We’re always hearing about how important restful sleep is. (Or at least I am, thanks to a voice in my head!) Even if you or people around you don’t really care about it, we can all agree that bad sleep is a prick.
So, there are always people who are researching sleep and those who experiment with everything to sleep better. I belong to the latter group, and I’ve been reading articles and papers from the former group since 2012.
I don’t know exactly when, but I discovered early on that I love sleep. You can call me lazy, but sleep is crucial is to cognitive health, learning, stress relief, cardiovascular health, and many more physical functions. But you’re here, and I guess you already know those things!
This piece is about the top 3 things that have helped me sleep like a baby most of the time. I’m not a sleep professional, but I’ve spent a lot of time and energy on the subject and here’s what works for me.
Tip 1: Sleep Happens in Cycles
We always hear that we should have a set sleep and wake time, but we don’t hear enough about the amount of sleep we need.
So, let’s get in there and adjust those set times to your body’s need. I have an important fact for you first, and then you can start experimenting with your own sleep.
Sleep Cycles are 1.5 Hours Long
Each complete sleep cycle is approximately 1.5 hours. If sleep disrupted before or after this 1.5-hour mark, you will feel less or not rested at all. Note that I’m not talking about 90 minutes sharp, but an approximate.
There are four phases in each sleep cycle:
- Light Sleep (5-10 minutes): This is when your brain starts to drift off, your body starts to relax, and you transition to sleep. It’s the lightest phase.
- Deeper Light Sleep (20-30 minutes): Your heart rate slows and body temperature drops. This phase prepares your body for the following deeper stages of sleep.
- Deep Sleep (20-40 minutes): This stage is also known as delta sleep. (The name comes from the waves your brain produces.) Your body focuses on physical regeneration and mental decluttering in this stage, and it’s the hardest (and worst) phase to wake up from.
- REM Sleep (10-20 minutes): Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep is the last stage of a sleep cycle, when your brain becomes highly active like when you’re awake. The name comes from the fact that your eyes move quickly behind your eyelids, you dream, and your muscles are paralyzed to prevent you acting out your dreams. REM sleep is also thought to play a major role in physical and psychological restoration.
It’s okay if you skip over the fine print here. Just ditch the belief that says we should sleep for 8 hours. The ideal lengths for sleep are 7.5 and 9 hours among adolescents and adults.
Track & Adjust Your Hours
Now that you know sleep happens in 1.5-hour cycles, it’s time to leap into action.
Since we’re trying to get you the amount of sleep your body needs, I encourage you to go out, carry on as usual, and just track your natural sleep amount for a week or two. This includes any sleep that you get in a typical 24 hours, including midday naps.
Avoid alarms as best you can in this period. I know you most probably have to get up for work, but take this as opportunity to do something for yourself. Sleep sooner at night, so you’re more likely to get up in the morning.
Some mental disorders like depression or chronic anxiety may also play a role here. (These two examples usually make you want to get more and less sleep, respectively.) If you’re dealing with any of those like myself, don’t miss out on tip 3.
It’s also fine if you’re sleep-deprived, and would sleep more than usual! This trial period is meant to give you a general idea.
Make Up a Schedule
After one or two weeks, you’re most likely to have 7.5 or 9 hours as your ideal amount.
Now, decide on the hours you should go to bed and wake up. Ideally, these hours are fixed every day including the weekend. Remember that if you get that amount of sleep, you won’t need more on the weekend.
So, go ahead and think of when you can realistically go to bed every night and when you can get up in the morning. The sleep and wake hours you have recorded should also give you an idea!
Once you have these two set times, move on to the next tip.
Tip 2: Prepare for Sleep
If you have already read a number of articles about better sleep, you’re probably familiar with the term “sleep ritual.” The idea is to engage in some activities before bed that help you wind down and sleep better.
These sleep rituals differ person to person, sometimes slightly and sometimes dramatically. However, there are a couple of constants among all the useful things you can do. Let’s review some of them I’ve found useful myself.
Dim the Lights & Screens
It’s true that some people are more productive during the night, but that’s usually a result of lifestyle, not physiology. Deep down, we’re all primal mammals who sleep during the night and get things done during the day.
How did our ape ancestors tell the difference between night and day? Well, that big fiery globe in the sky was an indication.
Fast-forward a couple million years later, and we have made lamps and digital devices that shine bright like the sun itself at any time of the day, and usually right in our faces! Still, our bodies still have “biological clocks” that measure the light outside tell us when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to get up and work.
In simple terms, our prefrontal cortex (one of the advanced parts of our brain) knows that it’s one past midnight but is also checking something on the internet and reasons that it will go to sleep later. At the same time, our primal ape brain doesn’t understand the situation. It sees bright lights all around and orders the body: daytime, no sleep, work, work, work!
So, before your bedtime, dim the lights and put aside using anything with a backlit monitor, like phones or TVs. The sooner you can do that into the night, the better. I personally dim the lights early and get away from screens at least an hour before I go to bed.
If you’re interested in the subject, I also have a separate post on the benefits of light exposure. (At the right time, of course!)
If you absolutely have to use your phone or want to watch a (hopefully relaxing) movie, lower the brightness of your monitor. I also encourage you to lower them below system settings using external apps. Here are two open-source apps I use:
Additionally, most Android and iOS devices give you the option to turn your screen black and white on-demand or in a specific timeframe. Search for “grayscale” in your device’s settings to find it. It’s not as good as no monitors at all, but it takes a little strain off your eyes, and also makes Instagram a little less appealing!
