SLEEP PROBLEMS? HOW TO FALL ASLEEP QUICKLY AND NATURALLY
All of us struggle to nod off and stay in nod-land from time to time. Increasingly, science is proving a link between quality sleep and our day to day health and healthspan - your Wellgevity.
In today’s environment, we are increasingly being wired to stay awake and an increasing number of us can’t sleep.
The natural ebb and flow of life following natural light rhythms has being replaced by hyper-stimulation from environmental light and for many, noise “pollution”. People often ask how they can fall asleep when they’re not tired, so today we’ll provide some easy routines to help poor sleepers.
At Wellgevity, we’ve studied the science of sleep. Here our in-house sleep expert Greg Potter PhD, shares proven strategies to ease you into sleep at record speed.
How to Fall Asleep Quickly: Establish a Pre-Bed Relaxation Ritual
Our bodies like rhythms and routines.
So try to establish daily routine pre-bed so your body starts to automate the transition to deep sleep. Remember the 80/20 rule applies because 20% of the time, you may need to scrimp on sleep in the name of life’s necessities.
Example Pre-Bed Routine for Quicker Sleep:
1) Finish stimulating activities by 1 HOUR pre-bed. These include work, emails, exercise, and eating and drinking. (Needless to say, consuming caffeine late in the day tends to prolong the time taken to doze off.)
2) Modify your home environment to support your sleep. This means dimming the lights in the building or switching to low voltage or amber bulbs (you can also use blue-light-blocking glasses to reduce your light exposure) and ensuring your bedroom is sleep-friendly.
Specifically, your bedroom should be dark (blackout blinds are a godsend for some people, others benefit from eye masks), cool (open a window if appropriate, or use a fan or air conditioning if necessary), and quiet (if you live in a noisy place, use earplugs or consider purchasing a device that emits a relaxing sound, such as “grey” noise or “pink” noise).
3) Do any other pre-bed activities that are necessary (bathroom necessities or putting out food for pets).
4) Try one of the relaxing activities below, one to two hours before bedtime!
Heat Yourself to Cool Off
As you fall asleep, the temperature of your core and your brain drops. Interestingly, you can facilitate this drop by having a bath or shower shortly before bedtime. This will raise the temperature of the skin of your extremities, which will then increase how quickly you radiate heat out from your core, helping you fall asleep substantially faster. A 10-minute hot shower (c40oC), 1-2 hours before your bedtime is ideal. Or Sauna if you’re lucky enough to have access. :)
Make a To-Do List To Fall Asleep Quickly When Your Mind is Racing
Work-related stress is a common cause of ‘initial insomnia’. A simple strategy to help address this is to make a to-do list an hour or so before bed, which will offload anything from your mind that could otherwise keep it in overdrive.
Get a pen and a notebook, and list everything you have to do the next day. This exercise consistently helps people fall asleep faster during transient insomnia, and it also provides a time to reflect on and diarise anything you’re grateful for. When you’ve finished, place the notebook and pen at your bedside in case you wake up with an urge to note something you forgot to list. (Notice we do not suggest that you do this using a phone or a laptop!)
Listen To Relaxing Music to Fall Asleep Faster
A simple, effective, and practical way to fall asleep faster is to listen to music that you find relaxing for 25 to 60 minutes at a time, at least three days each week. The best type of music for this seems to be very dependent on your individual preferences, so just pick something you find calming and don’t crank the volume too much. A bit of Vaughan Williams does the job for me.
- Word on Calm App. Binaural Beats (Spotify), Others?
- Breathing Techniques 4,8,4
Sleep Supplements and Medicines to Improve Sleep
Certain supplements have their place to help improve sleep. This depends on the individual cause of sleep disruption and individual biochemical imbalances.
In the wellness industry, we see almost on a daily basis, the product push on “sleep-enhancing” supplements and technologies.
However, we look at a few key things first - the science behind sleep supplements, the quality of the manufacturer, the ethos of the company and we try and test the supplements that make the cut.
We also know certain over the counter sleep-aids and prescribed medicines are a crutch that many of us reach for.
In the long term, sleeping medicines have detrimental effects (that includes Night Nurse). There are, however, a few completely natural sleep supplements we do recommend, including -
YAWN - an effective, non-habit forming natural sleeping remedy to help you fall asleep more quickly, help improve the quality of your sleep, and provide enhanced cognition the day after a restful night’s sleep.
Doc Parsley Sleep Remedy - a delicious tasting sleep support tea crafted to help overcome the most common nutritional deficiencies. A non-drowsy, 100% natural sleep supplement helps give you a deeper, more refreshing sleep. Frequent traveller? This one’s a particular favourite of ours.
Promising Sleep Technologies
Occasionally something exciting pops up, as was the case recently when I came across ebb through this podcast with the inventor. Ebb uses water to cool a pad that rests on the forehead. This reduces the temperature of the underlying brain region, which in turn reduces local brain activity. As activity in this region tends to interfere with sleep, this simple device may help people who have insomnia fall asleep faster. And the great thing about it is that the risk of side-effects is virtually nonexistent.
What About Using Other Technologies, Like Mobile Phones?
Without a doubt, SmartPhones and similar electronic devices are stimulating to the brain. We know high levels of smartphone use tend to coincide with anxiety, depression, and poor sleep. So, if you’re prioritising your sleep, you’ll likely benefit from switching your phone off before bed (perhaps an hour before), leaving it in another room (to reduce the temptation to use it), and then only turning it on some time after you’ve woken up for the new day (perhaps 15 minutes after waking).
But we do understand that there are circumstances in which you need someone to be able to get in touch with you while you sleep, so there’ll be rare situations in which you should keep your phone on.
Finally, lots of people like reading before bed, which for many people is a good activity to choose. But if you do read, do so in dim overhead, warm-temperature lighting (look for bulbs around 2700k colour), and I suggest you read a book or an e-reader with a blank white screen (such as a Kindle), as bright e-reader screens may be somewhat alerting.
Summary
There are multiple changes you can make to fall asleep faster, and this article has only included some we know to be more effective. We hope you benefit from implementing some of the strategies mentioned. If you would like more personal expert guidance or are looking to further optimise your healthspan. Wellgevity can help you.
The Wellgevity team uses a comprehensive approach to get to and address the root causes of people’s health problems, we have helped hundreds of people improve their wellbeing and performance.
