It’s been 6 years since I had a good nights sleep.
It all started when pregnant with my first. If I wasn’t tossing and turning with my giant watermelon belly in the way, then the nightmares of baby hands piercing through my abdomen would have done it.
Other people always talk about how their kids slept through the night from 6 weeks. I immediately leave the room at this point, because neither of my babies ever did that, and quite frankly, I can’t listen to it anymore!
Of course, those people, whose babies magically sleep through, have to go to work too. I imagine it must be easy to get focused and deliver good work when you can have a full nights sleep. But alas, this is not my scenario, and in the last few years I’ve been on a seemingly never-ending mission to find out how to get a good nights sleep. One of the key things I’ve learnt is that, our circadian rhythm depicts how productive we can be on any given day at any given time.
It all depends on our body clock type or ‘chronotype’. I am a morning lark. I like to get up early and get on with the day, but also can’t keep my eyes open past 9.30pm, so always tend to go to bed early.
It never used to be this way. Once upon a time, I too used to be able to stay up all night chatting and dancing away. But since having children, it’s hard for me to do anything in the evenings.
But unless you’re actively trying to reduce the risk of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption, you might not be functioning at your optimum level.
When I first started reading Professor Russell Watson’s book ‘Lifetime’, which is packed with useful circadian rhythm science, I panicked.
Imagine my dismay to read that those with disrupted sleep patterns (aka new parents!) are more likely to have to deal with diseases and conditions that are preventable with proper sleep.
I literally haven’t slept a full night in years, what is that doing to my overall life expectancy and well-being?
Over the past few months, I’ve been looking into what this means for me, and I thought I would outline what I have done to ensure that sleep deprivation doesn’t take over my life.
Firstly, let’s explore a few science nuggets from Professor Watson’s book to help understand how to get ourselves aligned well with our circadian rhythms, so that we can experience our optimum efficiency levels. I don’t think any of it will surprise you.
Sleep deprivation reduces our ability to remember things
In a study on sleep deprivation, the sleep deprived group showed a 40% reduction in recollection of all words. But interestingly, those that were tired showed a highly significant and major reduction in the retention of positive words and their tired brains were much more likely to remember negative rather than positive words and associations. These and other data support the idea that sleep loss promotes the acquisition and the retention of negative, rather than positive, memories. Sleep loss drives a negative salience of the world.
For me this usually manifests into forgetting the names of the parents and/or children I see on a daily basis on the school run. If anyone of you are reading this - I’m sorry. It’s the sleep deprivation.
Sleep enables us to extract knowledge and promotes insightful behaviour
Complex cognitive tasks are more easily solved when participants in a sleep study were allowed to sleep normally, rather than the other groups who were not allowed to sleep or sleep was restricted. The 60% that solved the task by discovering the hidden pattern said that they had gained ‘insight’ following sleep. Is it a coincidence then that Sir Paul McCartney woke after a night of sleep in 1964 with the melody for ‘Yesterday’ fully formed?
No such luck at my end though. Last month I put the dishwasher on twice, because I forgot that it had already been on.
Naps can improve alertness and performance across the afternoon
It probably should be stated though that if you need a nap, you’re likely not getting enough sleep at night, and that needs to be attended to first. If you do have a nap, short naps in sleepy individuals, of no longer than 20 minutes, have been shown to improve alertness and performance across the afternoon. But, naps close to bedtime (within 6 hours or so) can reduce sleep pressure which can make it harder to fall asleep at night.
This one certainly explains why you don’t want your child napping past 4pm and why (much to the dismay of relatives) I’m always on high alert when both children fall asleep in the car after a long day out.
Use daylight to reset inner rhythm
After waking in the morning, be sure to get outside and expose your eyes to bright daylight for 10-20 minutes. This sets your inner clock to know that it is morning and will ensure that you feel alert during the day, and ready for bed when the sun goes down. The biggest learning for me was this one, and just how important daylight is to our well-being.
When capturing my own data on this, it turns out that 5 days out of 7 I don’t see the outside world until at least midday, even though I’ve often been up since 5am (thanks light mornings, you suck).
