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Rest is a cornerstone of our lives. Not sleeping well is synonymous with countless health problems, apart from the obvious discomfort that comes from going through life sleep-deprived. Today we bring you a series of recommendations to help you sleep better. Most of them are taken from Andrew Huberman’s podcast and from this fantastic article by Marcos Vázquez. If you want to go deeper into the subject, both sources are highly recommended.
The first question is how much sleep we should be getting. On the one hand, we have the “the more, the better” advocates. For this group, the goal would be to always sleep more than eight hours. On the other hand, we have the productivity freaks who encourage us to sleep less in order to make the most of our time, recommending around six hours. While everyone is different, the scientific evidence seems to take us somewhere in between the two extremes (not surprisingly). This review of studies, involving more than four million participants in 30 countries, establishes a range of between seven and eight hours a day, with those who sleep less than seven hours and those who sleep more than eight being at greater risk of various health problems.
Beware! This is a general recommendation based on the results of these studies, but as we said before, each person is different and we should be guided by what works best for each of us.
Once we have defined the optimal amount of sleep we need, let’s try to make those hours as high quality as possible. There are a number of tools we have at our disposal to do this, which translates into different actions we can take throughout the day. These tools are light exposure, body temperature, diet, exercise and supplements.
1. Light / Darkness
Our bodies are evolutionarily adapted to be active during the day and rest at night (as much as you may like to party at night), and this is what circadian rhythms are all about. These natural rhythms have been altered in recent years with the advent of artificial light, shift work, etc.
However, the adaptations resulting from thousands of years of evolution do not change just like that, which means that our organism is still just as well adapted to these cycles as our ancestors, and we can still use these adaptations to our advantage, to be more awake and to sleep better.
In the morning, as soon as we wake up, it is essential to expose ourselves to bright light. Ideally we should be exposed to sunlight, but if it is still dark when you wake up, try to expose yourself to as much artificial light as possible. This tells your body that it’s time to get active, eliminating any remaining melatonin and adenosine (we’ll explain what adenosine is when we talk about caffeine). In any case, always try to expose yourself to sunlight (also in cloudy days) for a few minutes as soon as possible.
In the same way, but following the reverse logic, avoid exposure to bright lights at night. Fluorescent lights are the worst possible light to be exposed to at this time, as they will activate us and make it difficult for us to get a deep, quality sleep. When it is close to bedtime, we should have as little light as possible, and this light should not be in the white spectrum (cold light) but orange (warm light). Warm light is more like sunset and gives us the message that the day is ending and we should go to bed.
The light from screens (mobile phones, tablets, television, etc.) is also from the white spectrum and will wake us up, so ideally, one or two hours before going to sleep you disconnect from the screens. If you are one of those people who like to watch TV for a while before going to sleep, you might want to consider replacing that TV time with some time reading books on paper. The quality of your sleep will thank you for it.
Of course, it is highly advisable to keep the room as dark as possible during your night’s rest.
2. Temperature
Our body temperature tends to drop during sleep and rise during the day, so we can use this to our advantage in a counter-intuitive way, as exposure to cold will cause our body to raise its internal temperature and wake us up, while exposure to heat will produce the opposite effect.
In the morning, a cold shower will have a double effect: on the one hand, it will increase our internal temperature to compensate for the cold outside, and on the other hand it will produce a release of adrenaline. Both effects will activate us and make us more alert. If cold shower is a scary concept for you, a good system may be to shower with hot water and gradually lower the temperature until you end up with cold water for a few seconds.
At night, a hot shower will have the opposite effect: it will lower our core temperature and we will fall into a deeper, better quality sleep.
We’re not saying that you necessarily have to shower twice a day; if you find it hard to wake up or find it hard to fall asleep, you can opt for just one of them, although two showers won’t kill you 😉.
3. Physical exercise
Physical exercise is a double-edged sword. Of course, exercising will make us tired at the end of the day, but intense exercise close to bedtime will activate us and make it harder to fall asleep. If you have no other time in the day to train, it is better to do it than not to do it, but keep in mind the other tools we suggest in this article.
4. Food
Eating something will raise our internal temperature and activate us, but eating too much or eating food that is difficult to digest will divert a lot of blood and resources for digestion and make us sleepy. Some general tips that may help:
– Try to eat foods rich in tryptophan, an amino acid precursor to melatonin and serotonin. Tryptophan is present in eggs, meat, cheese and milk.
– Another compound that helps you fall asleep is glycine, a non-essential amino acid found in meat, milk, eggs and also in the following vegetables: beetroot, carrots, pulses, aubergine, mushrooms, wholegrain cereals and nuts.
So if you still needed a reason to eat more protein, there you go!
5. Supplements
Caffeine is one of the most widely used supplements in the world; it helps us to stay awake and alert, and improves our ability to concentrate. Here is a video that explains how it works very well.
Caffeine is a great ally to wake us up in the morning, but be careful, its effects are longer than we usually think, so if you take caffeine, bear in mind two things
a) Try to delay your first caffeine intake of the day. If you manage to take it between 90 and 120 minutes after waking up, you will avoid getting sleepy after lunch.
b) Don’t drink caffeine after midday. Even if you think it doesn’t affect you, because you are able to fall asleep normally, the caffeine in your body affects the quality of your sleep and will make you wake up with the feeling of not having had a good night’s rest.
Apart from the compounds mentioned above, there are other supplements that promote rest, such as magnesium or ashwaganda. Infusions such as valerian or chamomile can help somewhat, although they do not have very noticeable effects (although everything adds up).
We hope that these recommendations will help you to improve the quantity and quality of the hours you sleep, so that you can be more active and focused and be more productive during the day.
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