Sleep how to get to sleep

How To Get Better Sleep

“Last night was rough.” “I just couldn’t fall asleep.” “I kept waking up.”

We’ve all uttered these familiar phrases more than a few times in our lives, but they never seem to make a difference. Well, that’s where Oura comes in. With these sleep tips, you can start cracking the sleep code and put yourself on the path towards a good night’s sleep.

Oura’s Ten Tips For Better, Deeper Sleep

1. Give Your Screens a Break at Least 1 Hour Before Bed

Being under the covers is more comfortable than the couch, and your phone could probably use a charge, so give your phone, tablet, or TV a break and yourself some time to wind down before bed. By tuning out earlier, you can make sure your circadian rhythm isn’t disrupted by your screen’s blue light.

2. Stick to Your (Reasonable) Bedtime, Even on Weekends

Improving sleep starts with consistency, so becoming a creature of habit can go a long way. If you set a reasonable bedtime window and stick to it, even on weekends, it can help you maintain your natural circadian rhythm and be rested and ready when your morning alarm goes off.

3. Find Your Ideal Room Temperature

Warmer? Colder? Somewhere In The Middle? Regardless of your temperature preferences, physiology and science both point to the ideal nighttime room temperature being around 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). Your body temperature decreases to initiate sleep, so a cool room can give you a head start.

4. Save Your Large Meals & Heavy Workouts for the Daytime

When you head to your favorite 24-hour late-night food establishment or hit the gym too close to bedtime, your deep sleep takes the hit. An elevated metabolism or heart rate can disrupt your sleep, so it’s best to avoid exercise and heavy meals in the 3 hours prior to your ideal bedtime.

5. Schedule Some Time to Unwind

Of course, this one is easier said than done. However, if you reserve time to unwind–by employing practices like mindful meditation, taking a relaxing bubble bath, or reading a novel–you train your body to enter a relaxed state.

Think about it like you would a muscle: the more you practice engaging your rest-and-digest system while you’re awake, the easier it becomes to generate that same response at night and get some quality sleep.

6. Trade That Late-Night Glass of Wine for Some Extra Sleep

Alcohol may help you feel relaxed before bed, but too much can rob you of highly valuable REM sleep. Once the alcohol’s effects wear off, you may also wake up continuously throughout the night.

7. Move That Late-Night Espresso to Mid-Day

The effects of a late afternoon coffee can last much longer than you think. Caffeine raises your heart rate, making it more difficult to fall asleep. It can also disrupt a key signal in your brain, adenosine, that helps your body regulate your internal clocks. Keep in mind that soda, tea, and even chocolate can contain enough caffeine to disrupt sleep as well.

8. Don’t Exercise Late, Exercise Regularly

Stay active daily. Go for a run or just a casual walk around the block to avoid sitting for long periods. As little as thirty minutes of activity a day can set you up for a good night’s sleep.

9. Reserve Your Bedroom for Rest & Recovery

If you can, creating separation in your home or apartment can really make a difference. Reserving your living room for media consumption and making it home base for all your screens can get you in the habit of sticking to tip #1 in this list. Taking the TV out of the room, leaving your phone charger on the kitchen counter, or making sure your work from home setup isn’t next to your bed can help you create an environment reserved only for sleeping. Your internal clocks respond to these sleep cues and your body will thank you.

10. Naps Are Great for Recovery but Remember to Time Them Out

And finally, taking a nap is a great way to rest and recover, but there are good and bad times to take for them. Try to take your naps before 3pm, as naps too close to your ideal bedtime can make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep at night.

Sleep is Unique to You

If the idea of a good night’s sleep feels foreign to you, try out any or all of these tips and see how they impact your sleep quality. Stick with a new technique for at least a week to give your body time to adapt to the changes and reveal any effects. Rome wasn’t built in a day!

And, always remember, sleep is different for everyone, and what works for some may not work for you. Try experimenting with a few of these strategies, discover what works, and hold on to what’s best for you, your body, and your sleep.

