7 Ways You Might Be Inadvertently Sabotaging a Good Night’s Sleep

Sleep is the cousin of death, wise men have said. Strange thought it may seem, though, avoiding this sometimes annoyingly-insistent-that-you-hang-out cousin will actually bring you closer to an early death. It’s not a pleasant thing to consider, but it’s the truth; bad sleep is associated strongly with early mortality, being overweight, having metabolic syndrome, and getting cancer. I’ve said it, your doctor says it, and anyone who’s ever had a bad night’s sleep and felt like death the next day will say it: sleep is absolutely essential to happiness, health, and longevity. On the positive side, there’s nothing quite so pleasurable as a good night’s sleep, from the initial application of one’s head to the pillow, to the insanely vivid dream-visions that descend upon you in the midst of it, to the peerless happiness and boundless energy you feel upon waking. Sleep’s the best, so you want to get it, and get it good.

You know it, of course. I harp on it enough. And chances are, you’re doing your part to get good sleep. But what if you can’t? What if sleep is bad, or inadequate, or unfulfilling? What might be causing it? Let’s find out

You’re not getting any light during the day.

If you’ve read what I’ve written about blue light and sleep, you’re likely a champ with regards to blue light avoidance after dark. You’ve got the orange goggles. You’ve installed F.lux on all your computers (and you even jailbroke your iPhone to make it work there, too). You’ve set up black-out shades in your bedroom, and you’ve ditched the alarm clock with its blinking disruptive lights in favor of a personal rooster. And yet you still can’t get to sleep… what gives? Well, just as avoiding blue light after dark is important for normalizing your circadian rhythms and getting to sleep, exposing yourself to light during the day is also essential. Light’s entrainment capabilities go both ways. The whole problem with light at night is that it’s tricking your body into thinking it’s daytime. When it’s actually daytime, however, you need light. The whole daylong circadian cycle is important for sleep – not just the small snapshot taken right before bed. Try to get some sunlight on your eyes throughout the day, beginning (ideally) with the early morning. Right after you wake, go outside and take in the sun. Drink your coffee outside, or at least at a window facing the sun. At work, go outdoors for your breaks. Don’t say shut-in if you can help it.

You’re eating too late.

Remember the “early bird gets the worm”? The bird doesn’t have an actual alarm clock (trees don’t have power sources, duh!). By eating early in the morning, it has entrained its circadian rhythm to trigger early waking so as to obtain said food. This doesn’t just happen in birds, either. Rodent and primate studies show that feeding time is a powerful entrainer of the circadian rhythm, probably across species lines. In humans, the presence of C-peptide, which shows up after food intake and helps insulin do its job, strongly correlates with lower levels of melatonin. This suggests that eating depresses melatonin, the sleep hormone necessary for getting us ready to sleep. Couple that potential mechanism with the epidemiology of nocturnal eating being associated with negative effects on sleep quality, and you get a sneaking suspicion that eating late at night might be affecting some people’s ability to get a good night’s sleep.

You’re hewing to the popular advice to “stop eating carbs after 6 PM!”

Anytime I find myself thumbing through a Men’s Health or Shape or any other bad mainstream health and fitness magazine, I seem to stumble across this rule: no carbs after 6 PM. They’re usually imploring you to take this step in order to facilitate fat loss (which is false in and of itself), rather than to improve sleep quality. I’m all for the reduction in unnecessary carbohydrate from our diets, but if you’re going to eat carbs, sleep research indicates there’s absolutely no need to avoid them after dark or even right before bed. Heck, they can even be fast-digesting carbs, as one recent study showed that carbs with a higher glycemic index shortened sleep onset at night (people who ate the fastest-digesting carbs fell asleep faster than the people who ate the slow digesting carbs). So, if you’ve been avoiding all carbs after dark and eating them in the morning (to “provide energy”), you have probably been doing your sleep a disservice. If you’re gonna eat carbs, eat them at night. You should probably stop reading bad mainstream fitness magazines, too.
You’re exercising right before bed and failing to give yourself time to recover.

