Falling asleep at night can be difficult, especially in an age where the streets never sleep and the internet’s always on. The keys to sleeping well lay in light, timing, body temperature, inner calm, and patience. Not sleeping enough can make you hungrier, unhealthier, more irritable, and less able to think clearly.
Being conscious of how your body reacts to these areas will give you a major advantage in your struggle to sleep well, and I have tried to sum them up into 4 tips.
This man in the Tokyo subway is not sleeping well
1. Block all the light, and turn off electronics, before you want to sleep
Light prevents your brain from secreting melatonin, which is your brain’s way of letting your body know to sleep. Light and dim conditions in times your body needs darkness are also actually linked with the development of cancer (Blask et al, 2002). You will generally not notice that you are tired (unless you are totally exhausted) as long as your eyes are registering bright light: turning off the lights is the first step towards readying your brain for sleep.
This means you cannot expect your brain to jump to sleep the moment you turn off the lights: the change in darkness has to first be translated into a rise melatonin. Sleep will come slowly once the lights are off, and be disturbed if the lights go on: do not watch TV, or use a computer or phone, if you are trying to fall asleep.
2. Don’t let your body be too warm while falling asleep, or too cold while asleep: have a blanket next to you while falling asleep
When investigating reasons for insomnia, an Australian study found that “studies of sleep onset insomniacs show that they consistently have a warmer core body temperature immediately before initiating sleep, when compared with normal healthy adults. This results in a state of heightened arousal that prevents them from falling asleep when they go to bed, probably because they have to wait for their bodies to lose the heat that’s keeping them awake.”
Raymann et al found in 2008 that regulation of the skin temperature of insomniacs and the healthy could decrease wakefulness, thus letting them sleep longer and deeper. In contrast to the Australian study, they found that people stayed asleep better at around 34 degrees Celsius than 31 degree Celsius.
Together, this would mean that temperature regulation is critically important: cool temperatures helping people fall asleep and warm temperatures helping people stay asleep. On a practical level, this can mean falling to sleep with a blanket only on your leg and slowly rolling into it as you fall asleep (or sometimes in your sleep). I do this every night with great success, so if the empirical research doesn’t cut it for you: my anecdotal evidence hopefully will.
3. Quiet your mind: don’t let your brain run wild
Meditation helps relax more than your mind: it also helps metabolism while reducing mental and physiological stress responses, including affecting gene expression (Bhasin et al, 2013). The same study also found that experienced practitioners had more intense responses to the meditation: it is a skill which you improve through practice.
By not giving into your trains of thoughts, your questions about past and future, you root yourself in the moment and become more acutely aware of your own body (as well as your own progress into a deeper state of consciousness). This inner balance transfers seemlessly into sleep, and prevents you from going on inner tirades that lead to emotional reactions or disturbing dreams.
4. Don’t ever get upset at not being able to sleep: have patience
The worst thing you can possibly do is get upset about not being able to sleep, and turning on some form of artificial light. Getting upset raises your heartrate and thus body temperature, making it even harder to get to sleep. Patiently clearing your mind, waiting in the darkness while meditating, and even holding onto positive emotions are good ways to innerly prepare for falling asleep.
A Final Word:
Getting enough sleep is important to your health and proper immune functionality. Shifting light-dark cycles often, as in wildly shifting your sleep pattern between weekends and weekdays,can lead to inflammation (the basis of many health problems). These 4 keys help me sleep well on a consistent basis, and I hope you find them as useful as I do.