Hello guys. I’ve decided to share some of my wisdom concerning sleep. This is part of my lifehacks series – wisdom and little tips and tricks that I’ve learnt over the years; things I actually apply in life. Not all of it may be scientific, but it’s not going to be a “10 ways to fall asleep” kinda thing where it might or might not work or is based on pseudoscience. As some of you might know, I often have difficulty sleeping because I’m a light sleeper. My mother used to force me to take afternoon naps because she firmly believed that it’s a wonderful habit. I have no doubt that it is. But it also meant many sleepless nights for me as I was too active at night. And I often frowned when it was time to sleep, because it often meant I was the only one awake in the pitch-black house and I would envy all the snoring I heard around me. Also, it was a terrible time in my life because I was a scaredy cat that was afraid of the dark. (I still am a little today) I would stay up and sometimes turn on the lights to read some Archie comics. Or I would “accidentally” knock my brother awake so I felt secure enough to venture to the toilet in the middle of the night. (I still tend to ignore my midnight urges)
Only after I attained more autonomy was I able to eradicate all afternoon naps from my life. This gradually made sleeping better. I eventually also managed to programme short afternoon naps where my body would be able to take 20min naps and wake up naturally. (Anything longer than 30mins and I have a sleepless night) Sleep eventually became something very important to me, especially when I began to live a disciplined life. But it’s still something that’s hard to manage perfectly. But let me share some of my experiences with sleep that can hopefully make yours better, or even convince you of it’s importance.
1. Make it a lifestyle – count your hours and don’t sacrifice it for anybody/thing
I began counting the hours of sleep I got in my jc days, when I developed a fixed routine. Perhaps this should be written in conjunction with a productivity hacks post. But yes, if you want to be productive, start from your sleep. I’m not someone who buys into the “I’m not a morning person” excuse. I believe you can be whatever person you are as long as you have good reasons to be so. As a matter of fact, I’ve only had one ghost friend whom I’m utterly convinced is a morning person. About 98% of the friends are convinced they are not “morning people”. It’s not hard to see why. We are always trying to accomplish as much as we can in our environment. Sometimes, we just fail to plan our day well enough so much so we try to push things to be done at night. I had friends who spent the night studying but spent his day – up to noon time – sleeping and eventually missing lectures. Don’t sacrifice the productive hours in the morning to make yourself feel secure for that few hours at night.
When I exercised in the morning in the past, I would wake up at 6+ and go for a jog. It’s so refreshing. Once you’re done, you’re all awake, feeling fresh and the clock reads 730. Think about that 730-1030 window where you can do so many things! And imagine most of the people in that window are still sleeping. I’m referring to, of course, weekends or if you’re a college student like me.
Once you make it a lifestyle, your body will naturally adjust and start to wind down at a certain time. My sleeping time is 1030, so I try to relax 30mins before. Try not to chat with your friends. Better yet, let your friends know what time you always sleep so they will refrain from talking to you. The worst is to be part of a group project and they say, “so, shall we meet online at 12 tonight?” Because group mates usually don’t know you, it’s hard to do anything about it. I once went online early, did much as I could, hit the meeting time and later secretly drifted off to bed.
For secondary and Jc students, it’s hard to get 8 hours of sleep. I maintained 6.5 a night in my jc days. But always try to get as much as you can, preferably 8 and nothing more!
Trust me when I say make sleep part of a healthy lifestyle. Inadequate sleep places great oxidative stress on your body. Your memory and cognitive functions will be impaired. You’ll be in a worse mood. You’ll have terrible complexion and worse, you’ll gain weight. Yes, if you want to lose weight, make sure you get enough sleep!
2. Pre-cool the room
I have the benefit of having a brother who sleeps later than me. He usually sleeps by 12. What I do every night, is to turn on the air con so that I can create cool conditions for sleep. My family never sleeps with the air-con; we’ve always relied on the electric fan. However, in our climate, sometimes the heat gets to you and you toss and turn in bed, resulting in perspiration that leaves you uncomfortable. I have no idea what is the ideal temperature for sleep, but it definitely helps to sleep in a cool room. By the time my brother comes up for bed, he would turn off the air con so that’s good. If you don’t have this benefit, simply turn on the air con in the room 30 mins before bed and turn it off right when you are going to sleep.
There’s another benefit of air cons. Because I live near the reservoir, I often get attacks my mosquitoes. There’s nothing more terrifying at night than having to hear the sound of that irritating buzz by your ear. That’s because you’re in a disadvantaged position – you can’t see! All the tossing and turning and scratching and itching once again causes perspiration and movement, which further increases your body temperature, which further makes you a target for them. Nowadays, once I hear a buzz, I turn immediately to turn on the AC. This not only prevents further mozzies from flying through the windows, it also makes bites less likely to cause perspiration through incessant scratching.
3. Sleep under pitch black conditions
Now this is where it might get a little scienc-y. The body has an internal timekeeper that governs our sleeping, waking, eating, body temperature, fasting and so on. Simply put, there are perfect windows everyday to do certain things. For example, there are certain hours where your muscles would be in the peak condition and certain hours where they wouldn’t be (like, at 11pm). Here, I’m referring heavily from a book titled “Strong Medicine”, check it out if you like. But what you need to know is this master clock is termed the circadian rhythm. It maintains a rhythm of slightly more than 24 hours. While it is able to run its own rhythm without external influences, it is disrupted and reset by light. Our ancestors never had wristwatches, but they always knew to sleep at night and work in the day. At night, the body secretes melatonin which aids our sleep. In the day, the light from the sun inhibits melatonin production and we become more active.
