Summary

The website content advocates for avoiding phone use and exposure to blue light before bedtime to improve sleep quality.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of reducing brain stimulation before sleep, suggesting that abstaining from phone use and exposure to blue light at least one hour before bed can significantly enhance sleep quality. The author, who has struggled with sleep issues, shares personal insights from years of research and experimentation. The article explains that blue light from screens disrupts the body's natural sleep-wake cycle by affecting brain activity, body temperature, and heart rate, which are regulated by a 24-hour cycle influenced by light exposure. To mitigate these effects, the author recommends practical steps such as keeping the phone in another room, turning off notifications, and using features or apps that filter out blue light. The article also hints at additional sleep-improving tips, including a family beverage recipe, and invites readers to explore more health-related experiences and to support the author through Medium membership.

Opinions

The author believes that reducing exposure to stimuli, particularly from mobile phones, is crucial for good sleep hygiene.
Engaging in activities that stimulate the brain, such as learning, gaming, or social media consumption, should be avoided late at night.
Blue light from screens is deemed particularly disruptive to the body's natural rhythms and sleep quality.
The author suggests that willpower alone may not be enough to resist the temptation of using a phone before bed, and therefore recommends physical separation from the device or disabling WiFi.
The article posits that implementing a no-phone rule before bed and using blue light filters can have a powerful positive effect on sleep.
The author values the role of rest in overall health and longevity and encourages readers to follow the provided tips for better sleep.

Health | Sleep | Lifestyle

One Thing You Can Do Now to Sleep Better Today

I use this trick for 5 years already

Previously, I had trouble with sleep. I rolled around in bed for the whole night. I couldn’t close my eyes from stress. I couldn’t sleep well.

That situation forced me to look for a solution. I read lots of books, articles, and scientific papers about sleep. I asked other people with sleep problems how did they fight it. It helped.

I came up with a system that allowed me to sleep better. Here is one of the key elements of this system:

Trick #1 — No phone before bed

No to unnecessary stimulation

Sleep is a state of calmness. Your brain turns off and rests during the night. To reach this state you need to calm down your brain. So you have to decrease stimulation of your brain right before bed.

It’s better not to do the following things:

don’t learn new stuff late in the night
don’t play computer games in the evenings
don’t consume social media content
don’t solve complex work tasks
don’t read from the screen
don’t use your phone for any of the above or anything else

A mobile phone is a great tool that you can use to your advantage. But the late evening is not the right time to do it. When a person does something using a phone, it stimulates the brain.

The phone provides us with a huge amount of information every second. We don’t want to consume this information before going to sleep. This can lead to overthinking and analyzing new information instead of sleeping.

No to blue light

There is one more problem with the phone. It has a screen which produces blue light. This is not good for sleep quality.

Our bodies work based on a 24-hours cycle. This cycle control essential functions of the body: breathing, hormones, recovery, etc.

Light is the most important factor that controls this cycle. For most of human history, this 24-hours cycle was aligned with sunrise and sunset. Until the electricity came into the game. With the era of artificial light, people began to spend more time awake after sunset.

All types of visible light affect our 24-hours body cycles. But the blue light has the largest impact on our rhythms.

Blue light stimulates the part of the brain that makes us feel alert. It affects the body temperature and heart rate. We gain an advantage from this effect during the day. A plenty amount of sunlight increases your performance, attention, and focus.

But what is good in the day is harmful during the night. If we get blue light at the night we send the wrong message to the brain. Instead of tuning the brain to a calm and sleepy state, we overstimulate it with blue light.

We get most of our daily blue light from the sun. But most screens produce blue light too. That’s why we need to reduce screen time before bed.

The best rule would be the following:

No phone at least 1 hour before bed

How to do it?

Don’t touch your phone 1 hour before bed

It is the first idea that comes to my mind. It’s easy to say but hard to do.

The phone requires the attention of its owner. There are messages and notifications, new videos and comments, people and companies that require our attention every minute of the day.

It is hard to fight all these temptations. You need amazing willpower to do it. But there is an easier way. Leave your phone in another room.

If you don’t see the temptation you don’t need to fight it.

Another good idea would be to turn off the WiFi. Most devices are not so annoying without an internet connection.

Make your phone safe

The first step is to remove most interactions with your phone. Some ideas from the paragraph above may help you.

You can also turn off all notifications on your phone by schedule. This is a built-in function of many phones. Even if you don’t have it, you can find a free application that does the same.

The second step is to remove blue light from your device. Again some phones have this like a built-in feature otherwise you need to search for a special application to do it.

The effect of this feature is powerful. It paints the screen with a gray color. This has 2 positive results: no blue light and a less attractive image.

Final Thoughts

You can dramatically improve the quality of your sleep following the simple tips above. Rest is one of the most crucial things in life. Quality of sleep affects your health, stress level, and life duration.

There are other helpful tricks to get a night of better sleep. One of them is my family beverage recipe, which you can find in this article.

You can read about more interesting experiences on this list. For example, my 400+ days walking challenge or 365 days exercise challenge.

P.S. If you liked this thing, follow me and clap a couple of times. Good luck!

You can support me directly with your Medium subscription. It helps a lot!