Interestingly, according to Professor Foster, morning types like to wake up early and sleep early, they seem to have faster body clocks, due to changes in one or more of their clock genes. Evening types have slower clocks, prefer to go to bed later and sleep in. It’s worth noting that our chronotypes are also influenced by our age and our exposure to daylight in the morning and at dusk.
Today’s image courtesy of DALL-E shows the difference between morning and evening types.
Aside from the traditional recommendations of getting exercise and eating well, tending to one’s circadian rhythm is crucial for optimising productivity levels.
In my world of frequent night feedings and anxiety from just having children in general, I focus on the following ways to ensure that I feel as rested as I can each night.
Never fall asleep on the sofa (or on my sons’ floor)
No matter how tired I am, I won’t let myself sleep willy nilly around the house. That groggy feeling of waking up after a brief but unexpected nap at bedtime, just does not work for me. If I can’t keep my eyes open I take myself straight to bed, whether that’s at 8.30pm or 11.30pm.
Wake up time is more important than bedtime
Even at weekends, my wake up time remains consistent, I no longer do ‘lie-ins’ as there is just no way really to re-coup that lost sleep. If I am extra tired one particular day, I try to fit in a quick 20 minute (timed) nap. I will go to bed whenever I start to feel the tiredness kicking in, and I know that my cleaning teeth/washing routine is approximately 20 minutes, so I always factor this in.
Blue light is banned
For at least 30 minutes before I sleep I have no interaction with screens or use regular lamps. My lamps are blue light blocking, so they filter out the blue light making it easier for me to feel tired and sleepy. I really like the Bon Charge reading light, and the bedside lamps, which are easy to take around the house.
Airplane mode is on every night
In this phase of life, where I don’t need to take any emergency calls in the middle of the night, I ensure that all devices are on airplane mode, as you’ll know from previous posts that I’m very anti electro-magnetic fields. I’ll do whatever I can to minimize the impact of electronic devices on my sleep.
Sleeping grounded
I also sleep on a grounding sheet so that I can neutralise any positive charges in my system overnight. As mentioned previously, we’ve been doing this for a number of years now and have noticed both of our health improve considerably, including the quality and deepness of sleep.
Camomile tea
I always have a cup of camomile before bed to calm my nerves and anxiety levels. I never used to be this anxious, but since having children there always seems to be something to worry about! Camomile is a natural sedative that allows me to feel a lot more relaxed and drift off to sleep more easily. Just on the topic of drinks – I cut out caffeine well over 12 years ago now, and only enjoy the odd cup of matcha in the mornings every few weeks. My heart palpitations disappeared since removing caffeine! Amazing that a drink that can cause such jitters in a person.
Daylight
After reading ‘Lifetime’, I’ve realised that a good nights sleep starts the moment you wake up in the morning with adequate exposure to bright daylight (around 3000 lumens and up to 100,000 lumens in the middle of the day), so I’ve been trying to focus on getting this light as soon as I can in the mornings. I didn’t realise that most home offices are only lit to 300-400 lumens, so getting outside (or using a special lamp in the winter months) to blast your retinas with extra lumens will really help to reset your circadian rhythm.
To sum up
Circadian rhythm science is a real thing, and I urge anyone interested in this topic to read Professor Watson’s book.
It’s these small rituals that have kept me from falling apart at the seams with little to no sleep over the last few years. They really work for me and allow me to think more clearly.
I’d be interested to hear what works for you? Do you have any other ideas that work well?
I’ll meet you in the comments.
-Selda
P.s. If you found this article valuable, don’t keep it to yourself - spread the word! Share it with your friends, family and colleagues, and let’s get the world sleeping better.
If you’d like to delve deeper into how you can best maximize the time in your week, book me for a one-to-one productivity power hour.
I think sleep is such a neglected, yet essential, unique and individual element of holistic wellbeing and functional health!
I really need to read a bit more on the grounding mat!
I have recently been researching a lot on the studies by Dr. Matthew Walker.
To me, especially thermoregulation is super interesting and really works for me. I have always loved to sleep in a cold environment and learning about how body temperature facilitates the circadian rhythm and sleep phases is super interesting!
That’s great that you’ve found something that works for you Fabienne. I will check out thermoregulation and Matthew Walker too.