CONTEXT
Sleep isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. But most adults don’t get the amount of sleep they need to fully restore and repair their brain.
Dr. Matthew Walker (author of “Why We Sleep”) shares that, "every minute of sleep you lose is a minute of brain health you sacrifice.”
Why?
Because “sleep is essential for cognitive function, including focus, memory, and learning.” In other words, low-quality sleep will tank your clarity + motivation levels the next day.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Here are the 6 most common “sleep traps” that derail you from getting the rest you need:
HOW TO AVOID THE 6 SLEEP TRAPS
- Make it cold
- Heat is one of the biggest culprits of poor sleep (because a cooler body temperature is naturally sleep-inducing). Experts say you should drop the temperature below 67ºF before bed.
- Keep it dark
- Invest in black-out curtains. Darkness is key to releasing melatonin (the hormone that regulates your sleep-wake cycles). An eye mask also works!
- Try supplements
- Andrew Huberman is a world-renowned neuroscientist and expert on sleep. He wrote this “Toolkit for Sleep” article, which many of my friends swear by. He also talks through the specific supplements he takes in this 6-min YouTube video.
- Some of the ingredients he recommends (like L-theanine) is in Beam’s Dream powder that I mentioned at the top!
- Limit screens
- Remember when we talked about melatonin? Well blue light is one of the biggest suppressors of it! I recently bought some blue-light blocking glasses to wear at night— but I generally try to put my screens away (yes, including my phone) 1 hour before bed.
- This was one of the 9 keys tip in my LinkedIn post about brain health (and how to optimize your dopamine), which many of you loved!
- No late caffeine
- If I were to guess, this one is the “sleep trap” that most people fall into. According to Matthew Walker, caffeine has a half-life of 5-6 hours for the average adult. And about 25% of that caffeine is still in your system 10-12 hours later! Enjoy your last coffee 10+ hours before bed in order to get deep sleep.
- Stick to a schedule
- Huberman encourages us to regulate our circadian cycle by waking up and sleeping at the same time each night. Rather than a morning alarm, I actually set a “bedtime alarm” (that goes off around 9pm so I can spend the next hour winding down for sleep).
- It’s also helpful to view sunlight by going outside within 30-60 minutes of waking. When you wake up, think “sunlight before screen light.”
CLOSING THOUGHTS
If you’re curious to dive deeper into sleep traps, I highly recommend the book, “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker as well as The Huberman Lab podcast by Andrew Huberman.
Sweet dreams,
Jade
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