However, with the advent of the lightbulb and one hundred and one other entertainment devices that emit light like the television and our smartphones, our circadian rhythm is continually disrupted. As a result, it’s good to follow the flow of the rhythm. When it’s almost time for bed, use warm, yellow lights. According to the book, blue-spectrum light are most potent at turning off melatonin. As a result, try not to be exposed to those super white fluorescent bulbs hours before you sleep. Draw your curtains (to shield against street lamps) and turn off all light sources. It is said that even the LED lights from your tv can disrupt melatonin production. Most obviously, don’t stare at screens right before you sleep.
4. Use technology
Technology can be used to enhance your sleep! I recently downloaded an app called Sleep Better. Just by placing it beside my pillow, it managed to capture all my sleep data! Really amazing stuff. What it does is require you to set a time to wake up. The app then tracks your sleep and determines which time and phase you are in that is most appropriate to set off the alarm. While this might mean you lose some sleep, it also means you are awakened at a phase in your sleep where you won’t feel like dying. Haven’t you experienced those times when you wake up naturally in the middle of the night and feel all fresh, but go back to sleep and eventually when you awake again at the stipulated time, you feel like dying? Yes, this is what I’m talking about. When we sleep, we go through different phases. In the most layman terms, there’s a difference between light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. Even non-REM sleep is divided into 3 phases. Anyway, there definitely are optimal moments to wake up. And most obviously, waking up when you’re in the middle of a deep sleep or a sweet dream by the faithful but unsympathetic wails of the alarm clock will jolt you back into reality. And this is often very painful because you really feel like dying. Or you regret sleeping late, or you wished you never watched that late night show, or you wished you were on holiday. Eventually, you’d wish this everyday.
To be honest, I’m still testing this app, but so far it has been very useful. It managed to accurately track my sleep last night – I laid awake for 41 minutes! But it cut short my sleep by about 25 mins because it wanted to wake me up in my light stage, I presume. I felt pretty ok when I woke up, slightly better than the previous nights when I was woken up by someone else.
If you’re concerned about radiation and all that stuff, this app works in airplane mode too. If you’re still super concerned, consider investing in “dawn simulators”. They are alarm clocks that simulate the rising sun so you awake in the same manner. So take this app for example, I set the alarm at 630. What dawn simulators do is that the clock itself starts lighting up 30 minutes before so you’re gradually being awoken up! Really cool for people who need to wake up before the sun rises. I’ve attached a picture of the app below. (Yes, I was guilty of sleeping late last night… .-.)
5. Massage and stretch, or read..
There are some days when I know I’m just not going to fall asleep early. But the following techniques have helped me a bit. One way is to stretch before bed. Personally, it has helped to make me feel a little bit more relaxed. Stretch your muscles, but don’t warm them up! Another secret is to massage your cheekbones really hard! What you can do is take your thumbs and massage both cheek bones in a circular fashion for about a minute or so. Somehow, after you’re done, it induces a kinda drowsy effect which, if you’re lucky, can help get you into the sleep zone. But this effect doesn’t last long. My one other ghost friend also bought me a sleep mist from overseas and sometimes when I’m desperate, I do use the mist to help me relax.
If you can’t sleep for a long time and you know you’re wide awake. Stop trying. Just get up, turn on a warm orange lamp, and start reading something. Most likely, you’ve missed the sleep window or you’re simply too awake to try sleeping. Now this is a hard decision. Reading under warm light will certainly lead you to feel drowsy in time, but sometimes, you’ll also be afraid that if you get out of bed to read, you’ll miss the chance to fall asleep. It’s kinda a dilemma. But if you’re desperate, give it a shot. Just don’t read it under bright, blue-spectrum light.
6. Prepare a tasty breakfast
I’m kinda veering away from how to sleep. This is more like a tip for you to stop snoozing in bed after your alarm clock has gone off. Most of us will jump out of bed if today’s the day we go overseas. I know what it feels like, to have the day you’re highly anticipating to finally arrive! When I was young, I always had difficulty sleeping the night before our family travelled. I remember when I was in kindergarten, I couldn’t sleep the night before we were scheduled to go to the goat farm. Perhaps you can use this logic to help you not laze around and snooze. It’d be good to prepare a good breakfast the night before and look forward to eating it first thing in the morning! If not, you’ll just want to escape and go on sleeping. Give yourself something positive to look forward to every morning.
7. Try going pillowless?
Now this is something new right? The field is still divided on whether or not you sleep better without a pillow. Consider certain sites like this and this that explore the benefits of pillowless sleep. Basically, using the pillow is simply a cultural practice bequeathed by our parents for generations and generations. But it might actually be unnecessary. This is especially if you sleep on your back. As for me, I’ve grown to only sleep supine at night.This is a habit cast in stone after many nights of fearing against marauders and the supernatural when I was a child. In the day I sleep in multiple positions. But, if you tend to sleep on your back, using a pillow may hyperextend your neck and cause some problems. Some things listed on the site would be poor posture, neck pain, and wrinkles and so on. Whether or not it leads to better sleep, it’s still unknown for me as i’m only still transitioning to pillowless sleep. (I now sleep on a thin fold of blankets)
There it is! The above are my views and tips on sleeping. It’s precious, so don’t start incurring so-called sleep debts while you’re still young! It’s simply the foundation to a good life!
signing off,
Fatpine.
fatpine 