At night, your body reduces its temperature, and this drop in body temperature has been referred to as a physiological initiation of sleep onset and facilitator of entrance into the deeper phases. Since exercise raises body temperature, one wonders whether it could affect your sleep. In one study, researchers examined the effects of exercise on sleep with and without body cooling. Subjects ran for 40 minutes at 75% of their V02max on two occasions. The first time, the ambient temperature was raised, prompting a 2.3 degree C increase in subjects’ rectal temperatures. The second time, the ambient temperature was reduced, prompting just a 1 degree C increase in rectal temperatures. At rectal temperature +2.3, slow wave sleep (the deepest, most restorative portion of sleep) was increased. At rectal temperature +1, slow wave sleep was unaffected. This might sound like a big win for exercise-induced elevated body temperatures, but too much of a necessary thing isn’t always desirable. You want to maintain proper ratios between the various sleep cycles, and, as Dr. Emily Deans writes, spending too much time in slow wave sleep is typical of people with bipolar disorder and seasonal affective disorder, who often complain of lethargy, hunger, and weight gain. If you’re going to work out right before bed, give yourself time to cool off, perhaps with a cool shower, or move your workout to an earlier time.

You’re taking vitamin D too late in the day.

When you think about light and food and activity as entrainers of our circadian rhythms, that the timing of our supplementation with vitamin D might affect our sleep makes intuitive sense. Because what is vitamin D but an indication of daylight, of bright morning or afternoon sun emanating UV rays? If getting sunlight “tells” our body that it’s daytime, perhaps taking vitamin D sends a similar message. Although there’s no clinical trial showing this effect, Seth Roberts has been receiving accounts from readers who modified the quality and duration of their sleep by changing when they took vitamin D. Tara Grant, one of our biggest success stories and the first person to notify Seth, chronicled her experiences on her blog:


I’m not surprised, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this worked for the diligent, dutiful Primal eater who’s been doing everything right but who gets bad sleep. And hey, say you try it and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t have any effect whatsoever on your sleep? No harm done. It’s worth a shot.

You don’t have a nighttime ritual.

I’ve spoken before about the importance of ritual in our lives and our development as a species. What about the importance of ritual in sleep? Any parents out there know how crucial it is to establish a nighttime routine with children so that both child and parent get better and more regular sleep, and I’d argue that all humans – especially modern ones – could use some sort of nighttime ritual to wind the night down and get ready for sleep. It might feel a bit odd at first, because you’re consciously directing your focus toward something that normally comes natural. But today’s world is different. It’s got different stressors – and more of them. It’s got more stimulation – from lights, from sounds, from advertising, from the Internet. We need to force ourselves to unwind. So, about an hour to two hours before your desired bedtime, start winding down. “Winding down” will look different for everyone, since what winds me down won’t necessarily wind you down. What’s important is that you feel rested, relaxed, and calm. I like chatting with my wife about our days in bed with a good book at my side amidst dim, soft light; that seems to wind me down and get me ready to sleep. You might find a fifteen minute session of stretching does the trick for you, or cleaning the kitchen, or taking a warm shower, or praying to your deity of choice. Whatever it is, find it, and do it on a regular basis so that your body begins to associate it with the onset of sleep.

You’re still staying up too late.

I don’t care how orange your goggles are at night. I don’t care if you’re staying up late to read about health and fitness and evolutionary nutrition. You’re still staying up way too late. If you’re fighting yawns and relaying to your Skype chat buddies just how exhausted you are, why the heck aren’t you sleeping? Your body can try to get you to go to sleep all it wants, it can secrete enough melatonin to fill a shot glass, but if you consciously make the decision to stay up and do whatever it is that’s somehow so important, you’re not going to sleep and you will suffer for your lack of it. Your conscious self is the ultimate arbiter of your day to day decisions. Hormones and neurotransmitters and the like have their say and can nudge you in various directions, but you have to decide to close the laptop, turn off the light, shut down the television, and lay your head down to sleep.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope these tips hit home! Sleep is a tricky one to tackle, mostly because it seems like the realities of modern life run counter to our need and desire for it, but it doesn’t have to be (and, if we care about our health, we have to figure it out!). Feel free to leave anything you’ve learned along the way in the comment section!

6 Reasons Why A Good Night Sleep Is Important

A good night’s sleep is incredibly important for our health, as important as eating healthy and exercising.

Unfortunately, Nigerians are now sleeping less than they did in the past. And its very is bad.

Here are 6 reasons why a good night sleep is important.

1. Sleep Affects Emotions And Social Interactions

Researchers believe that poor sleep affects our ability to recognize important social cues and process emotional information.

