-
Title:
6 tips for better sleep
-
Description:
Want to not only fall asleep quickly but also stay asleep longer? Sleep scientist Matt Walker explains how your room temperature, lighting and other easy-to-fix factors can set the stage for a better night's rest.
-
Speaker:
Matt Walker
-
We can all have a bad night of sleep
-
and that's perfectly normal,
-
but how could we try to improve
-
both the quantity
and the quality of our sleep?
-
[Sleeping with Science]
¶
-
-
Here are six scientifically grounded tips
¶
-
for better sleep.
-
The first tip is regularity.
¶
-
Go to bed at the same time
and wake up at the same time.
-
Regularity is king,
-
and it will actually anchor your sleep
-
and improve both
the quantity and the quality,
-
no matter whether
it's the weekday or the weekend
-
or even if you've had
a bad night of sleep.
-
And the reason is
because deep within your brain,
-
you actually have a master 24-hour clock.
-
It expects regularity
-
and works best under
conditions of regularity,
-
including the control
of your sleep-wake schedule.
-
Many of us use an alarm to wake up
-
but very few of us use a to-bed alarm,
-
and that's something that can be helpful.
-
The next tip is temperature.
¶
-
Keep it cool.
-
It turns out that your brain and your body
-
need to drop their core temperature
by about one degree Celsius
-
or around two to three degrees Fahrenheit
-
in order to initiate sleep
and then to stay asleep.
-
And this is the reason
that you will always find it easier
-
to fall asleep in a room
that's too cold than too hot.
-
So, the current recommendation
-
is to aim for a bedroom temperature
-
of around about 65 degrees Fahrenheit,
-
or a little over 18 degrees Celsius.
-
It sounds cold but cold it must be.
-
The next tip is darkness.
¶
-
We are a dark-deprived society
-
and, in fact, we need darkness
specifically in the evening
-
to trigger the release
of a hormone called melatonin.
-
And melatonin helps regulate
the healthy timing of our sleep.
-
In the last hour before bed,
-
try to stay away from all
of those computer screens
-
and tablets and phones.
-
Dim down half the lights in your house.
-
You'd actually be quite surprised
-
at how sleepy that can make you feel.
-
If you'd like, you can wear an eye mask
-
or you can have blackout shades
-
and that will help best regulate
-
that critical sleep hormone of melatonin.
-
The next tip is walk it out.
¶
-
Don't stay in bed awake
for long periods of time.
-
And the general rule of thumb
-
is if you've been trying to fall asleep
-
and it's been 25 minutes or so,
-
or you've woken up
and you can't get back to sleep
-
after 25 minutes,
-
the recommendation is to get out of bed
-
and go and do something different.
-
And the reason is because your brain
-
is an incredibly associative device.
-
The brain has learned the association
-
that the bed is this trigger
of wakefulness,
-
and we need to break that association.
-
And by getting out of bed,
you can go and do something else.
-
Only return to bed when you're sleepy.
-
And in that way, gradually,
-
your brain will relearn the association
-
that your bed is this place
of sound and consistent sleep.
-
The fifth tip is something
that we've actually
¶
-
already spoken about
in detail in this series,
-
which is the impact
of alcohol and caffeine.
-
So, a good rule of thumb here
is to try to stay away
-
from caffeine in the afternoon
and in the evening
-
and certainly try
not to go to bed too tipsy.
-
The final tip: have a wind-down routine.
¶
-
I think many of us in the modern world,
-
we expect to be able
to dive into bed at night,
-
switch off the light,
-
and we think that sleep
is also just like a light switch,
-
that we should immediately
be able to fall asleep.
-
Well, unfortunately,
sleep isn't quite like that
-
for most of us.
-
Sleep, as a physiological process,
-
is much more similar to landing a plane.
-
It takes time for your brain
to gradually descend down
-
onto the firm bedrock of good sleep.
-
In the last 20 minutes before bed
or the last half an hour,
-
even the last hour,
-
disengage from your computer
and your phone
-
and try to do something relaxing.
-
Find out whatever works for you
-
and when you have found it,
stick to that routine.
-
The last thing I should note
¶
-
is that if you are suffering
from a sleep disorder,
-
for example, from insomnia or sleep apnea,
-
then these tips aren't necessarily
going to help you.
-
If I was your sports coach,
-
I could give you all of these tips
to improve your performance,
-
but if you have a broken ankle,
-
it's not going to make a difference.
-
We have to treat the broken ankle first
-
before we can get back to improving
the quality of your performance.
-
And it's the same way with sleep.
-
So, if you think
you have a sleep disorder,
-
just go and speak with your doctor.
-
That's the best piece of advice.
-
Where do we stand, then,
¶
-
in all of this conversation about sleep?
-
Well, I think the evidence is clear.
-
We can think of sleep
almost like a life-support system.
-
In fact, some may even
call sleep a super power.