The thief we sleep with

Every night, 78% of Brits get ready to go to bed by inviting a robber to join them [1].

Curious? They’re not tall, dark and handsome, but short, blue and wavy - the short wavelength, blue light emitted from our mobile phone screens.

Few of us seem to be aware that several studies have demonstrated that blue light suppresses our body’s production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates our sleep-wake cycle and reduces our body temperature and muscle movement during sleep. Without melatonin forming before we get into bed and while we sleep, it takes longer for us to fall asleep and we wake up groggy instead of refreshed.

That means that even if we do switch the lights off at 10pm, we may spend a good hour or two tossing and turning before actually getting to sleep. Since the first sleep cycle of the evening typically lasts from 70-100 minutes, this is the equivalent of losing an incredibly valuable and restorative full sleep cycle.

And over the course of a year, that adds up - to a loss of 365-730 hours or 45-91 nights of sleep!

Fat, SICK AND wrinkly sleep?

And remember that old saying about needing our 'beauty sleep’? A 2013 study [2] at University Hospital Case Medical Center in Ohio conclusively demonstrated that:

“…poor quality sleepers showed increased signs of intrinsic skin aging including fine lines, uneven pigmentation and slackening of skin and reduced elasticity.”

But is it just our good looks we’re risking? According to Professor Anne-Marie Chang [3], a neuroscientist and sleep expert at Penn State University in the US, letting evening blue light mess with our circadian rhythm has serious health effects:

“Misalignment or disruption of these [circadian] rhythms may result in acute and/or chronic health problems, including obesity, diabetes, cancer risk and cardiovascular disease."

Studies also show that being exposed to blue light while we are in bed may pose an extra risk to the retina of our eyes [4], a risk which accumulates over time. Because we tend to hold phones closer to our eyes in bed, particularly if lying down, we let even more of this blue light into our receptors. [5]

Our children are even more susceptible to this risk. The National Eye Institute warns that studies they have conducted demonstrate that children’s eyes absorb more of this blue light than those of adults. [6] With children playing on screens from as young as age 1, they have even more time to accumulate blue light exposure.

Prevent Blindness, a century-old charity in the US promoting eye health and safety, have pointed out the possible link between blue-light emitting devices to age-related macular degeneration and have a handy printout that explains the problem.

Why you need to stop going to work drunk

If having your sleep and health robbed from you was not enough, it also turns out that just getting poor sleep or not enough sleep dulls our faculties so much that we can end up performing as badly as someone who is legally drunk! [7][8] If you ever looked askance at that colleague taking a swig before lunch, you might need to direct that same judgmental look at yourself if you deprive yourself of sleep over several days.

According to the British Sleep Council, the average Briton gets only 6 hours and 35 minutes of sleep per night and a full one-third are getting only 5-6 hours of sleep a night.[9]

Surprising?

Not really when you think about how we live in today’s 24/7 digital society. With an increasingly competitive work environment that keeps us constantly checking our work inboxes to ‘stay on top of things’ and social media relentlessly pinging us to look at someone else’s latest cake / cute cat / you-name-it photo or tweet, our brains never get a chance to switch off.

So how do we GET THE UPPER HAND ON this?

1) Measure

As with any problem, the first step is to measure the extent of it.

My favourite sleep measuring tool is hands down my OuraRing, which is by far the best way to accurately measure your Deep and REM Sleep. Unlike the many sleep and exercise measuring devices you wear on your wrist, the OuraRing sits comfortably on any finger you choose discreetly measuring and storing a day's worth of readings on everything from exercise, sleep, and nighttime Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and temperature deviations which might indicate you're about to come down with a cold or, if you're a woman, ovulate.

Because all these readings are stored up on the ring itself rather than constantly being sent up to the Cloud, you don't need to have BlueTooth on and unnecessarily expose yourself to any radiofrequency electromagnetic waves (RF-EMW). Why is that important? Because out of 27 studies conducted just on the impact of RF-EMW on human sperm, 21 showed that they harmed sperm motility. [9] And if it can impact male biology, I'm pretty sure as a woman that I don't want to unnecessarily expose myself either.

