In the first part to this, we looked at the role of sleep in brain function, appetite and body weight regulation, and circadian rhythm.
Without further ado, this follow-up will show you what steps to take to ensure the perfect night’s sleep.
With all the emerging research on sleep, if there is only one thing you do to take a preventative approach to your health, make your sleep hygiene smell like roses.
Here’s how:
Light is measured as ‘lux‘, which is a measure of the intensity and colour spectrum. During the day, natural light can be anywhere from 2,000 to 100,000 lux. [1]
Office lighting can often be less than 500 lux: add that to a lack of outdoor natural light because we’re stuck indoors all day, and we’re already sending our internal body clock mixed signals, disturbing circadian rhythm. [1]
The light with the most profound melatonin suppressing effect is shortwave blue light, the kind emitted by natural sunlight…and TV’s, laptops, and smart phones. [1]
The first step here is to avoid really bright overhead lighting in the hours before bed. Thankfully, this is easier now: you can order no-blue light, amber light bulbs from Amazon. Otherwise, keep rooms dimly lit, using soft side lamps or low blue light bulbs.
The second step is to download f.lux and install it on your laptop and devices. F.lux will automatically reduce your screen emissions at sunset, taking blue light down and leaving you with an amber, reddish screen.
Unfortunately for iPhone users, you have to jailbreak your phone before you can install f.lux. If this isn’t an option, just put your phone down an hour before bed. Tinder can wait.
The last step…well, there’s really no other way of saying this: turn off the TV. Whatever about weekends, but will it kill you to record work night shows and watch them another time?
Make your bedroom a tech-free zone.
In the morning and during the daytime is when you want that short wave, high intensity light. The problem is, the light exposure of working indoors is estimated to be 40-200 times lower than natural daytime light, and we need a minimum of 1,000 lux for circadian entrainment. [1]
The first option is to make sure you get 15-30 mins outdoors in the morning or at some stage during the day. Walk or bike to work, or eat lunch outdoors when the weather permits.
But given the Irish climate, the outdoors option isn’t always practical. So the second option is light therapy.
Specifically, blue light therapy. I use the Philips ‘GoLite Blu.’ It emits 4 different blue light intensities, equivalent to a clear summer’s daytime light level.
You don’t stare into it, so you can have it by your bed timed to light in the morning, which beats an alarm. You can also just have it off-set by your laptop while you work.
Use it for 15 mins a day, increasing up to 30 mins. Along with avoiding blue light in the evening, it’ll help reset your circadian rhythm, especially if you’re in an office all day.
I’ve also found it really beneficial for mood in the depths of winter. You know, when it’s dark from 4pm to 8am.
The diet and fitness industry has been turned on it’s head in the last decade with regard to carbs generally, but more specifically the broscience bullshit about not eating carbs after 3pm, or 6pm, or whatever arbitrary time was put on it.
Remember, cortisol is at its peak in the morning [2]. A study in 2012 demonstrated that high cortisol stimulates an exaggerated insulin response to meals, resulting in rapid carbohydrate metabolism [3]. This could provide a mechanistic explanation for why high carb0hydrate breakfasts lead to a quicker return of hunger and appetite. Another subsequent study, which importantly controlled for protein intake, compared a high carb/low fat and low carb/high fat breakfast for their effects on blood glucose and appetite following the meal; the low carb/high fat breakfast had a lower insulin response, and less appetite 4 hours after the breakfast. [4]
To quote:
“Modest increases in meal carbohydrate content at the expense of fat content may facilitate weight gain over the long term by contributing to an earlier rise and fall of postprandial glucose concentrations and an earlier return of appetite.”
This study didn’t measure cortisol in this study, but cumulatively the data suggests high morning cortisol stimulates the insulin response to high carb breakfasts, resulting in a sharp drop in blood glucose levels that leaves you starving and reaching for the muffins at 11am.
But if you read this blog, then you know I’m not a low-carb dogmatic, so the message here is not to ditch carbs. Quite the opposite. In fact, if you want to use carbs to your advantage to help set your circadian rhythm, you should eat them in the evening. From a sleep quality standpoint, low carb evening dieting decreases REM sleep, increases sleep onset time, and increases light-sleep phases. [5]
From a circadian rhythm perspective, low carb can cause cortisol to elevate, due to the role of cortisol in maintaining blood sugar concentrations. [6]
As we have seen, a healthy cortisol pattern is low at night, so going low carb in the evening may stimulate the exact cortisol pattern we want to avoid to enhance circadian rhythm and quality sleep. [6]
But carbs also have one other, very unique role in the sleep picture.