How To Train Yourself To Go To Sleep Earlier

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A number of factors may impact your ability to go to sleep early. Perhaps you are not a morning person, or you have work or family obligations that keep you up late. Some sleep or mental health disorders, such as insomnia or anxiety, can make falling asleep difficult. In other instances, nighttime may be your only time to relax, and so you engage in revenge bedtime procrastination and stay up late, which then negatively impacts your next day.

The average adult needs between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. However, 35% of Americans get fewer than seven hours of sleep at night. If an early work or school schedule is making it difficult to get a full night’s rest, you may wonder how you can reset your sleep routine. Implementing sleep hygiene techniques may help you train your body to go to sleep earlier.

Develop an Evening Routine

Bedtime routines are a well-documented, effective strategy for improving sleep in children. Incorporating relaxing activities before bed is also recommended for adults to improve sleep habits and get more sleep overall.

Your routine at night can include any number of relaxing activities:

Manage Blue Light Exposure

While it may be tempting to scroll on your phone to relax before bedtime, the habit could be keeping you up later. Research shows that blue light suppresses the body’s production of melatonin, the sleep hormone. This can be helpful in the morning, when you want to wake up. However, blue light exposure in the evening could make you take longer to fall asleep, get less sleep overall, and get lower-quality sleep.

In addition to cell phones, common electronics such as TVs, computers, tablets, and even backlit e-books all emit blue light. To avoid melatonin suppression and staying up later than you want, it is best to limit the use of these types of devices in the hours before bedtime. Some experts recommend keeping the devices out of the bedroom altogether to resist the temptation to check notifications at night.

Maintain a Consistent Sleep Schedule

If you go to sleep at different times each day, it can be difficult to fall asleep earlier. Waking up and going to bed at the same time each day helps your body develop a routine. Even on weekends and days you would like to sleep in, it helps to maintain a consistent sleep schedule. As you adjust to an earlier sleep schedule, it can help to make the change in smaller 15-minute increments.

Many people find that napping too late in the day can interfere with nighttime sleep. If you are trying to go to bed earlier, you may want to avoid naps in the afternoon and evening.

Exercise

Studies have shown that exercising regularly in line with public health recommendations leads to better sleep. However, experts generally recommend against intensive exercise right before bedtime. Vigorous exercise less than an hour before you go to bed may delay falling asleep and reduce overall sleep time.

If you want to exercise before bedtime, try a low- or moderate-intensity activity. Some meditative movements such as yoga, tai chi, or qigong include combinations of gentle stretching and breathing exercises. These activities can help you relax before bedtime. Yoga in particular has been shown to help improve the management of sleep problems and relieve stress.

Create a Soothing Bedroom Environment

Another healthy sleep tip is to make sure your room is conducive to sleep. There are many steps you can take to create a comfortable bedroom environment:

Avoid Caffeine Late in the Day

Although a cup of coffee late in the day may give you the boost you need to wrap up a project, it may also keep you up at night. Experts recommend avoiding stimulants including coffee, tea, and energy drinks four to six hours before bedtime.

Try a Natural Sleep Aid

A number of natural sleep aids can help you fall asleep earlier:

Consult with your healthcare provider before trying a natural sleep aid. They may have suggestions specific to your sleep goals. They may also help you identify any potential sleep disorders preventing you from falling asleep early.

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This article was co-authored by Sari Eitches, MBE, MD. Dr. Sari Eitches is an Integrative Internist who runs Tower Integrative Health and Wellness, based in Los Angeles, California. She specializes in plant-based nutrition, weight management, women’s health, preventative medicine, and depression. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine. She received a BS from the University of California, Berkeley, an MD from SUNY Upstate Medical University, and an MBE from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her residency at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, NY and served as an attending internist at the University of Pennsylvania.

There are 17 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

This article has been viewed 102,069 times.

Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult for many, and it may be even more difficult for those with depression or chronic stress. It has been shown that depression and insomnia often go hand in hand. Yet studies have shown that improved sleep can also improve your mood. [1] X Trustworthy Source American Psychological Association Leading scientific and professional organization of licensed psychologists Go to source Get better sleep by staying healthy in your daily activities, having a bedtime routine, avoiding things that keep you awake, and seeking advice when your sleep problems persist.

