Your Guide to Perfect Sleep

Optimal sleep habits can profoundly impact how you feel mentally and physically, your immune system, your ability to maintain a healthy weight, and so much more. 

Unfortunately, up to one third of adults have difficulty getting quality shut-eye — so if you’re struggling, you’re not alone.

It seems like there is a new study coming out every week that ties a lack of sleep to long-term health problems; a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, lowered libido, impaired cognitive function, and depression… just to name a few.

The Key Principles of Healthy Sleep

There are many factors that come into play when discussing healthy sleep, but it really all boils down to three factors:

• How many hours of sleep you get (Duration of sleep)
• How well you are sleeping during those hours of sleep (Quality of sleep)
• How consistent is your good sleep?

Most people associate getting a good night’s sleep by how many hours they are in bed, but your bodies ability to transition though sleep cycles properly plays just as big of a role. You need the hours of sleep that you do get to be restorative to your body

1. Sleep duration (How many hours of sleep you get) 

Too little sleep as discussed above comes with tons of issues, but too much sleep can be just as bad.

There’s a u-shaped association between sleep duration and all-cause mortality: getting less than 6 hours or more than 9 hours of sleep both seem to contribute to increased metabolic dysfunction and disease risk. If you are sick or recovering from an illness then this of course would change and you would need to sleep longer.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society, you should aim to get 7–9 hours of sleep each night. Considering it takes the average healthy sleeper 10–20 minutes to fall asleep, “8 hours in bed each night” is a good minimum target, provided you’re confident you can fall asleep in under an hour

Now this is a general guideline, as some people may do okay with 6 for example, but it seems that when you sleep 5 hours or less the issues start to really rack up.

Now for some people you cannot get more sleep, whether it be work, school or a new baby. I am a new dad while writing this and I am certainly not getting 7-9 hours of quality sleep lol. In this case you simply just need to do your best and instead focus on your sleep quality!

2. Sleep Quality (How well you sleep)

Once your sleep duration is in a healthy range, it’s time to consider your sleep dynamics. These are the patterns, cycles, stages, and brain wave activity you experience when you sleep.

We have 5 sleep stages overall

• Stages 1 and 2 are light stages of sleep
• Stages 3 and 4 are the very deep restorative stages
• Stage number 5 is REM sleep (REM = rapid eye movement)

These 5 sleep stages come together to to form 90 minute sleep cycles

• Every 90 minutes, your brain cycles between non-REM and REM sleep

• Then this is replayed every 90 minutes to create what we call a standard cycling architecture of sleep and sleep dynamics.

The goal is essentially to spend enough time in each of these sleep stages and move through them smoothly throughout the night, which is much easier said than done!

3. How consistent is your good sleep?

Is it once a week, 3 times a week or every night that you are sleeping well?

This is why we have to essentially build better about around sleep and make it a priority as best we can given our situation.

How to Start Building Healthy Sleep Habits

• Too much light and blue light is terrible for bedtime. For most people, Avoid viewing bright lights—especially bright overhead lights between 10 pm and 4 am.

• Timing is everything. If your schedule makes this possible, try and go to bed around the same time everyday, as well as have a similar wake up. This helps prime your internal clock.

• Coffee with dessert? No thanks. For most people caffeine has a half-life of about 4-6 hours in that body. That means it takes about that long to metabolize just half of the caffeine you consume, so try to cut coffee off earlier in the day.

• Hold the nightcap. While alcohol might help to induce sleep more quickly due to its sedative properties, when it comes to overall sleep quality, alcohol is doing more harm than good.

• Supplements that can help your sleep. This includes CBD, L-theanine and Magnesium just to name a few.

• Keep it cool. Nothing is worse than trying to sleep in a hot, sticky bedroom. It is uncomfortable and can even affect your overall quality of sleep. Research suggests that the best room temperature for sleep is between 60 – 67 degrees Fahrenheit. This might mean opening the window while you sleep or even possibly sleeping naked in the summer months.

• Set up your space. Keeping your sleep environment quiet, dark, and for sleep and sex only can also help your brain to recognize the bedroom as a sleep sanctuary and fast-track you to a better night’s sleep. As much as my wife and I would like a TV in our room, we do not have one for this reason.

• Don’t eat too close to bed. You want to have some time in between your last meal and bedtime, as this will help your sleep. While you don’t want to go to bed starving, you also don’t want to be full. If you need to eat close to bedtime make it a light snack and not a big meal.