in Sleep 1,369 Words

Be Active at the Right Time and Then Chill [Sleep Hygiene 6]

If only tonight we could sleep

The Cure

Note: This is the sixth entry on sleep hygiene.  For now, just remember that sleep hygiene will probably help a lot of people improve their sleep, but if you are really struggling, there may be other issues your body is dealing with.  If you need more help, you might consider Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia.  Also, see my overview of insomnia for other approaches to consider.

It’s tempting to think only about the times you’re lying down really being connected to quality sleep.  But we know that the length and depth of sleep at night is determined by two basic drives: our wakefulness drives that generally tend to follow a circadian rhythm and our sleep drive that mostly builds up all the time while we’re awake.  If we want sleep to be deep and refreshing, we need those two drives to be working in concert with each other.  Our activity during the day can either help toward that end or mess it up.

There’s a reason that exercise shows up on just about every list of things to do that are healthy for you.  It’s because exercise is good for all kinds of things.  With regards to sleep, it does at least two important things:

  1. Exercise and the use of our muscles generates adenosine, which is a key player in sleep drive – as adenosine builds up, the drive for sleep and the feeling of sleepiness generally grows.
  2. Exercise is one of the signals we can send our bodies about the time of day, so well-timed exercise helps keep our circadian rhythm in sync.  

The deepest, most restorative sleep tends to happen mostly in the first few hours of the night, so you want your sleep drive maximized and you want your circadian rhythm at its lowest point.

So, we want to get some level of exercise every day (to help build up adenosine and make it more likely we’ll be good and sleepy when the time comes), but at the right time of day.  Don’t exercise late in the evening because that can disrupt your circadian rhythm, forcing your body to ramp up when it expects to ramp down.  Exercise in the morning, in bright sunlight is best.  That helps make sure your circadian rhythm is fully set in concert with your day.  But don’t stress if you can’t time it perfectly, just try to keep it as far from bedtime as you realistically can.

The kind of exercise isn’t as important and there’s no perfect formula.  Whatever presents enough challenge to your current condition that it feels like you’re getting something out of it, but not so much that you’re over-training.  I keep it simple with getting at least 10,000 steps a day and throw in some light biking.  As I get healthier, I’ll reintroduce a modest amount of jogging and want to try high intensity interval training. 

There are a lot of suggestions out there to try yoga, qigong or tai chi for evening wind-down.  Be sure to stick with the gentle and restorative poses if it’s late in the day.  If it’s in the morning, go crazy with whatever you feel like.  Specifically, Tai Chi Chih, a gentle, mindfulness-focused version developed in the 1970s has shown to be successful with 3 months of practice.  In at least one study, it appeared to have success rates roughly comparable to CBT-I.

Remember, body temperature is an important part of the circadian rhythm where we tend to cool off during the night and sleep better if we’re not too warm.  So a warm bath  or shower an hour or two before bed can get you comfortable, while allowing enough time after for your body to cool off and be ready to fall asleep.  You could probably accomplish the same thing with a sauna (either steam or infrared).

During the day, avoid naps when you can.  The later in the day, the more likely a nap will reduce your sleep drive enough to disturb your coming night’s sleep.  If you do end up taking naps regularly, pay close attention to how you sleep the nights you do versus the nights you don’t.  It’s easy to get stuck in a loop where naps seem necessary (when you can), but part of the reason is you’re not sleeping as well at night because of the naps.  It’s probably a good idea to keep any nap at a regular time (to help maintain your circadian rhythm) and as early as possible during the day.

Under “activity” I also include bedtime routines, some of which are included in my other entries for sleep hygiene.  There are many good lists out there, including Dr W Chris Winter’s which I talked about in my last post.  Feel free to pick and choose what works for you.  You’re looking for something that will ultimately be simple, comfortable, quieting, and routine.    Here’s a pretty good, but not comprehensive list of ideas I’ve seen:

  • Reading – though not on a backlit electronic device, i.e., either a real book or magazine or an epaper-type device without any backlighting.  Personally, I use a Kindle Paperwhite with no backlighting and a red LED headlamp before bed.   I often find myself slipping into dreams as I plod through the last few paragraphs.  I also avoid magazines, most non-fiction books, and anything that might be emotionally challenging.  I prefer novels that take my brain out of myself and distract from any problems of the world I might otherwise obsess over during the night.
  • Listen to calm and soothing music. 
  • Dim the lights.  Switch to warm colored lights or even reds if possible as you get closer to bed.  You don’t want to give your body any excuse to stop producing melatonin, and blue light does exactly that.
  • Quiet conversation with people you are very comfortable with.  However, avoid any challenging topics of any sort.  And, honestly, I find any conversation a bit too stimulating so I have to say I’m a little skeptical of this one.
  • Reading to others – I used to sometimes fall asleep while reading to my kids when they were young.  Usually I would find they had fallen asleep, but sometimes they would wake me up complaining that I had fallen asleep while still reading out loud and was still going but speaking gibberish.
  • Meditation.
  • Standard hygiene like brushing teeth or brushing hair can be soothing if worked into a regular routine.  The more routine and regular everything is, more predictable it is, and the more you are signaling to your autonomic nervous system that everything is OK.
  • Eat at the same time each day, avoiding food within three hours of bedtime.
  • Breathing exercises. These can be very simple things like just breathing slowly, especially slow out breaths through the nose, which helps calm us down, or they can be very elaborate.
  • Give yourself some ‘worry time’ or time you can jot down issues that occur to you.  Do this before your regular bedtime routine and then tell yourself the issues are there and you can work on them in the morning.  It’s a way to help your brain stop worrying about those things overnight.

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