Hack Your Sleep – Tricks for the Best Sleep of Your Life

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
– Ernest Hemingway

Do you want to get better sleep? Do you want to sleep less and function better?

We all know what it’s like when we get a bad night of sleep. I can remember driving to work most mornings and almost falling asleep at the wheel. It was a horrible feeling because I would either have to pull over and take a nap at a truck stop (which I never did) or just hope I didn’t completely pass out. “Just 20 more minutes.” I would tell myself. I would roll down the windows and crank up the radio.

It wasn’t lack of sleep because I still get the same 6-7 hours of sleep a night I get now but rather poor quality sleep.

Current research suggests that we sleep for 3 reasons:

1. Brain processing and memory consolidation;
   
2. Brain restoration including cell repair and hormonal re-balancing.  This not only improves our health but allows us to come up with novel solutions to complex problems;
3. Brain detoxification, which may prevent various diseases.

Importance of Sleep Quality
Nearly a third of Americans get less than 6 hours of sleep a night; the average is 6.5 hours! That’s pretty startling when you consider that for most people, the ideal amount of sleep is 7-9 hours per night, seven being the magic number according to a recent study.

More sleep does not necessarily mean better sleep as this study concluded. For this experiment, we are going to focus on improving the quality of sleep. This includes falling asleep faster, staying asleep through the entire night and increasing the percentage of REM sleep. I’ll also be dipping into a little dream manipulation. 🙂

Due to poor diet, lack of exercise, chronic stress in addition to constant bright lights and over-stimulation, many suffer from inadequate sleep, often waking up feeling groggy throughout the day. Sleep deprivation is associated with depression, systemic inflammation, weight gain, and early mortality. In fact, you will die from lack of sleep before starvation! Even if you do everything else right, if you don’t sleep enough, your health and well-being will still suffer.

On the other hand, if you get a handle on your sleep, you will see better results and recover faster from exercise, have better memory, fewer allergies and significantly less inflammation.

Good sleep is one of the cornerstones of health. 

Sleep deprivation prematurely ages you by interfering with your growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep (and during certain types of exercise, such as high intensity interval training). Growth hormones help you look and feel younger. Essential, good quality sleep is the ultimate anti-aging secret.

Factors That Effect Sleep
Optimizing your sleep depends heavily on four things:

1. Preparation – Build good sleep habits by exercising daily (even a little like my 25 second workout), waking with the sun or using a more mild alarm clock and eliminating coffee after 3PM (or earlier if you are caffeine sensitive). Also, get sun exposure throughout the day.
2. Environment  – Tweak your surroundings for optimal sleep such as sleeping in a room between 65 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit (I have hack for this that I discuss below), sleeping in a pitch-black room by blocking all light (including alarm clocks and LEDs) or wearing a sleeping mask (I like the Gravity mask), turning your phone on silent or even off, and using a white noise generator, air purifier or other ambient noise.
3. Timing – Getting the sleep you need when you need it like going to bed and waking at the same time every day (including weekends). Have a goal to be in bed by a certain time and stick to it.
4. Diet – What and when you eat has a large impact on the type of sleep you get. Avoid a large meal at least three hours before bed.

SLEEP HACKS
Besides focusing on the factors mentioned above, there are things you can do to hack your sleep (aka small changes to upgrade your sleep.) I went through all the latest research in the biohacking-sphere, reviewed the most forefront biohackers like Tim Ferriss and Ben Greenfield and put together a list of the best sleep hacks.

All the links below are for products I suggest, which have been researched and will provide you the best quality.

You can find my top products to create a sleep sanctuary here.

Suggested Routine
Upon Waking

• Expose yourself to outdoor light first thing in the morning. You can place a white light emitter like the NatureBright SunTouch Plus Light within the field of view of your eyes instead. Just 15 minutes first thing in the morning can make a huge difference and might even replace the need for coffee.
• Combining a light emitter and coffee will increase caffeine’s effects which means less coffee needed
• Go for a barefoot walk on the grass or sand. This is called grounding or earthing. I’ll get into more detail about this in a future post.

Breakfast

• Eat a high protein breakfast.
• Take a Vitamin D supplement.

