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.