Do a Relaxing Activity
This one doesn’t need a lot of explanation: you sleep better when you’re relaxed. So, I suggest you make a list of everything that calms you down, then pick some of them to do before bed. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Mediation: I’ve been meditating for years, and while there’s no “wrong” time to meditate, nighttime is one of my favorites. Practice deep breathing, in particular! There are also tons of guided sleep meditations out there that you can try. (If you don’t know where to begin, see my top meditation apps for inspiration! For example, Cory Muscara has a marvelous course in Simple Habit.)
- Calming Music: I’m a gamer, and my soothing music is hands-down the calm tracks from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. At low, sleepy volumes, of course. Everyone’s is different, so think back and find what tracks help you de-stress.
- Giving Yourself a Massage: While it may up your heart rate because of the pressure you’d be applying, the feeling afterwards is amazing! There are tons of free stuff online about giving a foot or hand and shoulder massage. You can learn some techniques and give it a try. Relaxing yoga is also along these lines.
- Writing & Journaling: This is especially helpful because it helps set your mind at ease with everything that has happened during the day. You can always go for a brain dump, and writing coherently in your journal can also calm you down and get you ready for sleep.
- Drinking Herbal Tea: I’ve learned to limit my caffeine intake, and have since discovered how varied and fun different kinds of herbal tea can be! For bedtime, try one that doesn’t have caffeine, snuggle somewhere, and relax into the warmth, the aroma, and the taste. It may take a while to find your favorite.
- Aromatherapy: Speaking of aromas, tea is not the only thing you can smell to relax. I’ve personally found a handmade, solid perfume with a perfect fruity fragrance that takes me right to my happy place!
Eyeshades & Earplugs
Remember how I said I dim the lights at night? Well, I go all-out when it’s actually bedtime. I need my sensory deprivation periods even during the day, so at night I try to disconnect from everything as much as possible. I’ve tried to sleep without eyeshades and while it’s not impossible, it’s still nowhere as deep as when I do wear them. So, give them a shot if you feel like it. Get one that’s soft and has flaps for where it sits on your nose.
Earplugs are another tool I’ve used during life in the dormitory to block out the many irregular, loud noises I had to sleep through. I’ve found that I’m okay with steady, low-volume noises though, like the sound of the AC or cars passing in the street. So, figure out if noise bothers you, and how. If it does, consider earplugs.
Earplugs and eyeshades have an overlap with my next tip, so let’s get to that!
Tip 3: Get Help if Needed
We human beings are complex creatures, which is a gift and a curse at the same time. The curse is that we don’t come with an off button that shuts us down for a couple of hours. The gift is that we can figure out all the complexity within us. So, let’s!
How and when we sleep get affected by way too many factors. If you’ve tried all the good things in tips 1 and 2 but still don’t seem to be sleeping great, it may be time to get help.
Here are three ways that have helped me with my sleep. Give them a go!
Try Therapy
You’d know it if psychological distress was affecting your sleep, right? Well, not necessarily!
We’re not all that aware of how everything affects us. If you’re awake long hours thinking about how to get out of a tough spot, that’s an obvious cue. Otherwise, you may just be dealing with something that you’re not ready to face, rolling around in your bed, and stressing over not going to sleep on-time.
In either case, you’re not alone. My own sleep has taken many hits from my traumas in the past. And if therapy saves lives and is a natural migraine cure, it can surely help you and I sleep!
So, give therapy a go and enjoy better sleep as a side effect of healing. I also have a post on how to start therapy, if you don’t know where to begin.
Consult a Physician
All functions of the human body come down to chemical reactions in it. That includes sleep! If your bedtime schedule (and/or life) is in complete disarray, your body may appreciate a little chemical help.
I’m not a doctor, so you should consult your physician or psychiatrist for this one. I’ve personally only occasionally taken melatonin pills to tell my body in clearer terms when to secrete melatonin itself.
I’d like to stress that it’s best if you don’t rely entirely on pills. That’s why I put this whole “get help” tip at the end of the article, so you’d develop non-chemical ways to ease yourself into sleep. While pills can help, they’re not necessarily essential to good sleep!
Get a Smartwatch
As I understand it, millions of people today and in the past sleep and have slept like babies without ever getting a smartwatch. So, this one is very optional. The reason I’ve included it here is because I think the health data can bring much clarity to the matter at hand.
My girlfriend got me a Galaxy Watch 6 as a birthday gift and a marvelous gadget that can give you a mountain of data about your lifestyle. So, you can use it to your advantage!
This particular watch has a sleep analysis function, which tells you when you slept, how much time you spent in each sleep phase, how restful it was in different categories, and more. Plus, I sometimes like to be a little mindful of my heart rate when I’m winding down.
Note that I’m not encouraging you to disregard the privacy concerns here. By all means, assess how much you trust the manufacturer, read their privacy policy, or possibly cut them off with Gadgetbridge on Android!
TL; DR
I’ve been reading about sleep and experimenting with it for years. Here are the three things I’ve learned:
- Sleep happens in 1.5-hour cycles, so aim to get about 7.5 or 9 hours of sleep. You can track your sleep first to know how much of it you need. Also, sleep and wake on set times every day with no exceptions.
- Preparing for sleep before bed is a must! For example, you can avoid screens, dim the lights, do a relaxing activity, and use eyeshades.
- Get help if you feel a need. This could come in the form of therapy (which I always recommend), pills (which could be taken in moderation with supervision of a doctor), or gadgets like a smartwatch (which are great but may come with privacy concerns).