One study even found that people who had not slept had a reduced ability to recognize expressions of anger and happiness.

2. Sleep Improves Your Immune Function

Even a small loss of sleep has been shown to impair immune function.

So to keep your immune function in check it is advisable to get atleast 9 hours of sleep per night.

3. Poor Sleep Is Linked To Depression

This is a fact, Mental health issues, such as depression, are strongly linked to poor sleep quality and sleeping disorders.

It has been estimated that 90% of patients suffering from depression complain about sleep quality.

4. Sleep Affects Blood Sugar

Sleep restriction affects blood sugar and reduces insulin sensitivity.

Poor sleep habits are also strongly linked to adverse effects on blood sugar in the general population.

Those sleeping less than 6 hours per night have repeatedly been shown to be at an increased risk for type 2 diabetes.

5. Poor Sleepers Have A Greater Risk Of Heart Disease And Stroke

Sleep quality and duration can have a major effect on many risk factors.

These are the factors believed to drive chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke etc.

Short sleepers are at far greater risk of heart disease or stroke than those who sleep 7 to 8 hours per night.

6. Sleep Is Important For Various Aspects Of Brain Function.

This includes cognition, concentration, productivity and performance

All of these are negatively affected by sleep deprivation.

Studies have shown that short sleep can negatively impact some aspects of brain function to a similar degree as alcohol intoxication.

Good sleep, on the other hand, has been shown to improve problem solving skills and enhance memory.

10 ways to ensure you get a good night’s sleep

Sleep will not only make you feel better, make you live longer but also make you look younger too. Here are 10 quick ways to improve your life every night

Try these ten sleep tips:

1.Take a warm bath before bed. This will send blood away from the brain to the skin surfaces and make you feel relaxed and drowsy. Your body temperature will soon plummet if you have a moderately cool bedroom, which will initiate sleepiness and deep sleep

2.Establish a regular bedtime routine. Go to bed the same time every night and wake up without an alarm clock at the same time every morning, including weekends. British sleep researchers found that if you alter your sleep schedule by even a few hours, your mood deteriorates

3.Exercise. In one study, researchers at the University of Washington found that people who ran or walked 40 minutes three times a week experienced longer periods of deep sleep than a more inert comparison group.

4.Eat proteins at dinner, such as fish or chicken, as they will prevent hunger pangs at night and do not eat a large or heavy meal within four or five hours of going to bed. It may make you feel drowsy initially but will have you tossing and turning all night, give you indigestion and pile on the pounds as your body stores the food as fat rather than burning it as fuel. If you are hungry before you go to bed, have a snack high in carbohydrates such as rice or potatoes which help speed the amino acid tryptophan to the brain, which is converted to serotonin, a sleep-inducing neurotransmitter

5.Don’t smoke, drink alcohol or caffeine before bedtime. Nicotine stimulates brain wave activity and increases blood pressure and heart rate and will disturb your ability to get to sleep. Alcohol may help you fall asleep more quickly but you’ll wake up often and earlier and it will disturb both non-REM sleep and REM sleep. Do not drink caffeinated drinks within six hours of your bedtime, as once again they will delay sleep onset and disturb REM sleep.

6.Establish a relaxing bedtime routine. Ban TV, arguing, and eating from the bedroom and use your bed for only sex and sleep, associating the bedroom with pleasure and rest. Switch off the light and try this bedtime relaxation technique from the Better Sleep Council: Tense and then relax your muscles in groups, starting from the toes and slowly working up to the body to the eye muscles and forehead. Squeeze tightly for five to 10 seconds, then release and relax for 15 to 20 seconds before moving upward to next group until you feel completely relaxed.

7.Try visualisation. Imagine yourself in a relaxing situation, such as lying on a tropical beach, strolling through fields, floating through the air, or listening to soft music. Feel the warmth of the sun and the gentle breezes, hear the lapping sounds of the surf and inhale the fragrances. Relax.

8.Jot down your worries. If you find your mind going round and round in circles, try writing down all your worries in a pad by your bed. Then write down the potential solution or a time during waking hours when you’ll address the problem. This will transfer your worries from your brain to the paper and leave you free to get some sleep.

9.Some herbs, such as valerian, taken as bedtime tea with honey have sedative properties that can help put you to sleep. Other noncaffeinated herbal teas include chamomile. Lemon and evening primrose is also a snooze-enhancer.