Sleep 101: The Ultimate Guide to a Better Night’s Sleep

We do it every night, and over the course of our life we will spend approximately a third of our time doing it: sleep. But what is it? Doctors and scientists are really just beginning to understand all the important ways that sleep affects our health and well-being — and all the reasons why we do it.

According to Rafael Pelayo, MD, a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a sleep specialist at the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center in Redwood City, California, “Sleep is a natural, restorative physiological process characterized by a perceptual disengagement [in which you tune out from whatever’s going on around you], and must be rapidly reversible.”

The bottom line is that we need sleep to function, Dr. Pelayo says. It’s a critical process that allows the body to function and stay healthy — and it’s especially important for the brain.

“But sleep is really how the brain gets reset for the next day. Sleep restores the brain.”

That means inadequate sleep or poor quality sleep will damage many systems of the body and over time can contribute to a greater risk of chronic disease and health problems. But the most immediate consequences of not sleeping that you’ll notice are those that affect your mind and thinking.

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Why Sleep Is So Important for Your Health

We intuitively know we need sleep. When you don’t get a good night’s sleep, you’ll likely feel drowsy, you won’t quite be able to think as clearly as usual, and you might be moody and irritable. That’s because one of the key functions of sleep is to restore the brain.

Why the Brain Needs Sleep

You likely won’t be measuring your daily ATP levels, but they do affect your ability to function in big ways. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep and those chemical processes don’t happen, the next day you’ll likely notice:

Why the Body Needs Sleep

and people are also at higher risk of catching a cold or flu.

Researchers think that’s because sleep deprivation has been shown to mess with how the immune system functions.

Over time, chronic poor sleep has been linked to worse heart health. So much evidence points to this that the American Heart Association updated its checklist of modifiable factors linked to cardiovascular health in June 2022 to include sleep. The list also includes diet, exercise, tobacco use, weight, cholesterol, blood sugar levels, and blood pressure, and is published in the journal Circulation.

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Circadian Rhythm, Sleep Stages, and Sleep Cycles: Everything You Need to Know About What Happens When You Sleep

You may not remember everything that happens each night when you’re asleep, but if you’re doing it right, there’s a lot going on in your brain and your body, Pelayo says. “There are differences between sleep and awake for every single body system, but nothing as dramatic as the changes of consciousness during sleep,” he says.

The Different Stages of Sleep

Stage 2: Non-REM sleep In the second stage, your heart rate drops and your body temperature falls even more. Eye movement stops completely and your brain slows way down, except for brief bursts of activity.

Stage 3: Non-REM sleep Next comes deep sleep. This stage is heavy and restorative. Your heartbeat and breathing slow down the most during this type of sleep, and now is the time when it’s hardest to awake.

What Drives Sleep

The homeostatic sleep drive affects how deeply we sleep, too. For instance, if you stay awake for 24 or 36 hours instead of the typical amount of time you spend awake during a day, such as 16 or 17 hours, sleep-wake homeostasis is the mechanism that drives you to sleep longer and deeper once you do sleep.

Then there’s our circadian rhythm, our body’s biological clock, which syncs our body functions with environmental cues. These internal clocks are what drive us to feel sleepy at night and more awake in the morning (even, for instance, if you slept poorly the previous night, or pulled an all-nighter). They’re regulated by hormones, such as the stress hormone cortisol and the sleep hormone melatonin, which get secreted by the brain to send these wake and sleep signals to the body.

“They’re two complementary systems in the brain,” Pelayo says. And when there’s a discrepancy between the homeostatic drive to sleep and the signal to sleep that comes from the circadian system, problems like jet lag and other disordered sleep occur.

“This is why people who wake up at different times every day may feel tired a lot,” Pelayo says. “The brain doesn’t know how to predict when they should be awake. It’s like being constantly jet-lagged.”

The more sleep researchers learn about these two systems that control sleep, the more it is clear why not only sufficient hours of sleep, but also good sleep habits (such as going to sleep and waking up at the same time each day) are important.

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How Much Sleep You Actually Need

That recommendation, along with additional recommended sleep times for younger children, adolescents, and older adults, is based on the amount of sleep associated with the best health outcomes in a number of areas, including things like mood, learning, accidents, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and pain.

