Posted on 6 September, 2005

In a nutshell:

• Adopt a sleep/get up routine to optimize your circadian rhythm;
• Expose yourself to sunlight right when you get up and at sundown;
• Eat light at night and ideally 3 hours before bedtime;
• Do not use electronics at least 1 hour before going to bed;
• Take a hot shower 1 hour before going to sleep;
• Make sure your bedroom is pitch black, noiseless, and cool;
• Pay attention to your mattress, pillow, and bed sheets quality;
• Diffuse essential oils and take supplements if necessary.

One of the first casualties of stress is sleep. If you are anything like me, when you are stressed out, sleep goes out the door. This is most unfortunate because sleep plays a critical role in health. Luckily, you can take steps to insure that you fall asleep more easily and stay asleep the whole night.

When you do not sleep, you feel exhausted and in a bad mood. But there is worse. Insomnia can raise your blood pressure and your blood sugar, as well as your risks of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and depression.

The first thing you can try is to adopt a routine. You need to get up every day at the same time. You must embrace a regular pattern at night too. It does not matter if it is the week-end or if you are on holiday. What you want is to create a habit that repeats day after day. That way, your internal clock knows when you are going to bed and when you are getting up and it can prepare for both events. (1)

The routine does not stop there: right after you get up in the morning, you should expose yourself to sunlight. Get out and sit outside while drinking your cup of coffee or tea. Do not look directly at the sun as some people do. Your eyes are fragile and you could burn a few retinal cells doing that. Talk to your ophthalmologist first. Also, get some late afternoon sunlight on your skin so that your body knows it will soon be time to go to bed.

Second, eat your last meal of the day about 3 hours before bedtime. Ideally, that meal should be relatively light, especially if you are older. You do not want to have poor digestion. If you lie down before most of your meal is digested, you run the risk of having gastric reflux or heartburn as the gastric acid is not kept down by gravity anymore. All of this can impact your sleep negatively. (2)

Another essential step is to avoid the use of electronics such as phone, computer, or tablet, at least one hour before going to bed. This is often an issue as we are more and more hooked to our screens either for work or for leisure. (3)

Fortunately, if you absolutely need to use electronics, there is a solution: blue light blocking glasses. There are even red glasses that stop blue and green light. Those are the best, but the drawback is that they alter the colors on your screen reddish which is not ideal when colors are an important factor in your work or in a game that you are playing.

Therefore whether you use them or not depends on your needs. One more note on these red glasses: I have personally experienced that their usefulness in case of migraines. You just put them on when you feel the pain starting or when your field of vision starts to be cut into pieces by those zigzag lines and in 30 minutes to 1 hour you feel better.

Then, there is something else that you can do about 1 hour before bedtime. Take a hot shower. It will raise your body temperature at first which seems to be contrary to what you want, but as you step out of the shower, your temperature will go down rapidly. This mimics the process of cooling down that occurs right before you go to bed and it will help you to fall asleep. (4)

It is now time to pay special attention to your bedroom. It should be pitch black. Avoid outside lights close to your windows. In addition, blackout curtains are a must. As you shop for them, you will see that there are different qualities. Go for the best ones, those that do not let any light go through. How do you know it is dark enough? When you cannot see your hand in the dark.

Any light suppresses melatonin, an antioxidant that helps inhibit cancer growths. Light also makes you secrete cortisol, the wake-up hormone. That is why you need darkness. Studies have also shown that darkness during the night helps ward off cancers. Several studies link blue light at night and cancer risk, including breast cancer and prostate cancer. (5) (6) (7)

Also, to sleep well, make sure that there is no noise in the bedroom. Sometimes, this is quite difficult to achieve. You might live along a noisy road, or have noisy neighbors. In such cases, there is a practical solution: buy a sound machine that produces white noise. This will cover noise from the road and hopefully from any neighbors. In addition, those machines can usually produce other soothing sounds such as bird songs, running water, or rain and thunder. (8)

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is that the bedroom should be cool, i.e. around 65 to 68 F ideally. Air conditioning, portable A/C systems, or even a ceiling fan that increase sweat evaporation to make you feel cooler are all good solutions. (9)

Furthermore, the way your bed is set is also important. Your mattress should be of good quality. It should not be too soft or too hard. It needs to be comfortable. In a nutshell, you should not feel any pressure points. Try your mattress before buying it. Also, your pillow should support your neck and head well so that you are comfortable during the night.

Recently, some pillow manufacturers have started to sell pillows with an additional bag of shredded foam so that you can adjust your pillow stuffing to your own specific needs. I have bought one of those and I find it amazing. Until now, either I had pillows that were too hard or so deflated that they were useless after a few hours. (10)

If you live in warm countries, it might be useful to have bamboo or percale bed sheets to stay cooler all night long. The material of your sheets does matter for your comfort.

Finally, supplements and essential oils can be used to induce sleep, but it is better to stay away from pharmaceuticals which usually have side effects and can lead to addiction.

In conclusion, if you have trouble sleeping, add all the recommendations above to your sleep preparation and it will make a huge difference. It will help lower your stress and get you out of a vicious circle between stress and sleep. If it is not enough, read my essential oil advice. And do not forget: if you want help with managing your stress, contact me at relaxmylife.com

1. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
2. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
3. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html
4. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html

(5) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5454613/

(6) https://theconversation.com/harvard-study-strengthens-link-between-breast-cancer-risk-and-light-exposure-at-night-75171

(7) https://darksky.org/news/study-links-artificial-light-at-night-and-cancer-risk/

(8) https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html

(9) https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html

(10) https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/healthy-sleep-tips