The amino acid tryptophan is required as the precursor to serotonin production, and melatonin production can be increased by increasing brain concentrations of tryptophan [7]. The problem is that tryptophan is the least abundant amino acid, and requires the same transporters as other, larger proteins to cross the blood-brain barrier. [7]
Tryptophan loses out to these larger proteins, unless it has a divergence, a wingman so to speak. That wingman is carbohydrate.
Carbs, via the action of insulin, divert the larger proteins to muscle tissue, allowing tryptophan a free ride across the blood-brain barrier, where increased concentrations result in greater serotonin and melatonin production. The net result is you go to bed full, happy, and have a great sleep.
So to structure your diet in this way, you have a two main options:
1: Eat protein and fat breakfasts, like eggs and avocado. You don’t have to avoid carbs altogether, just keep them low;
2: Don’t eat breakfast at all (fasting through to lunch);
Choose one or the other, but then add this step:
3: Keep carbs relatively low during the first half of the day, and save your rice or potatoes for dinner. You know, when you thought you couldn’t have either. Don’t stress about the type of carb either, as high-G.I. carbs shorten sleep onset (8). If you are to have a dessert, now would be the time.
Ok so let’s just get it out of the way now: your coffee.
Caffeine does stimulate the sympathetic “flight or fight” nervous system, increasing cortisol levels in people at rest (maybe good), under stress (not good) or during exercise (good). [9]
With caffeine and cortisol, timing is important: developing a tolerance to caffeine will negate the effect of caffeine on the morning cortisol response, but caffeine in the afternoon between 1-7pm will stimulate cortisol increases. [9]
As we want cortisol to decline over the course of the day, keep your coffee to first thing in the morning, or before exercise.
But be honest with yourself here: do you need coffee to get going in the morning? Remember that cortisol is secreted by your adrenal glands, the same glands that pump out adrenaline in the “flight or fight” nervous system response. Like asking a 100m sprinter to sprint over and over, eventually he’ll be knackered. Same thing with hormones.
So if you are knackered in the morning, all the time, then while you put these other steps into play, go cold turkey on the coffee too. Once you’ve engineered your sleep back to a point where you actually feel refreshed and ready to go in the morning, then bring it back.
At that point, because of the pronounced tolerance which develops to caffeine, consider cycling your use if you drink coffee or use caffeine for it’s cognitive benefits. I kicked it for a month, and when I reintroduced coffee, I got that injection of focus I’d stopped getting from tolerance.
In the evenings, however, we want to promote calm and relaxation in support of a great sleep.
The following pre-bed supplements are worth considering:
1: Magnesium: If you’re diet lacks magnesium, supplementing before bed may reduce time to sleep and increase sleep quality [10]. How do you know if you might be deficient? Take 400mg before bed: if it knocks you out, that’s a fair indication.
2: Lemon balm: While not directly related to sleep, lemon balm induces calmness and nervous system relaxation, thereby promoting sleep [11]. Acute calming effects were observed at a dose of 300-600mg [11]. Take before bed.
3: Theanine: The amino acid made famous by green tea, theanine promotes alpha brainwaves, a state of relaxed awareness (12). Take 100-200mg in the hour before bed.
4: Valerian: Often used alongside lemon balm, valerian reduces sleep latency and promotes relaxation and calm (13). Take 450mg of the root extract, standardised to 0.8-1% valeneric acid, within an hour of bedtime.
5: Huperzine-A: Hat-tip to Tim Ferriss for this one. In ‘The Four Hour Body‘, he referenced a supplement I’d never heard of: huperzine-a. Used as a cognitive enhancer because it increases memory, Ferriss claimed it also increases the time spent in REM sleep by up to 30%. [14]
While I haven’t found any supporting literature on huperzine-a and REM, I like Ferriss’ work and I love biohacking, so I took the plunge.
This stuff works. Deep sleep, and vivid dreaming lead me to believe there is more REM. Take 200mcg, 30 minutes before bed, but use only 3-4 times per week (as it has a long half-life).
6: Melatonin: There’s a reason I put this last on the list. The tendency is for people to think that they can just supplement with melatonin, without addressing the more crucial steps of sleeping the right amount, and controlling light exposure.
