Sleep: 5 hacks to enhance your sleep quality

I recently wrote an article on the dangers of wearing chronic sleep deprivation as a so-called badge of honour. You can check that out here. This societal problem has long flew under the radar in terms of both its impact on health and well-being, and its effect on productivity. It doesn’t help when you have champions of industry waxing eloquently about how much they’re able to achieve with nothing but a cat nap.

It’s true, some people are able to get by on significantly less sleep than the rest of us. They don’t experience any of the ill effects I outlined in the previous article. No forgetfulness. No impact on focus. Lucky them.

You’ve probably met people who claim to have been blessed with such an ability. They’re probably lying. If not to you, then definitely to themselves. The genetic mutation responsible for “Short Sleeper Syndrome (SSS)” has an incidence of less than 5% on a population level. These super mutants can get by on ~6h sleep with no ill effects. The rest of us need 7-8h, no matter what we kid ourselves into thinking.

The issue we face is actually getting those 7-8h. Even with the best intentions, sleep seems to be the first thing to suffer in today’s hyper-connected world. People often get into bed with a full 8h of time ahead of them, only to lie there, staring at the ceiling for the next 4h. Others drop off quickly, but are left feeling more tired than they were before they fell asleep, constantly being woken by the slightest noise. Surely there must be something we can do to optimise our sleep. Surely if we can’t sleep longer, we must be able to sleep harder?

Digital detox

This hack is perhaps the simplest, and probably the most effective. It’s also the one you’re going to struggle with the most. For 2-3 hours before bed, DON’T use your phone OR laptop. Why? Blue light. Time for a quick evolutionary biology lesson.

Blue light, at least in the natural world, peaks at around mid-day. The unrelenting sun, beating down on you, is flooding your eyes, and subsequently your brain, with blue light. This would then normally slowly drop off over the course of the day. The sun sets, and your brain ramps up melatonin production to ease you into a restful night of sleep. Our brains are wired for peak alertness when blue light is at its maximum. Guess what else produces maximal levels of blue light: phones.

It wouldn’t make sense to be dozing off in the middle of the day. This simple response to blue light that would have been so beneficial in the past now works against us. Guess what else produces blue light? You guessed it: phones, laptops, tablets, TVs. All of the technology which has become so ubiquitous is working against you. Checking your phone, or staring at a screen right up until the point you want to sleep, is going to fool your brain into believing you should still be awake and alert. It stands to reason that you can’t fall asleep quickly. By not using your phone or a screen for a few hours before bed, melatonin production can be up-regulated in the way it would naturally, and you’ll fall asleep much quicker.

Hack number 1: no screen use for 2-3h before bed

No more coffee…after a certain time

Coffee is delicious. It is the lifeblood of modern society. Without it, civilisation would collapse. A life without caffeine is a life not worth living. Hyperbole aside, I’m not suggesting you stop drinking coffee. That would be cruel. I’m just saying you should (probably) drink less, and you need to be smarter about when you consume it.

Caffeine has a half-life (the time it takes your body to break down half the quantity you’ve ingested) of 3-5h, depending on individual metabolism. That means your morning coffee, assuming you drank it at 8am, and assuming a half-life of 4h, will be 50% metabolised by midday, 75% by 4pm, 87.5% by 8pm, and so on. The same sliding scale applies regardless of when in the day you consume it. As such, it makes sense to avoid caffeine after 2pm, else your system will still be ablaze when bedtime rolls around. This is not what we want.

Circulating cortisol levels, and melatonin production are inversely related. If you have that 4pm, end of day coffee, your cortisol levels will still be elevated come bed time, and melatonin production will be impaired. Poor melatonin production, as we learned before, means poor sleep. Say hello to staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning, and acute insomnia. Chronic late consumption of caffeine could lead to chronic insomnia, and all of the negative effects associated thereafter.

