DRINK CAFFEINE IN THE MORNING, NOT AT NIGHT

Caffeine in the system reduces the amount of deep sleep that occurs at night. You will wake up feeling less refreshed, and over time your body will want/require more time in bed to compensate for the poor sleep quality. You’ll have less energy, which you would fight with more caffeine. Don’t fall into this cycle. 

Caffeine is safe and perhaps has decent health benefits. The key is in the timing. The safest time is in the morning, right when you wake up. The caffeine will be flushed from your system by the time you have a nap in the afternoon. By then you can have more caffeine immediately before or after the nap. 

Caffeine 6 hours before bedtime will disrupt sleep.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

EAT A SMALL PRE-BEDTIME SNACK

An overhauled digestive system is bad. But a small amount of energy in your system might improve sleep. Eat a 150 calorie snack before bedtime. Nothing artificial. Preferably no sugar or carbohydrates, unless you need aid in falling asleep. A spoonful of slow-digesting, omega-3 rich flaxseed oil is a good choice. It will be easily and slowly digested and provide energy for your body throughout the night.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

EAT LIGHT IN THE EVENING

One of the greatest expenditures of energy in the body is from digestion of food. Large amounts of blood flow are directed toward the digestive system after a large meal. This means less blood flow, thus less energy, available for the brain. Low blood flow in the brain during sleep means poor sleep quality, since the brain conducts all sleep processes. So eat light in the evening.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

EAT WHOLE FOODS, UNPROCESSED FOODS, AND RAW FOODS

Here’s one way to immediately – starting tonight – reduce the amount of sleep your body needs: change your diet.

Most people today have a poor understanding of what’s healthy and what’s not. Granola bars aren’t healthy; they’re highly processed. Most fruit juices are not healthy; they might contain high fructose corn syrup. Many studies even show milk to be very unhealthy, particularly the protein casein found in milk. Whole wheat bread is negligibly healthier than white break; both are highly processed.

Foods have a direct effect on our sleep quality and duration. I have spent a lot of time trying to crack the diet vs. sleep-need code. I haven’t cracked it yet, but here’s some observations:

1. Seth Roberts reduced his sleep need by ~30m by reducing the amount of processing in his diet, including cooking and spices, and by avoiding anything packaged or artificial.

2. Some raw-foodists say they need less sleep on a raw food diet compared to a cooked food diet.

3. I noticed a ~60m reduction in sleep need after eliminating artificial and processed foods. This includes just about anything packaged, even bread and pasta.

4. Carbohydrates are linked to an increase in sleep need. Nutritionalist Dr. Stanley Bass experimented with removing sugars (even fruit) from his diet. Sleep need went from 8h to 5h.

In conclusion? Really, my best advice is… Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not too Much. Sage advice from In Defense of Food that is a recipe for good health and may be a good recipe for optimal sleep. By “Eat Food” we mean eat yogurt, not Gogurt. Gogurt isn’t food.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

Diet

Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

REDUCE YOUR SLEEP NEED

The same study from above showed that it might be possible to train ourselves to need less sleep. The six 8-hour sleepers continued to reduce sleep by 30m increments until they were sleeping as low as 4.5-hours a night(ouch).

The subjects experienced severe fatigue below the 6.0-hour mark, but I guess their suffering was in the name of science...

After the study was over, the researchers caught up with the subjects the following year. It turned out that all subjects were naturally, by choice, sleeping 1-2hours below their pre-study baseline -i.e they were sleeping 6-7hours instead of 8.

Is this evidence that by gradually reducing our sleep need and giving our bodies time to adapt we can make a permanent change in our sleep need?

Perhaps.

It appears that flaky,undisciplined schedules - like sleeping in on the weekend - will reset any sleep reduction adaption. It also appears that for most people, there is a limit - sleeping below 6 hours does not seem sustainable without an alarm clock and accumulated sleep debt.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

GIVE YOUR SLEEP SCHEDULE 10 DAYS TO ‘CLICK’

The sleep tips so far have required adapting to new sleep schedules. When you first adopt a new sleep habit, like waking up at 6am every morning, you will struggle and feel tired. But keep it up for a while. It sometimes takes 7-10 days for a new schedule to “click”.

One older study followed six 8-hour sleepers for over a year. Once every 5 weeks the subjects reduced their sleep by 30m. Started at 8 hours, then 7.5, 7.0, 6.5, etc…

All subjects reported that every time they reduced sleep by 30m the first 7-10 days were difficult. But after 7-10 days their energy levels “clicked.”

Programming new sleep habits can be difficult. Go gradually if possible and give each incremental change a few days to click.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

KEEP A SLEEP LOG

Strength trainers keep detailed work out logs. Why not keep a sleep log?

Sleep logs provide many benefits. It takes 15 seconds every morning to record your sleep/wake time. I have kept a daily sleep log (off and on) for over a year.

I can see specific patterns in the way I sleep and associate them with my lifestyle habits that I record in a journal. For example, how do dietary habits affect sleep duration? How much do I sleep while free-running as compared to when I use an alarm clock?

Self-experimenter and author Seth Roberts kept a sleep log when he was younger. He reviewed it several years later and noticed that there was an immediate shift in sleep duration at around the same time he adopted a raw, whole foods diet. The diet change decreased his sleep need by about 30 minutes (he never used an alarm clock, so this was a natural decrease).

In my own logs, I’ve seen correlations between exercise intensity and sleep duration, diet and sleep duration, and more.

A sleep log might seem a bit OCD, but it’s a worthwhile time investment.

