Sleeping Tips That Will Help Reset Your Body and Brain!

If I were to ask you to name the single most effective thing that we can do every day both to reset both our body health and our brain health, what would you say? Before you answer, let me also tell you that it can also help regulate our appetite, ward off many types of sickness, and keep our hearts in great condition. In fact, one bad night of this is said to cause physical and mental impairments much more significant than an equivalent absence of food or exercise.

Now, if you answered ‘sex’ to the question above, I LOVE the way you think!

But unfortunately, you would be wrong!

That’s right, according to Matthew Walker, Ph.D., the single most effective thing we can do every day to reset both our body health and our brain health is to engage in healthy sleep.

A professor of neuroscience and psychology at Cal-Berkeley, he is the author of the bestselling book, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.

Walker, who has had a 20 plus year research career believes “A balanced diet and exercise are of vital importance, yes. But we now see sleep as the preeminent force in this health trinity.” ¹

If the fact that most of us will spend at least 30 years of our lives sleeping isn’t enough motivation to learn more about sleep and how to sleep better, I don’t know what is!

In today’s blog post we will explore 11 sleeping tips from Walker on how to get healthy sleep. But before we get to those sleeping tips, let’s dig into some more of what he shares in the book a little further.

Some of the Risks of Not Getting Healthy Sleep…

According to Walker, sleeping less than six or seven hours a night on a regular basis can have a profound impact on your health by:

  Beating up your immune system and increasing your chance of cancer by more than double.

  Being a key lifestyle factor that can determine whether you get Alzheimer’s disease or not.

  Affecting your coronary arteries by increasing the chance that they become blocked and brittle and thus increase your risk of stroke, congestive heart failure, and cardiovascular disease.

  Causing you to eat more as a lack of sleep increases hormones that make you feel hungry while suppressing hormones that signal good satisfaction. This makes you want to eat more even though you are full.

Some of the Benefits of Healthy Sleep…

While not getting a healthy sleep can have many negative consequences as we just discussed, getting a healthy sleep offers a ton of benefits, such as it:

  Helps us learn and memorize and make logical decisions better as sleeping is a learning restoration benefit.

  Restocks our immune system which helps prevent infection and ward off all types of sickness.

  Improves our psychological health by recalibrating our emotional brain circuits. This helps us get through social and psychological challenges we face the next day with calm and cool-headed composure.

  As I said in the previous section, it can help regulate our appetite as we are more likely to select healthy food when we are rested rather than impulsively choosing junk food when we are tired.

  Can lower blood pressure and keep our hearts in good condition as it is intimately tied to our cardiovascular system’s fitness.

Now that we have a better understanding of some of the risks of not getting healthy sleep and some of the benefits of getting healthy sleep, let’s move on to…

11 Sleeping Tips for Getting a Better Sleep

In the book, Walker gives 11 great sleeping tips for getting a healthy sleep:

(1)  ‘Rise and shine’ and ‘hit the hay’ at the same time

This is what Walker says is the most important tip that he shares, and it involves sticking to a consistent sleep schedule. Meaning get up and go to bed at the same time every day, even on the weekends. Being creatures of habit, we have a hard time adjusting to changes in our sleeping patterns. So by sleeping in on weekends, it will be harder to get up during the week, plus it won’t make up for a lack of sleep during the week anyway.

(2)  Be mindful of when you exercise

While exercise is great, exercising too late can be problematic for healthy sleep. He recommends exercising not later than two to three hours before you go to bed.

(3)  Cut out the ‘ines’! Say no to caffeine and nicotine

Anything that contains the stimulant caffeine such as coffee, certain teas, soda, and chocolate can take as long as 8 hours to fully wear off! So, consuming any of those in the late afternoon can make it hard for you to fall asleep later that night. Nicotine is a stimulant also, which causes smokers to sleep very lightly as well as wake up early due to withdrawal.

(4)  Booze can affect the snooze too

Having a nightcap or alcoholic drink before you go to sleep may help you relax. But heavy use may affect your REM sleep and cause you to experience only light stages of sleep. Heavy consumption may also affect your breathing as well as cause you to wake up once the effects of the alcohol wear off.

(5)  Don’t eat late at night

A light snack is fine, but you need to avoid large meals and beverages late at night. Large amounts of food can cause indigestion which can mess up your sleep. Drinking too many fluids can cause you to get up and pee during the night.

(6)  No naps after 3!