But Pelayo says not to get too concerned about banking a specific number of hours of sleep each night. “The issue is waking up refreshed,” he says. “You should never wake up tired. If you do wake up feeling tired, something is wrong.”

Waking up sleepy may indicate that the quality of your sleep is poor. Maybe you’re spending too much time in light sleep and not getting enough restorative deep sleep, for example, Pelayo says. If that’s the case, you should ask your doctor about getting checked for a sleep disorder, or see a sleep medicine specialist.

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Common Sleep Disorders

Everyone should be able to get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis, Pelayo says. And if you’re not (and it’s not because you lack the opportunity to sleep), it’s important to be aware of the several sleep disorders that might be interfering with your rest.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) Obstructive sleep apnea, or “sleep apnea” for short, is a disorder in which a person’s airway becomes partially or completely blocked during sleep, causing the person to repeatedly wake up and preventing the deep, restorative sleep they need. People who are obese, have a small jaw or a large overbite, or use alcohol before bed are all at a higher risk for sleep apnea.

If you snore or wake up still feeling tired, particularly after a full night asleep, you may have sleep apnea and should get checked out by your doctor. Left untreated, sleep apnea can cause big problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, memory problems, and higher accident risk.

People with the disorder can experience the sudden, sometimes uncontrollable, need to fall asleep throughout the day, as well as trouble staying asleep at night.

Symptoms are most likely to occur when you’re sitting, resting, inactive for a while, or sleeping. The condition is categorized as a neurological sensory disorder because the symptoms come from the brain — though it is also classified as a sleep disorder. It can cause exhaustion and daytime sleepiness that affects mood, concentration, learning, and relationships.

None of these problems should be left unaddressed, Pelayo says. If you suspect you may have one of these conditions, it’s important to get checked out and treated.

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How to Sleep Better Tonight

There’s no silver bullet formula for getting a good night’s sleep, but there are several steps you can take that have been associated with better sleep overall if you’re struggling to clock the recommended number of hours you know you need — or if you wake up less perky than you’d like to be.

It’s important to check with your doctor or a sleep medicine specialist if you think you have a more serious problem, or if another medical condition is interfering with your sleep.

But trying these fixes is a fine place to start.

Stick to a consistent sleep-wake schedule. Aim to go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time in the morning, including on the weekends — and try not to vary it by more than an hour or so. The times that you regularly go to bed and wake up are the signals you give your body’s natural clock, and when they’re consistent, that clock helps you wake up and fall asleep. If those signals are out of whack, your body clock gets thrown off and you experience the same drowsiness associated with jet lag. You also may struggle to fall asleep at night or wake up when your alarm rings.

Watch caffeine intake. Be especially careful with this later in the afternoon. Pelayo suggests avoiding caffeine within six hours of when you want to sleep.

That’s because a workout sends signals to the body, such as increased heart rate and body temperature, that tend to wake you up.

If you can’t sleep, don’t linger in bed. This means at night if you’re having trouble falling asleep for 20 minutes or longer, get out of bed and do something to make you tired, such as reading or some gentle stretching. Staying in bed makes your body associate in-bed time as awake time, and it will actually be harder to fall asleep.

Don’t linger in bed in the morning either, and don’t hit snooze. It can be tempting to wake up slowly, but that drowsy sleep (after you’ve initially woken up) is fragmented, light sleep. If you did get a poor night’s sleep, your best remedy is getting up, going about your day, and hitting your pillow at bedtime that evening, at which point your sleep drive will be strong and you’re more likely to actually reap the benefit of the deep restorative sleep you need.

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Resources We Love

Whether you’re trying to improve your sleep or need to learn more about various sleep disorders, here are some dreamy sleep resources.

If you’ve just been diagnosed with sleep apnea, connect with this association. It includes resources, such as a CPAP Mentor program, matching you with an experienced sleep apnea patient, a CAP Mask program, which provides equipment to those who can’t afford it, and a library of webinars and podcasts about living with sleep apnea.

