You Don’t Need to Sleep More. Focus on Sleeping Better

10 ways to improve your sleep quality.

We all want to get more sleep, but we just can’t fit it in.

We’re busy people, and there never seem to be enough hours in the day. We stay up late finishing work projects, socializing, or watching that new TV show. We get up early to get to work, or to take the kids to school, or to work on our goals.

Instead of trying to increase your time asleep, focus on increasing the quality of your sleep. Here are the top 10 ways you can improve your sleep quality.

1. Create a consistent wake time

A consistent sleep schedule is one of the best things you can do to optimize your sleep quality.

Our circadian rhythms thrive on consistency; our bodies have hormones set to release at certain times, and various functions that turn on and off on a schedule.

Waking up at the same time each day is therefore a great way to optimize your circadian rhythm and in turn, optimize your sleep quality. Pick a time that will work for both weekdays and weekends. Your body doesn’t know when it’s the weekend, so you need to keep to your schedule throughout the entire week.

2. Reset your circadian rhythm upon waking

Even if you engage in a consistent wake/sleep schedule, your circadian rhythm may still need to be reminded regularly that it is time to be awake.

This is especially important if you’re unable to keep a consistent sleep and wake up time, and even more important when you’re traveling across time zones.

The biggest cue for our circadian rhythm is light. As soon as you wake up, expose yourself to bright light. Ideally, natural sunlight, as this is the most effective light for resetting our circadian rhythm, but any bright light will do. If you can get outside and get sun on your skin, even better.

Then move. Movement is another powerful circadian cue. This doesn’t have to be a workout. This doesn’t even have to be considered exercise. Just move. This morning, I did 10 kettlebell swings, about 7 goblet squats, then walked downstairs to feed my cat. Some mornings, I’ll walk around the block. If I’m feeling extra motivated, I’ll walk down 400 stairs to the ocean and back up. But this can really be anything. Move however you want to move. This movement should leave you feeling better than you did before you started, so make sure you enjoy it.

Aubrey Marcus, founder and CEO of Onnit, and author of Own The Day, Own Your Life, explains that moving in the morning is vital for optimizing the circadian rhythm and setting the tone for the day to ensure that you own the day, rather than the day owning you.

“To optimize circadian rhythm for performance, you need to add light and movement to the first 20 minutes upon waking up.” — Aubrey Marcus, Own The Day, Own Your Life

3. Get outside. Touch the earth

Grounding is an important practice for sleep quality.

What is grounding?

Grounding is the practice of reconnecting with the Earth, and more specifically, the Earth’s magnetic field.

This is something we have lost in the last millennium or so, with the shoes on our feet and the floor beneath our feet preventing us from connecting with the Earth on a regular basis.

The authors of a meta-analysis explain:

“Throughout history, humans mostly walked barefoot or with footwear made of animal skins. They slept on the ground or on skins. Through direct contact or through perspiration-moistened animal skins used as footwear or sleeping mats, the ground’s abundant free electrons were able to enter the body, which is electrically conductive…. Modern lifestyle has increasingly separated humans from the primordial flow of Earth’s electrons.”

Do you ever wonder why you feel so good after walking barefoot in the grass, or swimming in the ocean?

This is the impact of grounding.

The negative charge of the Earth is able to absorb the positive electrons from our bodies when we come into direct contact with the Earth and allows for this transfer of electrons. For example, walking barefoot or swimming in the ocean. This leads to a reduction in inflammation and the return of our body to its natural charge.

The inflammation-reducing effects of grounding help improve sleep quality. A study looked at the impact of grounding on people experiencing sleep disturbances and chronic pain. They put participants into two groups — the control group and the treatment group, with the treatment group sleeping on grounding mats for one month.

The control group experienced no improvement in symptoms, whereas the treatment group experienced better sleep and fewer chronic health symptoms.

4. Stop eating at least 3 hours before you sleep

Our bodies evolved to eat larger quantities earlier in the day — not right before bed.

For optimal sleep, we want to finish dinner at least 3 hours before sleeping, and ideally want our dinners to be smaller and lighter than our lunches. This gives our bodies time to digest and cool down — which is optimal for sleep.

The issue with eating close to bedtime is that digesting food takes time and energy. Your body will drop all its pre-bed activities to digest this late-night snack, and therefore your body won’t be fully prepared for sleep when the time comes. The body will be digesting late into the night, taking resources away from other vital nighttime tasks such as muscle recovery and memory consolidation.