While naps can be a great way to recharge your body and mind, naps after 3 can be problematic. The problem with napping too late is that it can make it harder to fall asleep at bedtime.

(7)  Unwind before bed

Always give yourself some time at the end of the day to unwind and relax. Some activities recommended are reading, listening to music, or meditation.

(8)  Try a hot bath

Taking a hot bath before bed can cause your body temperature to drop when you get out which can make you feel sleepy. The bath itself can make you relax and chill out so you are more prepared to get your zzz’s!

(9)  Be cool, have a dark side and ditch the gadgets!

Cool temperatures are more conducive to better sleep, so turn down the thermostat. You will also want to limit the distractions, so using blackout shades to block out bright lights will help as well. TVs, phones, and computers can distract you as well and deprive you of sleep – so get rid of those too!  Finally, you spend 1/3 of your life sleeping, so having a comfortable mattress and pillow are super important as well!

 (10)  Got sun?

Our sleep patterns are regulated by daylight, so getting proper sunlight exposure is key. It is suggested that we are exposed to at least 30 minutes of sunlight every day. Waking up with the sun or turning on very bright lights in the morning is recommended. For those who have a hard time sleeping, experts recommend getting an hour of morning sunlight and then turning the lights down before you go to bed.

(11) Don’t just lie there awake

If you can’t fall asleep or are starting to feel anxious after lying in bed after 20 minutes, get up. Do some type of relaxing activity until you feel sleepy. Being anxious because you cannot fall asleep can make it even harder to fall asleep.

If You Still Aren’t Convinced About the Importance of Healthy Sleep After Reading Those Sleeping Tips, Then Get a Load of This!

According to Walker:

 “After being awake for nineteen hours, people who were sleep-deprived were as cognitively impaired as those who were legally drunk. Said another way, if you wake up at seven a.m. and remain awake throughout the day, then go out socializing with friends until late that evening, yet drink no alcohol whatsoever, by the time you are driving home at two a.m. you are as cognitively impaired in your ability to attend to the road and what is around you as a legally drunk driver.” ¹

And if That Wasn’t Enough to Wake You Up to the Importance of Healthy Sleep, Then Check This Out:

  If you are going on less than five hours of sleep, your chance of being in a car crash increases by 3 times! And if you slept less than 4 hours last night you are 11.5 times more prone to being in a car accident.

  There are 1.2 million car accidents caused every year in the United States by driving while sleepy.

  Car accidents caused by driving while drowsy exceed those caused by driving while under the influence of alcohol and drugs COMBINED! Walker points out in the book that he doesn’t mean to trivialize drunk driving at all. He is just trying to make a point and the point is this. Drunk drivers are typically late in breaking and late in making maneuvers to evade other cars or objects. However, those who have fallen asleep while driving do not break at all, meaning they cannot even make an attempt to avoid an accident.

If you get one thing from this blog post on his 11 sleeping tips or the book if you read it, please make it this message from Matthew Walker, and please pass it on to your friends and family:

“Drowsy driving deaths are neither chance, nor without cause. They are predictable and the direct result of not obtaining sufficient sleep. As such, they are unnecessary and preventable… if you are drowsy while driving, please, please stop, it is lethal.” ¹

For every 30 seconds that you have been reading this entertaining and actionable blog post, there has been an accident in the United States caused by sleeplessness. In other words, it will take the average person 8 minutes to read this post, in that time there have been 16 accidents caused by drowsy driving in the United States.

By the way, I hope you didn’t fall asleep reading this blog post!

Until next time, don’t drive drowsy and don’t let others drive drowsy, get healthy sleep by following the sleeping tips above and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

P.S. Wanna know more? Check out the entire book.

Use it Or Lose It

The 11 sleeping tips for getting a better sleep that we discussed above are:

(1)  ‘Rise and shine’ and ‘hit the hay’ at the same time
(2)  Be mindful of when you exercise
(3)  Cut out the ‘ines’! Say no to caffeine and nicotine
(4)  Booze can affect the snooze too
(5)  Don’t eat late at night
(6)  No naps after 3!
(7)  Unwind before bed
(8)  Try a hot bath
(9)  Be cool, have a dark side and ditch the gadgets!
(10)  Get sunlight
(11)  Don’t just lie there awake

When to Use It

Use these sleeping tips for healthy sleep every day!

What Do You Think?

Do you use any of these sleeping tips for better sleep? Do you have any other go-to sleeping tips for better sleep? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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References

¹ Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, Ph.D.