10.Certain vitamins and minerals, such as calcium and magnesium are naturally occurring relaxants that can help you sleep better. Vitamins B6, B3 and C, calcium, magnesium, zinc and chromium can all help.

Surprising Tricks: How to Sleep on a Plane

Oh to sleep perchance to … find a way to arrive after a redeye looking even somewhat alive and ready for your morning meeting. Trying though it may be for some of us to catch some shuteye during flights, sweet sleep doesn’t have to elude us forever. And, no, we’re not talking about popping an Ambien with a bourbon chaser. (Please, don’t do that. We don’t want to have to worry about you.) We called on some experts and constant travelers for some help.

Before the flight

Choose your side. Now, the last time you bought a mattress, you thought about what kind of a sleeper you are, right? Side sleeper, stomach, toss and turner? Now unless you afford to book a lie- flat seat (and, if so, will you adopt us?), you’ll need to start thinking of yourself as an on-your-back somewhat-to-the-side sleeper and book accordingly. The big question? Do you sleep on the left or the right side of the bed at home? “Get a window seat for night flights. If you sleep on your right side at home go for the right side of the plane,” says Heather Poole, a flight attendant for one of the “big” airlines and author of Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet. (Over the last 18 years as a flight attendant, she’s watched thousands and thousands and thousands of people try to sleep on planes. She knows what works.)

Information is comfort. Oh, not good at choosing your seat? Well, we thought everybody knew about this but … it seems you don’t: SeatGuru.com. (Yes, you’re about to hear angels sing.) The site details the good, bad and non-reclining of every seat on every plane. You’ll never book without it ever again.

During the flight

Comfort. Please, for the sake of everybody else’s eyeballs, do not wear adult footie pajamas on the plane (it has happened, people – it has happened!) but do make yourself comfy for that sleep-in flight. No need to change after takeoff. Wear the nice-and-clean-without-any-holes-in-them sweats to the airport. Carry your suit on and change into it when you get off the plane. “It will look as though you just put it on because you did,” Poole says. So spiffy. And refreshed.

Cradle. Yes, the donut pillow is ugly. And used as expected, with the U bit at the back of the neck, it never really seems worth schlepping along. But Poole turned the idea on its head (or, well, neck): “The trick is to wear it backwards so your neck stays in place.” That means: no more sudden jerking forward neck snapping wow are you awake and in pain moments. Nope. Gone.

Ergonomics-ish. Poole also advises that you use your carry-on as a leg rest or roll the airplane pillow under your knees. And that sketchy blanket they (sometimes) hand out? “Use it for lumbar support,” Poole says. “It’s better to freeze than risk the potential infection.” (Yes, we’re all grossed out now. And off to buy a thin sleeping bag liner to use on our next flight—and wash immediately after returning home.)

Scent control. While there’s no guaranteeing your seatmate won’t pull out some stanky Burger King mid-flight, you can guarantee a bit of a more relaxing scent situation within your immediate nose area. Sam Bruce, co-founder of travel aggregator MuchBetterAdventures.com, suggests spritzing some lavender oil on your u-shaped pillow.

DIY wedge. We’ll let Steve Thornton, an advertising photographer and video director, who’s 6’6” tall explain the custom wedge back pillow he made himself: “I'm all about leg room,” he says. “On one of my long flights I determined that the seat was never going to be comfortable, so I positioned my body where I wanted to sleep. I then took a tape measure, something I always travel with, also in my rollon, and measured how far my backside was away from the seat back and also measured how high the wedge would need to be in order to fill the gap. This works great. I am no longer miserable on long flights.”

Back-up sleep essentials: Bring a baseball hat, says Joshua Craven of Craven Marketing Group. He says it works so well he’ll never board a plane without one.  “As soon as I get ready for take-off I pull the bill of the ball cap down over my face. This not only blocks light from my eyes, but also provides a sense of privacy since the bill of the hat covers my face. Then I pop in some earbuds and I'm sound asleep for the duration of the flight.” Also: earplugs, a sleep mask, and lightweight bedroom slippers or wool socks (or both). OK, maybe an Ambien, too. But no alcohol people. That drinking on a plane sleep? That is never good sleep.

Parents ignoring cot pillow risk

A review of parental attitudes found some were ignoring advice about sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) by letting them sleep with pillows.