Dr. Satchin Panda, the author of The Circadian Code, has a wealth of knowledge on this topic. I will let him explain more:

“We should have our last meal at least 2 to 4 hours before going to bed to ensure that the body is able to cool down…. The same food that would have taken a couple of hours to digest at 6:00pm takes longer to digest at 8:00 because you are outside of that optimal 10-hour window [for eating]…. Eating late at night is by far the worst choice you can make, and it will totally defeat any benefits you achieved throughout the day. First, snacking late at night disrupts the digestive clock: you reignite your metabolism in your gut, liver, and throughout your body. In this sense, you are literally waking the body when it is meant to be slowing down, cooling down, and getting ready for sleep.”

5. Expose yourself to as much light as possible during the day

“Light is the most important external factor affecting sleep…. Daily light exposure, including the type of light we see as well as when and how long we’re exposed to it, has a critical effect on sleep.” — Sleep Foundation

You want to aim for at least 1000 lux of light (a measure of light quantity) for as long as possible, but for an absolute minimum of two hours per day. You can download the free app, MyLux, which will measure lux. This level of lux would be the equivalent to sitting outside on a cloudy day (which will still be a much higher lux than if you were to sit inside).

Daylight exposure is crucial for telling the body what time of day it is, which is vital for good quality sleep. As discussed above, our circadian rhythms regulate the timing of everything — from hormone release to turning up or down the metabolism.

This means the body will release some hormones and switch off other hormones at the appropriate time in order to get our bodies ready for sleep. This is an all-day process — while morning light exposure is important, our exposure to light throughout the entire day plays a huge role in this process.

“Excess or poorly timed artificial light exposure can cause a person’s circadian rhythm to be misaligned with the day-night schedule. This can throw their sleep out-of-whack and induce other concerning health impacts including worsened metabolism, weight gain, cardiovascular problems, and perhaps even an elevated cancer risk.” — Sleep Foundation

Put simply: we need daylight exposure throughout the course of the day so that our bodies know what time of day it is and when to turn on and off certain functions.

If you work inside, try to sit near a window. If this isn’t possible, it’s advisable to invest in a daylight lamp that will simulate the outside daylight.

Studies even suggest that as long as you expose yourself to adequate daylight, you don’t have to worry too much about blue light exposure at night:

“Get outdoors or sit by a window for at least two hours a day, and you probably don’t have to worry about what you look at in the home at night. Your ability to sleep at night [will improve] and your sleepiness during the day will be much dissipated if you follow that simple recipe…. If I have bright light during the day, the impact on my circadian rhythm at night by a given light will be relatively insignificant. But if I spend all day in a dim room, then that same amount of light at night can begin to be disruptive to the wake and sleep patterns and digestion and all sorts of other things.” — Mark Rea, PhD, professor of architecture and cognitive sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center.

6. Avoid exercise at least 4 hours before you go to bed

Generally, exercise will stimulate the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system, which is definitely something you don’t want to be doing before bed.

This is especially true with intense exercise such as weight lifting and high intensity interval training (HIIT). These types of exercise stress your body — which is exactly what you want and this is how you improve your fitness and strength — but you don’t want this stress right before you go to sleep.

Furthermore, your body temperature increases, and excitatory hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released during exercise, both of which are going to negatively impact sleep quality and sleep duration.

In fact, this physiological response caused by intense exercise too close to bed can cause exercise-induced insomnia.

For optimal sleep, try to finish exercising 4 hours before bedtime to give your body enough time to cool down and relax.

7. Incorporate movement into your day

Starting your day with morning movement, and engaging in low level activity throughout the day will have myriad benefits, not only for your sleep but also for your health in general.

“Research suggests that 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise at 65% of maximum heart rate attained at VO2 max prior to breakfast is highly beneficial for enhancing sleep.” — Ben Greenfield

Incorporating low-level activity throughout your day is important for so many reasons. Firstly, we all know that sitting for prolonged periods is bad for us. It’s important to break up periods of sitting with movement. Ideally, for every 25–30 minutes that you sit, you should move for 5 minutes. But at an absolute minimum, get up every hour.

Modify your environment to make incorporating low-level activity throughout the day easier. Keep kettlebells nearby that you can swing each hour, or keep your phone or anything else you need regularly out of the room so you have to walk and get it.

Low level activity mimics how our ancestors would have lived, spending much of the day walking, foraging, hunting, and building, among other things. They rarely sat down for long periods of time. We were not built to sit. I like this quote by Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar, author of Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life.

“A sedentary life causes you to breathe only shallowly, and this strains the heart and starves the brain…. You think you are fatigued or bored at the end of a day of sitting, but it’s really more than that. Your brain is starved of oxygen, and so are the tissues in your body.”

Exercise has consistently been shown to improve sleep quality, by decreasing time to fall asleep, increasing time spent asleep, and increasing the amount of deep sleep.

