Fix Your Sleep Schedule in 1 day and Supercharge Your Sleep (Safely)
The best version of yourself is sleeping soundly every night.
Our Bad Habits
Last weekend I came home at 6 am. My voice was beaten up like a doorbell running low on battery. Another long night of drinking, smoking, and singing caused my sleep schedule to shift 5 hours ahead.
Worse, I got used to sticking my phone in my face for 2 hours every night.
That's a taxing lifestyle + a serious phone addiction + an out-of-sync sleep cycle.
Whelp, there goes my productivity for the week.
The Internet is Full of it!
I poured my pain into Google to find solutions.
I wanted timeless no-bs science-based advice.
Sadly most of the advice on the internet is trash. I got tired and frustrated with marginally good advice. So I had to dig deeper and learn more.
So I dove deep and learned everything about sleep from Nobel prize geneticists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young and world-class neuroscientists like Mathew Walker and Andrew D. Huberman.
This is my 10th day waking up early and feeling amazing after years of being primarily a night owl. I've distilled everything I've learned from my sleep research into 4 steps:
1. Fix Your Sleep Schedule In 1 day (Painlessly)
In 1 day, I went from waking up at 11:30 to waking up at 6:30.
My eyes shot open. It's 6:55. There is nobody else in the room. My alarm was set at 7:00. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and went back to sleep relying on my alarm to wake up.
"Up now" — A clear female voice said to me.
I woke up, glanced at my clock, and watched the clock go from 6:59 to 7:00. Bewildered by the voice, I kept staring at the alarm as it rang.
"How eerie?" — I thought.
Last night I took about 3mg of Melatonin. The hormone that tells your body it's dark so it's dada' time!
Let me break it down; Melatonin is not a sleeping aid!
Whaaat?
Sleep Scientists found that on average Melatonin improved the total time in bed to the total time asleep by 2.2% (Sleep Efficiency) and prolonged the sleep by only 12.8 minutes.
Trying to improve your sleep with Melatonin (using it long term) is like trying to enhance a cake recipe by baking it in the morning rather than at night.
I took it at 8 pm and my eyes were shutting down by 10. I was so sleepy that I didn't use my phone for the first time and woke up to that voice naturally.
It was flawless. The dose plays a huge role, however.
Our bodies make about 0.3mg naturally. However, only 15% of the melatonin supplement we take make it to our system (Bioavailability). So a 3mg dose yields about 0.45mg to your system and that's plenty enough.
Take more and prepare for a bad hangover. You have been warned.
Important Safty Note: In America, Melatonin isn’t regulated by the FDA. These scietists tested 31 brands of Melatonin to find that the dosage varried from −83% to +478% of the labelled content. The same study found that some Seratonin was also found in the dosage which makes them bad for children.
2. Make The New Sleep Schedule Stick!
You are made up of 37.2 trillion clocks!
Every cell in your body has its own eerily accurate clock. Unfortunately, these clocks are a bit "broken" however, left to their own devices, they cycle every 24 hours and 15 minutes.
That's why we rely on external cues to reset them every day. So what phenomena have been the most reliable since earth's inception?
The Sunrise!
That's why humans jet lag when we travel through time zones!
Our brain clock (The Pinal Gland) samples sunlight and thinks it's still early to produce Melatonin, while other body clocks lag behind. Now your clocks are out of sync and your stomach is preparing for dinner at 4 am.
You reset your clock by getting as much natural sunlight on your eyes as early as you wake up!
I stand outside and look at the sky for a few minutes after I wake up or talk a walk around the block. Your clock will reset in 2–10 minutes.
However, there is a life hack that can make you immune to disrupting your sleep cycle after one late night of drinking with the crew.
Stacking multiple Time Resting Cues (Zeitgebers)
The hard reset button if you will.
Force your clock to reset and remain this way by adding more clock resetters to your morning routine. In addition, our brains are wired to detect two more cues (other than the sun) that are also very reliable:
- Eating Food.
- Social Interaction.
If you could eat your first meal in the same 1-hour window each day and/or interact with people early in the morning, you would solidify that time as your natural wake-up time.
After a week or so of doing this repeatedly, one night of late drinking can't harm you (as long as it is only one).
3. The Cage Match Of Sleep Pressure and Coffee.
Now that you're waking up at the right time without an alarm. It's time to maximize sleep during that period.
You got Adenosine in one corner and Caffeine in the other. The battle is taking place in your mind 24 hours a day.
Let me tell you about the fighters so you know who to root for!
Adenosine comes from the burnt energy your body uses throughout the day. If your fuel is coal, Adenosine would be the CO2 that is produced by burning it. It's a 24\7 process until you die.
Adenosine wants one thing; Tell your brain how hard you worked to know when to stop you, put you to sleep, and start the healing!
That is why playing sports promote sleep. The more activity, the more Adenosine the greater the pressure to sleep.
Caffeine, on the other hand, Puts Adenosine on mute. Your brain could be filled to the brim with Adenosine but not know it. It blocks your brain's ability to grade your efforts.
What is noteworthy here is that 50% of the Caffeine will remain in your blood for at least 4–5 hours. So the third step towards god-tier sleep is to drink all the Caffeine you want before 2 pm.
Adenosine is a hero. Don't step on its cape!
4. The Holy Trinity Of Sleep Aid.
DISCALMER: I am not an MD. This is not medical advice of any sort. The links below can help you with your own research but not substitute it and in any case always consult your doctor.
Since you made it this far, I got a gift for you.
In my research, I came across 3 supplements that Andrew Huberman dubbed as the go-to "Sleep cocktail":
- Magnesium L-Threonate
- L-Theanine
- Apigenin
What surprised me when researching these compounds was their safety and benefits.
They all play a major role in what constitutes a night of good sleep.
Magnesium has been shown to make people sleep faster, stay asleep longer, and reduce nighttime awakenings. L-Theanine reduced resting heart rate, which promoted relaxation. Apigenin mildly reduces the activity in the prefrontal cortex which causes less "thinking" when you're trying to sleep.
However, I was convinced when I learned about their other overwhelmingly positive effects.
Magnesium in the brain (L-Threonate crosses the brain barrier) is known for increasing the efficiency of cognitive processing (Synaptic density) and the flexibility and growth of neurons (Neuroplasticity).
L-Theanine paired with Caffeine increases focus and response times and regulates blood pressure, making them one of the world's best and safest cognitive enhancers.
Apigenin is a very potent anti-cancer supplement with a high selectivity for cancer cells as opposed to non-cancerous cells.
So I bought them!
I will update you soon on how it's going. Follow to stay tuned ;)
Summary
Sleep is the ultimate elixir of life.
Over 17,000 scientific reports on sleep talk about prolonging our lives by reducing heart attacks and boosting our immune systems, making us sexier by suppressing bad food cravings and keeping our mood in check.
It's about 33 years of your life!
We muster up the will to improve our careers, work on our relationships and do our house duties but never pay enough attention to a complete third of our lives. As a result, we only suffer the numerous consequences of failing to maintain the system that heals us.
Remember, attention energizes.
You could do at least 1 thing to sleep better tonight. Do it. Anything beats zero!