This nonprofit is all about raising awareness of sleep health and sleep disorders. Learn more about the benefits of sleep, common sleep disorders, and how to find a sleep center near you. Project Sleep runs a slate of programs, including the Jack and Julie Narcolepsy Scholarship supporting students with narcolepsy and hypersomnia, and the Rising Voices of Narcolepsy program, helping the next generation of narcolepsy patient-advocates spread awareness about the sleep condition.

Founded in 1986, this longtime national nonprofit provides emotional support and resources to patients, family members, and friends. It includes the latest clinical research on narcolepsy, support groups for various age groups, and details on sleep centers and narcolepsy specialists across the country.

Established in 1992, this nonprofit is home to science-based education and patient services to help people living with the syndrome. It claims to be the only organization with a dedicated grant program to advance research for new treatments and a cure for restless legs syndrome.

SLEEP is the international journal of sleep and circadian science. If you want to read the latest peer-reviewed research and commentaries, or look up existing research on specific sleep disorders, it has a vast collection of papers to browse through. Topics include circadian disorders, insomnia, sleep and metabolism, and the neuroscience of sleep.

Established by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, this website has a bedtime calculator, sleep diaries, and explainers on dozens of sleep disorders, including sleep-wake disorders, hypersomnias, parasomnias, breathing disorders, and movement disorders.

Created by the clinical psychologist and American Academy of Sleep Medicine Fellow Michael Breus, PhD, this website calls itself “your ultimate sleep resource center.” It includes tips on how to sleep better, doctor-recommended products to help with your slumber, and sleep quizzes developed by Dr. Breus to help you figure out your sleep chronotype.

If you’re sleep training your little ones, make sure to bookmark this website on your browser. Kim West, LCSW, offers parents with newborns to 6-year-olds sleep tips, including how to handle nightmares and napping and how to develop a sleep schedule for every age and life stage. She’s also written a book aptly titled Good Night, Sleep Tight.

How to Get Better Sleep: The Beginner’s Guide to Overcoming Sleep Deprivation

On February 13, 1972, Michel Siffre climbed into a cave in southwest Texas. It would be six months before he saw daylight again.

Siffre was a French scientist and a pioneer in chronobiology, which is the study of biological rhythms. The most well-known of these biological rhythms is the circadian rhythm, which controls the human sleep-wake cycle, and Siffre was on a mission to learn how, exactly, it worked.

Siffre’s life in the cave was spartan at best. He lived in a tent that sat on a small wooden platform with a bed, a table, a chair, and a phone that he could use to call his research team above ground. His underground home was equipped with a single lightbulb, which provided a soft glow to the piles of frozen food and 800 gallons of water nearby. There were no clocks or calendars, no way for him to discover what time it was or whether it was day or night. And this was how he lived, alone, for six months.

Within a few days, Siffre’s biological clock began to take over. He would later recall his experiments by writing, “My sleep was perfect! My body chose by itself when to sleep and when to eat. That’s very important. We showed that my sleep-wake cycle was not twenty-four hours, like people have on the surface of the earth, but slightly longer — about twenty-four hours and thirty minutes.” [1] On several occasions, Siffre’s body transitioned to a 48-hour sleep-wake cycle where he would stay awake naturally for 36 hours and then sleep for 12 hours. [2]

Siffre’s work, along with the experiments of a handful of other researchers, helped kickstart a scientific interest in sleep that has resulted in sleep performance centers at major universities like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Given that we spend almost 1/3 of our lives sleeping, it’s hard to believe the topic has only gained a large scientific following in recent years.

In this article, I’ll share the science of sleep and how it works, discuss why many people suffer from sleep deprivation without knowing it, and offer practical tips for getting better sleep and having more energy.

Let’s get started.

Lack of Sleep: How Much Sleep Do You Need?

How much sleep do you really need? To answer that question, let’s consider an experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Washington State University.

