Sunday, August 24, 2008 ; 1:26 AM
Sleep Hack #11 DRINK CAFFEINE IN THE MORNING, NOT AT NIGHTCaffeine in the system reduces the amount of deep sleep that occurs at night. You will wake up feeling less refreshed, and over time your body will want/require more time in bed to compensate for the poor sleep quality. You’ll have less energy, which you would fight with more caffeine. Don’t fall into this cycle.
Caffeine is safe and perhaps has decent health benefits. The key is in the timing. The safest time is in the morning, right when you wake up. The caffeine will be flushed from your system by the time you have a nap in the afternoon. By then you can have more caffeine immediately before or after the nap.
Caffeine 6 hours before bedtime will disrupt sleep.
Sleep Hack #12 EAT BREAKFASTEat breakfast within 1 hour of waking up. This does 2 things.
1. It regulates your hormonal rhythms (e.g. cortisol rhythm).
2. It acts as a zeitgeber. Just like sunlight, it will reset your body clock. Ensures that your sleep schedule is properly synced with your body clock.
It will give you more energy throughout the day and better sleep the following night.
Experiment with different foods. I prefer a smaller breakfast. Brown rice, eggs, spinach. Sometimes just a fruit smoothie (bananas, water, frozen blueberries, frozen spinach).
Sleep Hack #15 MASTER THE ART OF NAPPINGAccording to Sara Mednick, PhD, napping will allow you to:
- Increase alertness
- Speed up motor performance
- Make better decisions
- Improve perception
- Preserve youthful looks
- Improve your sex life- Lose weight
- Reduce risk of heart attack and stroke
- Improve stamina
- Elevate mood
- Boost creativity
- Reduce stress
- Help memory
- Reduce dependence on drugs/alcohol
- Alleviate migraines
- Improve the quality of your nocturnal sleep
- And finally, it just feels good
NASA states that "an afternoon nap increases productivity by 35% and decision making ability by up to 50%". Hopefully you’re convinced… Besides, who doesn’t enjoy a nap?
Adult humans are naturally biphasic. We’re neurologically wired for the afternoon nap. The “afternoon dip” occurs between the 6th and 8th hour after waking up – that’s 1pm-3pm if you rise at 7am. But there’s no hard and fast rule on when you should nap. Listen to your body.
Naps naturally (i.e. without an alarm) last for 20-60m, sometimes up to 90 but rarely longer. I can wake up after 20m without an alarm. If a nap lasts longer than 90m it can mean two things:
1. You are sleep deprived.
2. Your nap occurred much later than 3pm.
Late naps are more likely to include deep sleep (SWS), which is fine, but makes naps longer. Earlier naps include more REM. Regardless of natural nap duration, I limit naps to 20m. Naps shorter than 20m are called power naps and include only stage 1, stage 2, and sometimes REM. Stage 3 and 4 sleep (a.k.a. Slow-Wave-Sleep/SWS/deep-sleep), will make you groggy since core parts of your brain shut down. Waking up in the middle of an SWS episode means those parts have to reboot. Result: you feel groggy. Naps with SWS are natural and immensely restorative. So 60-90m naps are definitely OK. But I find they take a bit more skill to execute properly. Power naps are an easier and more time-effective solution. Napping is a skill. At first you may find it difficult to fall asleep even if you’re tired. Or maybe you can’t cut your snooze button addiction and tend to oversleep naps. Give it time and practice. The effort is worth it.
