Lifestyle Changes That Will Revolutionize Your Sleep Part 1

In Episode One, we talked about Surroundings. Here, we will talk about lifestyle.

Lifestyle represents "L" in the S-L-E-E-P framework. Want to learn more about the S-L-E-E-P framework? Check Episode 1.

Sleep and Lifestyle

“The way you live your days is the way you live your life” - Annie Dillard

In recent years, Sleep hygiene has become a more popular term, and for good reason. Certain habits and activities will impact our sleep. From having bright lights in your face, to drinking alcohol, to missing your bedtime due to Netflix, certain lifestyle choices will have a negative impact on your sleep. If you build up too many of these poor choices, the outcome can be disastrous.

If you want a harsher quote than what I started the chapter with, it would be:

“We deserve the consequences of our actions.”

Ultimately, a lot of our sleep quality is dictated by how we live our life. Many years of bad habits have a slow but methodical impact on our sleep.

But the good news is, we do control our actions, and through slow changes, we can reclaim our life and our sleep. Remember, we also deserve the positive outcomes of our actions!

Below is a list of activities that you should consider adopting or doing a variation of, that will improve your sleep.

We start from when you wake up and move our way through the waking day.

Please note, if you are new to fixing your sleep, this list will seem daunting. Hence, my advice: Pick one, work on it, and only add another change when you feel ready. Don’t do all of them at once!

Morning light.

As soon as you wake up, try to get natural light as soon as possible. As humans, we are sensitive to light. We have an internal body clock. This is partly dictated by our genetics but also by light. The sooner we can get into bright light, the sooner the body can send signals to wake up. This will then set in motion the hormones and changes needed to both wake up, but also to be tired at the right time in the evening. There are also a heap of other benefits to getting outside and ideally into nature in the morning.

“But Matt, when I wake up, it’s too dark or too cold.” In this case, I recommend opening your curtains first, turning on the lights, and trying to acquire some brighter lights. The higher the LUX level, the better (be careful, though). This is especially important if you are working from home.

Drink water first thing.

As a general rule, most people do not drink enough water. Consider the following as a guideline: multiply your weight in kilograms by 40 to get the range of how many milliliters of water to drink each day. I weigh 75 kg, 75 x 40 = 3,000. This is 3 liters a day. Add more if you are doing intense physical activity. Drinking water first thing in the day is simply a good start to reaching this goal. Another benefit is, the more you drink in the morning, the less you will need to consume in the afternoon. Keep in mind this partly depends on physical activity. Extra bonus: add some natural salt or electrolyte powder to your water. Electrolytes help your absorption of water and are critical for brain function.

Coffee and Caffeine.

I know many will read this and sigh, “DON’T TAKE AWAY MY COFFEE.” The choice is yours, but here is what you can do. Firstly, our ability to handle caffeine is largely based on our genetics, so if that interests you, we can talk about tests for this. The general guideline, however, is that the half-life of caffeine for most people is 4-5 hours. Hence, if you drink a cup of coffee at 12, half of the caffeine content is still in your system by 5 PM. By 10 PM, a quarter is still in your system. Caffeine, like it or not, has a negative effect on sleep, especially REM sleep. Reducing how much is in your system by bedtime should be an important lifestyle consideration. The simple advice is to cut down or avoid having caffeine in the afternoon. Start small and consider moving to decaffeinated coffee or herbal teas.

Be careful what you eat, especially in the hours leading to bed.

While the modern world brings many blessings, it also brings problems. One is the easy access to tasty, yet often not very healthy, foods. The easiest rule of thumb to follow is the following: does it make you feel sluggish after you eat it? If the answer is yes, then it’s a good indicator that you should avoid this food type. In general, I recommend avoiding highly processed foods, especially sugary foods. If you have to eat 2 hours before bed, try things that are easier to digest, like fruit or lighter snacks. We will cover the area of supplements and nutrition in chapter X.

Try to take time during the day to think.

Why? The sad reality is, many of us are so busy, we have no time to reflect or think without prejudice. Therefore, the only time we get to do this is—you might have guessed it—once we are in bed. Hence, then we have all these unhandled thoughts and emotions going through our head. How to do this? I would recommend picking some of these options and trying them out: walking in nature, getting a dog, meditation, journaling, gratitude, and breathing exercises. Even 1 minute of meditation a day beats doing 0 minutes! Start small, build up, and you will find yourself after a few weeks getting to sleep with a lot fewer thoughts spinning in your head.

In 2 weeks, I will post part 2 of life style and sleep.

If you know anyone whose sleep is their bottleneck to being who they want to be, consider sharing this with them.