The researchers began the experiment by gathering 48 healthy men and women who had been averaging seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Then, they split these subjects into four groups. The first group drew the short straw. They had to stay up for 3 days straight without sleeping. The second group slept for 4 hours per night. The third group slept for 6 hours per night. And the fourth group slept for 8 hours per night. In these final three groups — 4, 6, and 8 hours of sleep — the subjects were held to these sleep patterns for two weeks straight. Throughout the experiment the subjects were tested on their physical and mental performance. [3]

Here’s what happened…

The subjects who were allowed a full 8 hours of sleep displayed no cognitive decreases, attention lapses, or motor skill declines during the 14-day study. Meanwhile, the groups who received 4 hours and 6 hours of sleep steadily declined with each passing day. The four-hour group performed worst, but the six-hour group didn’t fare much better. In particular, there were two notable findings.

First, sleep debt is a cumulative issue. In the words of the researchers, sleep debt “has a neurobiological cost which accumulates over time.” After one week, 25 percent of the six-hour group was falling asleep at random times throughout the day. After two weeks, the six-hour group had performance deficits that were the same as if they had stayed up for two days straight. Let me repeat that: if you get 6 hours of sleep per night for two weeks straight, your mental and physical performance declines to the same level as if you had stayed awake for 48 hours straight. [4]

Second, participants didn’t notice their own performance declines. When participants graded themselves, they believed that their performance declined for a few days and then tapered off. In reality, they were continuing to get worse with each day. In other words, we are poor judges of our own performance decreases even as we are going through them. In the real world, well-lit office spaces, social conversations, caffeine, and a variety of other factors can make you feel fully awake even though your actual performance is sub-optimal. You might think that your performance is staying the same even on low amounts of sleep, but it’s not. And even if you are happy with your sleep-deprived performance levels, you’re not performing optimally.

The Cost of Sleep Deprivation

The irony of it all is that many of us are suffering from sleep deprivation so that we can work more, but the drop in performance ruins any potential benefits of working additional hours.

And this brings us to the important question: At what point does sleep debt start accumulating? When do performance declines start adding up? According to a wide range of studies, the tipping point is usually around the 7 or 7.5 hour mark. Generally speaking, experts agree that 95 percent of adults need to sleep 7 to 9 hours each night to function optimally. [6]

Here’s another way to say it: 95 percent of adults who get less than 7 hours of sleep on a routine basis will experience decreased mental and physical performance. According to Harvard Medical School, “The average length of time Americans spend sleeping has dropped from about nine hours a night in 1910 to about seven hours today.” And according to Dr. Lawrence Epstein at Harvard Medical School, 20 percent of Americans (1 in 5) get less than six hours of sleep per night.

Most adults should be aiming for eight hours per night. Children, teenagers, and older adults typically need even more.

How Sleep Works: The Sleep-Wake Cycle

The quality of your sleep is determined by a process called the sleep-wake cycle.

There are two important parts of the sleep-wake cycle:

During slow wave sleep the body relaxes, breathing becomes more regular, blood pressure falls, and the brain becomes less responsive to external stimuli, which makes it more difficult to wake up. This phase is critical for renewal and repair of the body. During slow wave sleep, the pituitary gland releases growth hormone, which stimulates tissue growth and muscle repair. Researchers also believe that the body’s immune system is repaired during this stage. Slow wave sleep is particularly critical if you’re an athlete. You’ll often hear about professional athletes like Roger Federer or LeBron James sleeping 11 or 12 hours per night. [7]

As one example of the impact of sleep on physical performance, consider a study researchers conducted on the Stanford basketball players. During this study, the players slept for at least ten hours per night (compared to their typical eight hours). During five weeks of extended sleep, the researchers measured the basketball players accuracy and speed compared to their previous levels. Free throw shooting percentage increased by 9 percent. Three point shooting percentage increased by 9.2 percent. And the players were 0.6 seconds faster when sprinting 80 meters. If you place heavy physical demands on your body, slow wave sleep is what helps you recover. [8]

REM sleep is to the mind what slow wave sleep is to the body. The brain is relatively quiet during most sleep phases, but during REM your brain comes to life. REM sleep is when your brain dreams and re-organizes information. During this phase your brain clears out irrelevant information, boosts your memory by connecting the experiences of the last 24 hours to your previous experiences, and facilitates learning and neural growth. Your body temperature rises, your blood pressure increases, and your heart rate speeds up. Despite all of this activity, your body hardly moves. Typically, the REM phase occurs in short bursts about 3 to 5 times per night.

