Make behavioral tools your first approach for optimizing sleep, before considering nutrition, supplements, or prescription drugs, due to their wide safety margins and effectiveness.
If you have a bad night of sleep, do not sleep in, nap, consume extra caffeine, or go to bed earlier; maintain your normal routine to prevent further disruption of your sleep cycle.
Create a consistent wind-down routine (e.g., light stretching, 10-15 minutes of meditation, reading) before bed, as sleep is a gradual physiological process that requires time to descend into.
Expose your eyes to natural daylight for at least 30-40 minutes early in the day to signal wakefulness to your brain and body, which can significantly improve total sleep time and efficiency.
Decrease your exposure to bright light in the evening as your body temperature naturally begins to drop, supporting your circadian rhythm and preparing your body for sleep.
Stop consuming caffeine 8 to 10 hours before your typical bedtime, as caffeine’s quarter-life can still significantly reduce the depth of your deep sleep and lead to next-day grogginess.
Avoid alcohol before bed as it sedates rather than induces natural sleep, fragments your sleep with multiple awakenings, and potently blocks vital REM sleep, impacting cognitive and emotional health.
Be aware that while THC may speed up sleep onset, it results in a non-natural brainwave signature and blocks REM sleep, leading to intense “REM rebound” dreams when use is discontinued.
Ensure your sleeping environment’s temperature is correct, as your body temperature must drop 1-3 degrees to fall and stay deeply asleep, and then rise 1-3 degrees to wake up refreshed.
Write down all your concerns in a “worry journal” an hour or two before bed to mentally “close emotional tabs,” a practice shown to decrease the time it takes to fall asleep by 50%.
For insomnia, explore Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), a non-drug psychological approach proven as effective as sleeping pills and more effective in the long term, with benefits lasting almost a decade.
Naps can offer benefits for health and performance if you do not struggle with sleep at night; however, if you have nighttime sleep problems, avoid napping as it can worsen them.
If you choose to nap, limit the duration to about 20-25 minutes to avoid entering deep sleep stages, which can cause grogginess upon waking.
If you nap, ensure it’s not late in the afternoon; a good rule of thumb is to cut off naps 6-7 hours before your typical bedtime to avoid interfering with nighttime sleep pressure.
Wear red lens glasses in the evening after sundown to filter out short-wavelength light from screens and LEDs, which suppresses melatonin and increases cortisol, thereby aiding calm and sleep transition.
Remove all visible clock faces, including your phone, from your bedroom, as checking the time during nighttime awakenings can increase anxiety and make it harder to fall back asleep.
Do not watch television in bed, as the light emitted and the activating content can disrupt your natural wind-down process and make it harder to fall asleep.
For healthy adults who are not elderly, melatonin supplementation is generally not effective as a sleep aid, with studies showing minimal increases in total sleep time (3.9 minutes) and sleep efficiency (2.2%).
If you choose to supplement with melatonin, be aware that optimal doses for sleep benefits are typically between 0.1 and 0.3 milligrams, which is significantly lower than most commercially available “supra-physiological” doses.