Hack number 2: little to no caffeine after 2pm

Rise and move

Despite many people feeling too tired to exercise, exercise is actually one of the best ways to improve sleep quality, especially in the morning. Better sleep quality means feeling less tired, which may seem counter-intuitive, but bear with me.

Morning exercise, outside wherever possible, is very effective in regulating sleep for a number of reasons. Getting outside and moving as soon as you wake up reinforces the sleep wake cycle. Flooding your brain with that early morning light down regulates melatonin production, and gets your metabolism firing for the day ahead.

If morning workouts just aren’t practical, just go for later in the day . The benefits are definitely worth it. It’s been shown in numerous studies that individuals who exercise are better able to deal with stress. This means lower cortisol, which means less disruption of melatonin production, which in turn means better sleep. Lower stress isn’t the only positive either. Reduced blood pressure, improved insulin sensitivity, and more energy are just a handful of the myriad benefits. Just try to avoid workout immediately before bed, as this can actually have the opposite of the desired effect.

Hack number 3: exercise, in the morning wherever possible

No more nightcaps

Enjoying a night cap to send you off to sleep is a tradition going back hundreds of years. Alcohol is, after all, a depressant. A glass of something before bed seems like the perfect way to unwind, and the best thing to send you off to a deep and restful night of sleep. The problem is it isn’t, and you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Alcohol does not help you sleep, it sedates you. Anyone who has ever passed out after a few too many glasses of wine will attest to this. On top of being sedated, you stay in the lighter stages of sleep, and will be a lot more restless. Your brain is prevented from dropping into essential REM and deep sleep states until the alcohol has been cleared from your system. This is why you have particularly vivid dreams just before waking if you were drinking the night before: your brain tries to squeeze all the missed REM into a shorter time period. All these factors conspire together to, more often than not, leaving you feeling more tired on waking than you felt before you went to bed.

Hack number 4: don’t drink alcohol before bed.

The sleep cave

Making sure you’ve optimised your sleep environment is the final suggestion. Doing this is a 2 pronged approach: dark and cold. You need to build yourself a sleep cave.

First, you need to make sure that your bedroom is actually dark, and I’m not talking about sort of dark but you have light creeping round the sides of the curtains and under the door. I mean pitch black. Any source of light can and will have an impact of melatonin production, and subsequently your sleep, in the same way that staring at your phone before bed has an impact. Same mechanism = same result. By sleeping in a pitch black room, you’re far less likely to mess with melatonin production, and far more likely to sleep soundly.

Once your room is black as night, you need to drop the temperature. This is because your body drops in temperature to initiate sleep. It stands to reason that by pre-empting this drop by using the thermostat, you’ll fall asleep faster, and go deeper when you do. That’s not to say that your room should become a freezer though, as being too cold could have the opposite of the desired effect. The goldilocks zone is 60-67 degrees Fahrenheit, or 15-19 degrees Celsius.

Hack number 5: make sure your room is dark and cold.

Hacking your way to success

8h of sleep on a regular basis can sometimes seem like a dream. Though it should be the goal, and steps should be taken to ensure you get it wherever possible, it’s not always practical. Sometimes life happens. If life seems to happen to you on a regular basis, and your sleep quantity always seems to take the hit, you can maximise the quality to offset some of the impact.

Reduce your screen use for the last few hours before bed, and cut out your afternoon coffee. Morning exercise can help give you more energy, and avoid the afternoon slump. Try and avoid the late night alcohol too, or at least, don’t make it a habit. Once you’ve done all that, make sure your room is black as night, and drop the temperature. With these simple tweaks, you’ll be well on your way to a better night’s sleep. Remember though, these hacks shouldn’t be used in lieu of quantity. 8 is always better than 6.

References

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation-sleep-less/

https://www.sleepjunkie.org/caffeine-and-sleep/

https://www.alexfergus.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-sleep-with-morning-sunlight

https://thesleepdoctor.com/2017/05/22/benefits-exercise-sleep/

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/12118-drug--and-alcohol-related-sleep-disorders

https://www.sleep.org/articles/temperature-for-sleep/