8. Avoid blue light after sunset

This is especially important if you don’t get a lot of daylight exposure.

As alluded to above, it may be less important for those who spend a lot of time in daylight, but this is worth reiterating nonetheless. Screens emit blue light which is detrimental to sleep quality. Even using night mode on your devices only sees a tiny improvement on the overall effect screens can have.

You’re better off avoiding screens altogether. I’ve noticed on my digital detox days that I have the most incredible nights of sleep. I haven’t used a screen all day, I spent the evening winding down without any bright, stimulating lights, and my sleep quality is like no other time.

When the blue light sensors in our eyes detect blue light, it sends a message to our brain to stop producing melatonin and to start producing cortisol, our stress hormone. This is a huge issue when we are trying to get our bodies ready for bed. Melatonin is essentially the driver of sleep, and good quality sleep relies on the adequate production of melatonin.

The best guideline is to avoid all screens after sunset. Using screens before the sun goes down is fine, as we’ll be getting blue light from the sun anyway. But once the sun is set, ensure that you at least have your night mode on and wear some blue light blocking glasses as well. But your best bet is to avoid screens altogether. Find a soft, red/orange lamp and read a book, play a game with your family, meditate, pat the dog, whatever you want to do that will help you wind down for sleep without the use of a screen.

We know to avoid screens before bed, but what is less known is that a lot of light bulbs emit blue light as well. During your power-down routine, it’s important to avoid any bright lights and where possible, to use warm colored light bulbs. I have a Himalayan salt lamp that emits a dim orange glow, which is perfect to have on after the sun sets. Think about what our ancestors would have experienced — the soft warm glow of the fire they were sitting around. Emulating this as much as possible will be highly beneficial for your sleep.

“The blue light sensors pick up the bright light to suppress sleep and promote wakefulness. However, other colours in the light spectrum, specifically orange and red, are less effective at suppressing sleep. Pay attention to the type of light that you are exposed to in the evening. We cannot go back to the dark ages or turn off all the lights after sunset, but managing our exposure to light can have a huge impact on improving sleep and maintaining health.” — Dr. Panda

9. Foam roll or do yoga before bed

This practice started as a way to fit more mobility and myofascial release into my day.

I wasn’t rolling nearly enough, and as a national representative athlete, I train a lot. My body was sore, and I just kept forgetting to roll during the day or would run out of time after my workouts. So, using the idea of habit stacking, I started rolling after I brushed my teeth at night.

However, this quickly turned into a potent tool to increase my sleep quality. Foam rolling is a great way to reconnect with the body after a hectic day and to get in touch with how the body is feeling.

It’s also like a moving meditation — you can focus on the body, the breath, and be present in the moment.

There are even scientific reasons why we should roll before bed.

Shawn Stevenson, author of Sleep Smarter, explains that rolling can “unlock your sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system and activate your parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system” and has “clinically proven benefits on serotonin production, oxytocin, and reduction of cortisol.”

Foam rolling can greatly improve your levels of relaxation and help you wind down after a busy day. Switching off your stress response will allow you to fall asleep faster, have a more restful sleep, and subsequently achieve greater quality sleep.

Kelly Starrett, bestselling author and mobility expert, explains,

“One of the biggest problems we have in society right now is that people aren’t very good at down regulating. What we see is people getting into a constant parasympathetic nervous system vs parasympathetic nervous system tug-of-war, and the sympathetic system is turned all the way up to 60. We know that we can power up by drinking some coffee or chugging an energy drink and be ready to go, but show me how you can go (in reverse) from 60 to 0.”

Foam rolling is a great start to helping our bodies down-regulate.

Then there’s yoga. Yoga is my moving meditation; movement allows deep access into who we are, and what it’s like to be in this body, right now. You can’t help but feel the breath going in and out of your lungs. The mat under your bare feet. The stretch of your muscles. Movement forces you to be present in this moment, within yourself.

Yoga also clears the mind; thoughts come and go in passing, without even a conscious effort to let them go. When a thought comes in, you can’t help but let it go as you focus on moving into your next pose, gaining your balance, and finding the stillness within.

You are present. You are breathing. You are in tune with your body. You can feel where there is tension, where your body is asking for more attention and love.

This is an incredible way to prepare both the mind and the body for sleep.

I don’t always do both foam rolling and yoga, but most nights will do at least one of them.

10. Create a power-down routine

Having a routine that tells the body and mind that it is time for sleep is so important.

Our bodies thrive on consistency and routine, and so if we can create an evening routine, we can experience greater sleep quality.

The following article outlines 9 practices I recommend for a power-down routine.

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