Afternoon

• Take a 30 minute walk.
• If needed and convenient, try to get into the habit of napping; ten to twenty minutes in the afternoon, preferably lying down in a darkened room.
• Drink your last cup of coffee or switch to decaf, herbal or green tea (green tea is ok because it contains L-theanine, which can partially counteract the sleep disturbances caused by caffeine). I recommend Purity decaf (get 10% off with code EVOLVEDNS) and Pique teas.
• If you heavily relay on caffeine, consider doing a caffeine reset (learn how here).

Dinner

• Consume a large fat and protein-dominant meal within three hours of sleep.
• Eat most of your carbs at dinner – One study showed that people who ate the fastest-digesting carbs fell asleep faster than the people who ate the slow digesting carbs.
• Eat high glycine foods like animal skin and bone broth. Glycine is an amino acid with sleep-promoting effects. I recommend Kettle & Fire bone broth (Use code TROY for 15% off)
• Eat leafy greens like spinach, and nuts like almonds for magnesium, and meat/shellfish for zinc.
• Go for another barefoot walk on the grass or sand.

A Few Hours Before Bed

• At night, avoid blue light from things like tablets and computers. I use a free program on my Mac called f.lux which automatically reduces blue light emissions from the monitor. Blue light can cause interruptions in the release of melatonin, the hormone that prepares your body for sleep.
• You can also use orange-lensed glasses at night two hours before bedtime. My favorite are the Swanwick brand. They block the melatonin-robbing light coming from your electronic devices so you can fall asleep faster and get better sleep.
• Avoid alcohol which can cause poor-quality sleep.
• Don’t do any strenuous exercise two hours before bed.

30-60 Minutes Before Bed
Take a warm Magnesium soak or a two minute cold shower before bedtime. Experiment with each and see what works best for you.

Doc Parsley’s Sleep Remedy – This is my go-to sleep supplement which is basically deep sleep in a bottle. Take 30 minutes before bed and you’ll be good to go.

Take relaxing amino acids, magnesium, potassium, and trace minerals through food or supplements. Here are some of the best options:

Optional Snacks – Late night snacks are best avoided but if you really need something, here are good options:

• Two Tbsp of almond or peanut butter with some celery before bed will help with low blood sugar.
• A handful of goji berries
• Eat a few cherries or drink some tart cherry juice, both of which are a natural source of melatonin, which this study supports.
• Eat two kiwis an hour before significantly improved sleep onset, duration, and efficiency, according to this study.
• Mix two Tbsp organic apple cider vinegar with 1 Tbsp raw honey in hot water – this works well for me.
• Drink two Tbsp whey protein with 1-2 Tbsp MCT oil. The MCT oil gives your brain the short chain fats is craves to function during the night.  The whey protein gives you essential amino acids for repair, and bioactive milk peptides for calming your nervous system.
•          Fast Bar – Scientifically designed to support intermittent fasting.

At Bedtime

• Practice daily breathing exercises or do at least 5 minutes of HeartMath heart rate variability coherence/breathing exercises with the Inner Balance
• Use a GRAVITY blanket which is the only weighted blanket studied and proven to improve sleep.
• Use a ChiliPAD or an OOLER, mattress pads that act as an air conditioner for your bed. The quicker you cool your body, the quicker you fall asleep and stay asleep. Use code chilipad25 or ooler15 for a discount.
• Experiment with wearing socks of different thicknesses. The temperature of your feet can have a large impact on your sleep and may reduce waking. Feet often feel cold before the rest of the body.
• Write/journal AKA Brain Dump before going to bed to clear your thoughts.
• Keep all electronics at least 5 feet from your head and put your phone on airplane mode to avoid EMFs (electromagnetic field) which can disturb sleep.
• According to Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Body, sleeping in a half military crawl position reduces fidgeting resulting in faster sleep. Here’s how he describes it:

Lie on your chest with your head on a pillow and facing to the right. Both arms should be straight by your sides, palms up. Now bring your right arm up until the top of your right hand is under your pillow and under your head. Next bring your right knee out to that side until it is bent at approximately 90 degrees.

If You Wake Up In the Middle of the Night
This is my own personal hack – I take Doc Parsley’s Sleep Remedy and I’m back to sleep within 20 minutes.

Avoid exposure to electronics.

Recommended Books
Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival by T. S. Wiley (Kindle edition)
The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss (Kindle edition)