Without the slow wave sleep and REM sleep phases, the body literally starts to die. If you starve yourself of sleep, you can’t recover physically, your immune system weakens, and your brain becomes foggy. Or, as the researchers put it, sleep deprived individuals experience increased risk of viral infections, weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, mental illness, and mortality.

To summarize: slow wave sleep helps you recover physically while REM sleep helps you recover mentally. The amount of time you spend in these phases tends to decrease with age, which means the quality of your sleep and your body’s ability to recover also decrease with age.

Age-Related Sleep Changes

According to Harvard Medical School researchers, “As people age, it takes longer to fall asleep, a phenomenon called increased sleep latency. And sleep efficiency–the percentage of time spent asleep while in bed–decreases as well.”

Based on my calculations of the above data, the average 80-year-old gets a whopping 62 percent less slow wave sleep than the average 20-year-old (20 percent of the average sleep cycle versus 7.5 percent). There are many factors that impact the aging of body tissues and cells, but it stands to reason that if your body gets less slow wave sleep to restore itself each night, then the aging process will accelerate as a result.

In other words, it seems reasonable to say that getting good sleep is one of your best defenses against aging quickly.

How to Recover When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep

At any age, most adults need seven and a half to eight hours of sleep to function at their best. Since older people often have trouble attaining this much sleep at night, they frequently supplement nighttime sleep with daytime naps. This can be a successful strategy for accumulating sufficient total sleep over a 24-hour period. However, if you find that you need a nap, it’s best to take one midday nap, rather than several brief ones scattered throughout the day and evening.” — Harvard Medical School [9]

As it turns out, the body is incredibly adept at making up for a short-term lack of sleep. In fact, even if you got a brutal 2 or 4 hours of sleep last night, your body can usually recover fully if you get a solid 9 or 10 hours of sleep tonight. Your body will simply spend more time in REM and slow wave sleep cycles the second night to make up for the first. In other words, the two main sleep cycles are largely influenced by the amount and type of sleep you had during the previous night.

There is no need to worry about optimizing how much REM or slow wave sleep you get. Your body is smarter than you are and because it makes adjustments based on previous sleep cycles, you can’t really force yourself to get more REM sleep, for example, during a particular sleep session. All you can do is make sure you get enough sleep and then let your body do the rest. This is particularly important as you age because the percentage of time spent in REM and slow wave sleep decreases as you get older. As an example, a 60-year-old may need to sleep for 10 hours to get the same about of REM sleep that a 20-year-old can get in 7 hours. To put it simply: there is no substitute for sleeping.

There is a limit on this recovery process, of course. Your body will do the best it can, but it will never be able to turn a deficit into a surplus. If you want to recover from a night of little sleep, you need to follow it with more sleep than usual.

The Circadian Rhythm

What is your sleep-wake cycle dictated by?

Answer: the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is a biological cycle of different processes that happen over a time span of about 24 hours.

Here are some key points in the typical 24-hour cycle:

Obviously, these times are not exact and merely display the general pattern of the circadian rhythm. The exact times of your circadian rhythm will vary based on daylight, your habits, and other factors.

The circadian rhythm is impacted by three main factors: light, time, and melatonin.

Light. Light probably the most significant pace setter of the circadian rhythm. Staring into a bright light for 30 minutes or so can often reset your circadian rhythm regardless of what time of day it is. More commonly, the rising of the sun and light striking your eyes triggers the transition to a new cycle.

Time. The time of day, your daily schedule, and the order in which you perform tasks can all impact your sleep-wake cycle.

Melatonin. This is the hormone that causes drowsiness and controls body temperature. Melatonin is produced in a predictable daily rhythm, increasing after dark and decreasing before dawn. Researchers believe that the melatonin production cycle help keep the sleep-wake cycle on track.

How to Sleep Better

Now that we understand how sleep works, let’s talk about some practical strategies for getting better sleep.

Avoid caffeine. If you’re having trouble falling asleep, eliminating caffeine from your diet is a quick win. If you can’t go without your morning cup of coffee, then a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is “No coffee after noon.” This gives caffeine enough time to wear off before bed time.