To log your data, use one of the following:

• SleepChart software (recommended) 
• Google Spreadsheet 
• Pen and paper (how primitive…)

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

POLYPHASIC SLEEP

Nearly all animals in the animal kingdom have multiple sleep episodes per day. Sleeping just once per 24h period is an anomaly, and may partially be an artifact of artificial lighting. Most adult humans are naturally wired for sleeping twice every 24 hour period -a 6-7h nocturnal rest with a 20-60m siesta in the afternoon. Sleep patterns defined by more than one sleeping episode every 24h period are called polyphasic sleep.

Polyphasic sleep has created a buzz on the Internet lately. Self-experimenters usually try one of two schedules:

1. Nap for 20 minutes every 4 hours (total of 2h per day), or
2. Have a 3h "core sleep" at night with three 20m naps in the day (total 4h per day).

Polyphasic sleep seems to be the only way to function on less than 5 hours of sleep (for genetically non-short sleepers). Unfortunately, our of all the people who try to adapt to such a schedule, the majority fail, suggesting that some people just aren't wired for this.

Polyphasic sleep is an interesting sleep schedule that some people use with success, but the topic is too detailed to cover fully here.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

TRY FREE-RUNNING SLEEP

Free-running sleep means:

1. Go to sleep when tired.
2. Wake up without an alarm.

Early studies on circadian rhythm showed that our internal clocks run on a 25-hour period when isloated from external stimuli like daylight and timekeeping. External cues like sunlight reset our circadian rhythm and math it with the 24 hour day. These cues are called zeitgebers. (Other zeitgebers are food,exercise, and social interaction).

Even with a 25h internal clock, humans have slept with the 24h day before alarm clocks were invented. Artificial light prolongs the internal clock. To wake up without an alarm clock, don't expose yourself to too much artificial light at night. That will shift your internal clock forward.

Many insomniacs have circadian rhythms that run on 26 or 27 hour periods. It is difficult to entrain a 27-hour internal clock with a 24-hour external clock. Solution: free-running sleep with 27-hour days. Go to bed when you're tired, wake up naturally. Obviously hard to manage if you're not self-employed or on vacation.

Studies show that free-running sleepers experience a 10-15% boost in creativity compared to those who use an alarm clock.

Health-wise, free-running sleep is the optimal sleep schedule. It can be synced with the 24h day, but with artificial lights(like computer monitors) it might run out of sync,which is OK too.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

CIRCADIAN RHYTHM

A circadian rhythm is an endogenously driven roughly 24-hour cycle in biochemical, physiological, or behavioural processes. Circadian rhythms have been widely observed, in plants, animals, fungi and cyanobacteria (see bacterial circadian rhythms). The term "circadian" comes from the Latin circa, meaning "around", and diem or dies, meaning "day". The formal study of biological temporal rhythms such as daily, tidal, weekly, seasonal, and annual rhythms is called chronobiology. Although circadian rhythms are endogenous ("built-in", self-sustained), they are adjusted (entrained) to the environment by external cues called zeitgebers, the primary one of which is daylight.

If you want to find out more about a circadian rhythm visit Wikipedia.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

WAKE UP AT THE SAME TIME EVERY MORNING

Keep wake-up times consistent and sleep quality will improve dramatically, giving you more energy and decreased sleep need.

Your body has an internal 24-hour clock which controls your circadian rhythm. Sleep quality is optimized during a very specific window of your circadian rhythm. If you learn to sleep exactly within that window you will enjoy the best sleep of your life. That is, you want to perfectly hit the "circadian low-point", which is the time when your body is programmed to sleep.

If you sleep in on weekends your internal clock is always playing catch-up as it tries to match itself with your indecisive wake-up times. For each hour you sleep in late on weekends it will take an extra day during the week to reset your clock. Sleeping in on weekends makes it difficult to hit the circadian low point. Your body tries to increase sleep duration to compensate for poor sleep quality.

Keep wake-up times consistent. Even on weekends. Your sleep quality will skyrocket.

For those who don't need alarm clocks (e.g. you are self-employed), you might be better off with free-running sleep.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

THE 28 HOUR DAY

Jet lag is far, far less intense flying west than it is flying east. Flying west you follow the sun and extend your day.

For some reason, it appears that it is easier for humans to push our body clocks forward. It only takes 1 day of sleeping in to push our clocks forward by 3 hours, but it takes 3 days of waking up early to reset it to normal.

This is why some have adopted the 28-hour day. Why 28? It syncs with the 168-hour week. Six 28-hour days instead of seven 24-hour days. Good for those who want to be awake in the evening and night during weekends(for going out).

If you follow any non-24 hour sleep schedule, use zeitgebers properly. Light is the strongest zeitgeber, and since you can no longer rely on the sun, sleep masks (sleep tip 29) and light boxes (sleep tip 27) become beneficial.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK

Zeitgeber

Zeitgeber (from German for "time giver," or "synchronizer") is any exogenous (external) cue that synchronizes an organism's endogenous (internal) time-keeping system (clock) to the earth's 24-hour light/dark cycle. The strongest zeitgeber, for both plants and animals, is light. Non-photic zeitgebers include temperature, social interactions, pharmacological manipulation, exercise, and eating/drinking patterns. To maintain clock-environment synchrony, zeitgebers induce changes in the concentrations of the molecular components of the clock to levels consistent with the appropriate stage in the 24-hour cycle, a process termed entrainment.

The German term zeitgeber came into the English language when Jürgen Aschoff, one of the founders of the field of chronobiology, used it in the 1960s. It is now in common use in the scientific literature in this field.

Information about "Zeitgeber" gathered from wikipedia.

By Christopher W. SLEEPBREAK