Three strategies to optimise sleep.
I would be insulting your time if I focused this text on the amount of hours we need to sleep to have better health and prevent cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases and that if you don't, that you are quickly heading for the precipice. You can find that information easily online, you don't need another text to say that.
In fact, truth be told, the number of hours is not necessarily the best marker of how good, useful and effective your sleep is. The conclusion of this study published in 2020, is quite clear:
"Our results suggest that the quality of sleep is a better predictor of psychological and overall health impact than its quantity."
When itcomes to sleep, more is not necessarily better. In fact, this is as true as both too little and too much sleep are associated with reductions in health and performance.
This data clearly means two things:
Each person has an individual sleep pattern and need.
I'm sure you know those who naturally wake up, full of energy, at 5am to start their day while others don't start until 10am without an alarm clock but are highly productive and effective beyond midnight.
Neither is more correct than the other: they have different chronotypes and their circadian rhythm is programmed to work slightly differently. In fact, some argue that these "mismatches" of schedules were an evolutionary advantage, allowing some ancestors to stay awake guarding the tribe while others were resting during the various hours of the night, ensuring continuous protection - the opposite scenario would be predators or enemies attacking unopposed.
Also the need for sleep varies from person to person. Note: your mobile phone battery gets back to full charge more quickly if you need to recharge 10% rather than 98%. The same goes for our "battery". Sleep is the quintessential period during which our body recovers and restores itself - literally. While deep sleep cleanses the brain of toxic debris, REM sleep strengthens neuronal connections.
2. The focus should be on improving quality rather than quantity.
These restorative and recuperative effects that sleep has on our brain (and overall) are dependent on the sleep being "quality" sleep. It is significantly more beneficial to get 6 good hours of sleep than 8 bad ones. This is the reason I always focus on optimizing sleep rather than "increasing" sleep, almost in a return-on-investment approach.
They say "you can't improve what you don't measure" and this maxim totally applies to sleep. Does it matter how many hours and when we go to bed and get up? Absolutely. But what actually happens during the period is much more important!
I am a self-confessed health-tech fan (#biohackingpeakperformance) and sleep is one of the areas I keep monitored as much as possible. For over 3 years now I've been wearing theOura Ringa ring that records heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate and, most importantly for assessing the level of recovery, heart rate variability. Based on this data it can assess what really happens when - or even if - I fall asleep: how many hours of real sleep (which are not the same as the hours spent in bed), how long awake (even if you don't remember and think you've had a lot of sleep) and what percentage of deep sleep and REM sleep you have.
The factors that influence our level of recovery and recharging are many. This process is highly variable and absolutely individual: while some people sleep better by exercising at the end of the day, running after work can be catastrophic for other people's sleep. The impact of alcohol is also very personal: some suffer a significant reduction in deep sleep, others in REM sleep.
Despite all this variation, there are known factors that consistently influence sleep that could be key to helping you improve your nightly recovery, improving your health and performance. I share 3 of those factors:
Consistency matters
Have you ever thought about the steps you follow to clean yourself after bathing? Where do you start and where do you finish? You probably do it the same way every day, after every bath.
We are beings of habit. We like to have routines that help us to have a greater sense of calm, control and tranquillity. It allows us to carry out tasks without having to expend so much mental energy.
Habits are created by constantly repeating the same sequence of steps until our body carries them out automatically at an initial signal. In the case of bathing... it is to finish bathing. Another example is sleep.
For a long time, research into the impact of sleep on our system was focused on the amount of hours - that adults should sleep an average of 8 hours. Then there was an evolution towards "what time" it would be best to sleep, leading to the first personalisation of recommendations: it is now accepted that there are different chronotypes and each will have the "right" time to sleep. But recently yet another characteristic has been pointed out as being crucial to optimise the effectiveness of sleep: consistency.
Being consistent has the potential to improve sleep in two different ways:
Ensuring the stability of the circadian rhythm, allowing the body to know that at that time of day it will be able to relax, initiate sleep cycles and recovery processes.
Facilitate the falling asleep process. Getting your organism used to the fact that you will get into bed at the same time every day and you can relax will make you fall asleep faster and sleep better.
This review article published in 2020 says just that: that sleep consistency in falling asleep and waking up time are associated with improved health.
2. Eliminate blue light
If I show you these two images and ask you to identify the one that corresponds to the sunrise, which one will you choose?
Which one corresponds to the sunrise? (Publication in the article Three strategies to optimise sleep, written by Dr Miguel Damas).
You'll certainly be more inclined to say it's the one on the left. But why? What led you to that conclusion?It was the tonality of the light: the light in the morning is brighter, bluer while the light at dusk is more orange and warmer and these differences in tonality have opposite impacts on our bodies and how the day starts and ends.
When our eyes perceive that this light is coming up, they pass the message to the rest of the body that the day is beginning and that "it's time to wake up", starting the process of waking up and getting active and ready for the rest of the day.
We release the highest amount of cortisol, the "stress" hormone that activates us, in the first 60 minutes after waking up, in response to that ocular stimulus. If we hadn't evolved in this way, we would risk being easy food for some sabre-toothed tiger!
According to this study published in 2021, exposure to blue light at any time of day stimulates the release of cortisol. This is the reaction we have to this light whenever we are exposed to it, whether it's at 8am or early evening: we will wake up and wake up.
As you might imagine, the impact on sleep is very great! According to Harvard, not only is cortisol increased, but also melatonin, the hormone associated with initiating sleep, is suppressed, creating the conditions for insomnia to develop.
One strategy for improving sleep is to avoid exposure to blue light when the sun is setting and natural light is turning orange.
The problem? The screens. They all emit blue light and, despite recent advances such as Apple's introduction of night-shift on their devices or the development of apps like f.lux, being on your mobile phone or watching TV is too stimulating and impairs sleep.
It is very important that you limit the amount of time you are exposed to this light at the end of the day. One way to do this - ideally, in fact - is to swap all the 'white' light bulbs for yellow ones and watch TV for a book or family time. But, let's be practical, relaxing watching our favourite series is one way to tell the world "my day is over". Which brings me to another way to do it: blue light blocking glasses.
Researchers have shown that wearingamber light glasses blocks blue light and significantly improves the onset of sleep. If you wear them, you can go about your normal life and still not disturb your sleep.
3. Dine early
Telling you that the last meal affects sleep would come as no surprise. I'm sure it has happened to you before, waking up to find that you didn't sleep well because "dinner was too heavy". This is an extreme example of the impact that the last meal of the day has on our rest. But there are more important details and nuances!
Recent studies have shown that it is not only important the constitution of the meal and what you eat but also at what time it happens. In particular, how much time passes between the last meal and the onset of sleep. According to what this team of Australians published in 2020 , eating less than 3 hours before bedtime hinders the process of falling asleep, makes sleep lighter and leads to shorter hours of sleep.
While there are some situations where eating before bedtime may be beneficial, the timing of your last meal is a modifiable factor that has a significant impact on your nightly rest and recovery.
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