Stop smoking or chewing tobacco. Tobacco use has been linked to a long line of health issues and poor sleep is another one on the list. I don’t have any personal experience with tobacco use, but I have heard from friends who have quit successfully that Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking book is the best resource on the topic.

Natural Sleep Aids

Exercise. There are too many benefits to exercise to list them all here. When it comes to sleep, exercise will make it easier for your brain and body to power down at night. Furthermore, obesity can wreck havoc on your sleep patterns. The role of exercise only becomes more important with age. Fit middle-aged adults sleep significantly better than their overweight peers. One caveat: avoid exercising two to three hours before bedtime as the mental and physical stimulation can leave your nervous system feeling wired and make it difficult to calm down at night.

Temperature. Most people sleep best in a cool room. The ideal range is usually between 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (18 to 21 degrees Celsius).

Sound. A quiet space is key for good sleep. If peace and quiet is hard to come by, try controlling the bedroom noise by creating “white noise” with a fan. Or, use ear plugs (here’s a good pair).

Alcohol. This one is a slippery slope. It is true that having a drink before bed — a “night cap” — often does help people fall asleep. However, while it makes it easier to fall asleep, it actually reduces the quality of your sleep and delays the REM cycle. So you fall asleep faster, but it’s possible that you’ll wake up without feeling rested. It’s probably best to improve your sleep through other methods before resorting to alcohol to do the job.

How to Go to Sleep

Stick to a regular schedule. The body loves ritual. The entire circadian rhythm we laid out earlier is one big, daily routine. Go to bed and wake up around the same time each day.

Develop a “power down” ritual before bed. The light from computer screens, televisions, and phones can hinder the production of melatonin, which means your body isn’t preparing the hormones it needs to enter the sleep phase. Specifically, it is the blue wavelength of light that seems to decrease melatonin production. Developing a “power down” routine where you shut off all electronics an hour or two before sleep can be a big help. Additionally, working late at night can keep your mind racing and your stress levels high, which also prevents the body from calming down for sleep. Turn off the screens and read a book instead. It’s the perfect way to learn something useful and power down before bed. (Another option is to download an app called f.lux, which reduces the brightness of your screen closer to bedtime.)

Use relaxation techniques. Researchers believe that at least 50 percent of insomnia cases are emotion or stress related. Find outlets to reduce your stress and you’ll often find that better sleep comes as a result. Proven methods include daily journaling, deep breathing exercises, meditation, exercise, and keeping a gratitude journal (write down something you are thankful for each day).

Use strategic naps. Generally speaking, one nap in the early afternoon is the best way to adding napping to your sleep cycle. This is particularly useful if you aren’t getting enough sleep each night as your body may be able to make up the deficit during your nap.

How to Have More Energy in the Morning

The best way to have more energy is to get enough sleep, but you can also…

Drink a large glass of water in the morning. Your body just went 6 to 8 hours without any liquid. If you are feeling lethargic and groggy in the morning, you may often be slightly dehydrated. The first thing I do when I wake up is drink a large, cold glass of water.

Start the day in the sunlight. Sunshine is the new coffee. Getting sunlight in your morning routine is critical for establishing your circadian rhythm and waking your brain and body for the day. This is why, in the words of my friend Ben Greenfield, “You may find you need none or very little coffee in the summer or in times of high sun exposure, but you’re a complete monster if you don’t get your morning cup of coffee in the grey winter months.” [10]

Final Thoughts on Sleep

Cumulative sleep debt is robbing companies of billions of dollars in revenue. It’s robbing individuals of shaper mental performance. It’s preventing athletes from performing at their best. And it’s a barrier between you and optimal performance.

The answer is simple, but remarkably underrated in our productivity-obsessed culture: get more sleep.

The ideas in this article offer a variety approaches on how to get better sleep. If you’re looking for more practical strategies on how to create better sleep habits (or better habits in general), then read my free 46-page guide called Transform Your Habits or browse my other articles on behavior change and habit formation here.

You owe it to yourself to develop better sleep habits. Your body and mind will thank you for it.

Thanks to Sam Sager for his tireless help researching this article and to Scott Britton for his slideshow on sleep strategies.