The benefits of melatonin are in establishing proper sleep patterns and entraining circadian rhythm, factors which occur when you sleep right in the first place. It is not a sleep panacea, and should be not be treated as circumventing any of the aforementioned steps.
Also, disclaimer: you can’t actually get it in Ireland, so you’ll have to order online. That aside, supplemental melatonin is excellent for correcting sleep and entraining circadian rhythm in the short term, by decreasing sleep onset latency, increasing total sleep time and improving overall sleep quality. [15]
0.3mg an hour before sleep elevates blood melatonin levels to within the normal nighttime range [16]. Dosage in the range of 1-5mg is safe, although chronic long-term effects are an unknown. [17]
Start at the lower dose of 0.3-0.5mg, upping to 3-5mg if needed.
It begs stating: don’t go taking all these at once.
In the spirit of being your own n=1 experiment, you’ll never know what works if you go confounding your experiments by taking multiple sleep aids at once. Take one at a time, figuring out which works for you, before trying any combinations.
The exception here is the combination of lemon balm and valerian, which is commonly used together.
My personal favourite sleep stack? Magnesium and valerian.
Theanine and huperzine-a have their place, but for cognitive enhancement, a subject I’ll discuss in a forthcoming article…
Again, the recommendation here is somewhat counter to conventional advice, where people are often told that strenuous exercise before bed can disturb sleep.
It may be that the opposite is true.
Moderate to vigorous exercise in the evening shortens sleep onset time, increases deep sleep, and decreases light sleep. [18]
The interesting thing to note is that the degree of exertion during exercise was self-perceived. [18]
The impact on sleep, however, was measured objectively using sleep electroencephalographic recordings, which confirmed reduced sleep onset, fewer awakenings after sleep onset, and increased deep sleep. [18]
This is important, because it means that this is applicable in a relative sense: what you perceive as hard might be considered easy to someone else.
So put in a workout that you consider tough, then sleep like a baby.
This step is synergistic with step 3, timing your carbs for the evening. In the same way that carbs help tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier by diverting larger proteins to muscle tissue, so exercise diverts the larger amino acids to repair muscle, opening the door for tryptophan to get where you want it for increased melatonin production. [7]
Look, none of us will be able to engineer the perfect nights sleep from hereon out. Work, life, kids, socialising and almost anything else you can think of can and will lead to sleep loss. The question is, how do we avoid the pitfalls of appetite dysregulation and hedonic food seeking behaviour that can happen when we don’t sleep adequately?
And how can we go about resetting the offset circadian rhythm?
The answer to the first question is protein, your ally against disinhibited eating. High protein intake acts on the areas of the brain that reduce food stimuli, and decrease reward-seeking food behaviours. [19]
So eat protein to stave off the hedonic food desires that increase with lack of sleep.
To prepare for anticipated situations where you know this behaviour will be in overdrive (i.e. Sunday, hungover), go to your butcher the day before and get a good slab of grass-fed ribeye. It’ll take 5 minutes to cook, so you can do it in the same amount of time your hangover had you staring in the fridge and pulling out cubbards. Eat that, and I’ll wager you don’t lose your composure with the Chinese menu later on.
As for resetting your circadian rhythm? Get back to early morning light exposure as soon as possible, and moderate your evening light.
When you add it all up, the goal is simple: ensure you get a full, restful, 8 hours sleep.
For this, we need elevated melatonin in the evening, and a proper circadian rhythm entrainment that has cortisol peaking in the morning, giving us a natural kickstart to the day.
When you break it all down, it’s also simple.
Get outdoor light exposure early in the day. Keep carbs low.
Workout hard in the evening, come home and fix yourself a good dinner with a nice helping of carbs. Get that tryptophan into your brain to kick melatonin production into gear. But it won’t kick into gear if you’re staring at the TV like a zombie.
Keep blue light to a minimum in the evening, using soft room lighting, and/or have a technology-free hour before bed. You’ll benefit from this is ways beyond just sleep.
For a little extra help, pick one of magnesium, lemon balm, valerian or theanine, and Zen yourself off to sleep.
Humans are always looking for an edge, in work, the gym, life. This strikes me as ironic, given that most people don’t know what functioning at 100% even feels like in the first place.
Even though it’s only 8 hours away.
If you want to know the simplest way to get the edge that has you crushing life, from work to workouts, then I have two words for you.
Sleep tight.
Header image courtesy of: http://mildak.deviantart.com/art/Sweet-dreams-63984547
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