Since the 1990s, parents in Ireland and around the world have been advised to put babies to sleep on their backs, in a cot with a flat mattress and no pillows, to avoid SIDS.

This practice has reduced SIDS deaths over time. However, about one in five children now develop a flat area on the back of their head (called plagiocephaly) because babies' skulls are soft and still growing.

For most children, flat head syndrome is mild and not particularly noticeable. But some parents use products that contradict SIDS safe sleeping guidelines, which are as follows:

* always place your baby on their back to sleep;

* place your baby in the 'feet to foot' position (with their feet touching the end of cot).

Don’t Lose Sleep When Your Child Has These Common Sleep Complaints

What are parasomnias?

Parasomnias are common sleep disruptions that can occur when a child is falling asleep or waking up. Parasomnias occur at the transition of deep sleep and consciousness where a child’s brain can be caught in between the two states, and explains why a child can appear awake but actually be sleeping. This article will discuss examples of parasomnias including sleep talking (somniloquy), sleep walking (somnambulism), night terrors (pavor nocturnus), and confusional arousals.

Common features to all Parasomnias

Parasomnias are common in childhood and share many features. They are generally harmless and most children outgrow them. A child may appear awake, but their brain is asleep and unaware of the event. Unlike nightmares, a child will awaken unaffected and have no recollection of it the next day. Other than sleep talking, most other parasomnias happen around the same time, usually within 4 hours of falling asleep. While parents may worry their child might have multiple events throughout the night, this isn’t the norm.

Categories of Parasomnias 

To ease our understanding of how to approach these different conditions, we classify them into two distinct categories. The first category includes sleep talking (somniloquy) and confusional arousals, which are found to be innocent and generally do not require intervention. Sleep talking is a condition in which a child vocalizes during sleep. Confusional arousals are characterized by a child waking up briefly. He or she may have a slow reaction time, have trouble understanding questions, and act confused before returning to bed with no recollection of the event the next day.

Do you ever wonder if your child will wake up if you try moving them? Sleep talking is an easy way to determine how deeply your child is sleeping. If your child is speaking clearly, they are in a lighter stage of sleep and more likely to wake up if disturbed. Mumbling and incoherent speech indicate deeper sleep, during which your child is less likely to awaken.

The second category of parasomnia classification includes night terrors (pavor nocturnus) and sleepwalking (somnambulism), which are generally innocent, but in certain circumstances may require intervention. Night terrors are episodes that are named for their appearance rather than what a child is actually perceiving. If your child is having a night terror, he or she will appear panicked and exhibit behaviors such as screaming, sweating, breathing rapidly, and crying, when in fact he or she is actually asleep. A common misunderstanding is that your child is having a nightmare, yet not experiencing anything that is actually frightening them and will have no recollection of the event once awakened in the morning. Lastly, sleepwalking is commonly seen in school-aged children and is characterized by walking in a state of partial wakefulness.

When observation is the preferred intervention:

When night terrors are infrequent (less than a few times a week) and brief (less than 20 minutes in duration), observation and reassurance are generally all that is needed. Talking to or touching your child during a night terror can prolong the episode, but by letting it run its course, you can significantly shorten the event.

When sleepwalking is infrequent, we recommend gently guiding your child back to bed without waking him or her. While it is not dangerous to wake a sleepwalker, it is not necessary. If there are concerns the child may leave the house or use sharp objects, take simple safety precautions such as securing knives and installing wireless door chimes on exit doors.

When behavioral strategies are the preferred intervention:

When night terrors and sleepwalking are frequent, particularly for a sleepwalker who has already engaged in a dangerous behavior (e.g. leaving the home, engaging in aggressive acts during sleep) ,”planned night awakenings” can prevent parasomnias. This involves waking a child briefly for 7 consecutive nights 30 minutes before the earliest possible event is likely to occur. Other strategies include avoiding sleep deprivation, setting a regular bedtime routine, and following healthy sleep habits.

When to consult your physician:

In severe cases where behavioral interventions fail, short term treatment with medications may be available to help. If your child’s condition does not seem to respond to typical suggestions, or you are worried there might be another cause for your child’s sleep problems, consult your pediatrician. In some cases, parasomnias have been linked to sleep apnea and your child’s doctor is the best source of information to determine if your child is at risk for this condition.