman on the loose!
10) Sleep in a cave
One of the best things I did for my sleep was investing in blackout curtains and methods to keep my bedroom cool at night.
Research shows that ambient light can really reduce the quality of our sleep, not to mention wake you up earlier than perhaps you would prefer on the longer days of the year.
Try to reduce any lights you may have in your room, install blackout curtains, if you can, or try a sleep mask. Some are more comfortable than others so you may have to try a few to find the one that fits you best.
The literature also supports the need for cool temperatures when we sleep. Many experts recommend somewhere between 18 and 22C (65 and 72F) though I know I prefer 18 or even colder for my best nights of sleep. I’ve even been known to open the windows in my bedroom for an hour before bed in the dead of winter to really cool things down before I sleep. You’ll need to run your own experiments to see what works best for you.
Sleep impacts every part of our life so it’s important to get it right. As I mentioned at the start, this article is just scratching the surface on the sleep discussion. There is so much more than these 10 tips to sleep better. If you need help navigating the myriad of options that are available to help you with your sleep, consider a health coach. Coaching can help you not only determine what interventions might be best for your sleep challenges but also guide you to seeking appropriate medical help for sleep issues that you might not be able to fix on your own.
Reach out for a free 30-minute consultation to see if health coaching may be right for you.