The OuraRing looks like a wedding band and comes in several colourways, which start at US$299/€314. There's a 2-3 month waiting list at present, so if you want to start measuring right now, the quickest - but much less accurate - way is with the SleepCycle app.

I used the SleepCycle app for 4 years when first trying to dial into my sleep patterns. You can download a version to your phone and set it up on the nightstand next to your bed (in airplane mode, please!). Get a baseline reading of where you're currently at and then start tweaking your sleep routine and compare to the baseline to see if your changes have any impact.

SleepCycle has a section called 'Sleep Notes' where you can keep track of what you did in the run-up to that night's sleep. For instance, if you exercised an hour before bed or kept the windows open, you should write it down here. SleepCycle will then notice any trends over time such as better sleep when you kept the windows open.

2) Get in sync with day and night light

My next hack is to control the light in both the day and evening. Blue light is terrible for us at night, but we actually need exposure to blue spectrum light during the day to signal to our bodies that we should be awake. The best source of this is sunlight. So making sure we expose ourselves to some sunlight during the day will keep our circadian rhythm in sync with the sun.

When the sun goes down though, we need to avoid blue light since our bodies will naturally start to produce melatonin, the cue to wind down for sleep. In addition, research from the University of Toledo has shown that blue light we take in at night can actually kill delicate cells in our eyes, leading to macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness. [11]

According to Harvard Medical School's Health Letter and a number of other studies [12, 13, 14], the best way to do this is by wearing blue-blocking glasses. Uvex are the cheapest brand, and if you wear glasses, you will want a wrap-around version that fit over your glasses, such as Solar Shield. But I confess that my favorites are my TrueDark Twilight glasses which block ALL blue light out and come with a smaller insert for your prescription lenses if needed. Since they will also make you look like Bono - and you may not want to look like Bono - you can also look at Swannies, which have a more fashionable frame. They also do a smaller, children's version.

Another hack is installing a blue-blocking software program on your laptop or home computer. F.lux is what I use in my own home and is free to download. It uses your geographic location and time of year to determine what time sunset and sunrise are for you and then puts an amber overlay on your screen. You can decide how much amber tint you want as well. This is a great option for kids and teens who may need to be on their laptops after the sun goes down to do schoolwork.

3) Sleep like a caveman (or woman)

I am also a big advocate of making your bedroom as cave-like and dark as possible. This means covering up any power strip or other winking lights with gaffer / electrical tape or TrueDark Dots, having blackout curtains or blinds and making sure there isn't any 'light bleed' from the tops or sides of them.

4) Drop your body temperature

Room temperature is another factor with good sleep, since our body temperature naturally drops when we sleep and rises when we wake. I like the room temperature to be between 16-18 degrees Celsius (61-64 degrees Fahrenheit). Some athletes, whose bodies tend to run warmer, may prefer it even colder, around 15 degrees Celsius.

Showers or baths taken about an hour before bed can also relax you. Part of the bedtime ritual in Asia and Latin America, I like to add a Finnish twist to mine by ending with 30 seconds of cold water to drop my body temperature. If you're doing this for the first time, start with 5 seconds only.

If you find that you run hot all night and this is causing you to toss and turn, consider investing in a ChiliPad. I've done an extensive review of how the ChiliPad more than doubled my Deep Sleep after using it during the Great British Heatwave of 2018.

5) Up your magnesium

Supplements can also meaningfully move the needle on sleep. Magnesium, which many people are lacking, is needed for sleep, so I take one 200 mg capsule of magnesium glycinate before bed to help. The RDA of magnesium is between 270 mg for women and 300 mg for men between 19-64. [15] It is possible to take too much magnesium, but you'll know pretty quickly since it can lead to 'disaster pants'. Always pay close attention to your body's signals and, if you can, get a baseline blood test to well and truly determine if you have a deficiency. Of course, the best way to increase your magnesium is through your diet, so try to add more dark leafy greens, nuts, avocados, oily fish and - happily - even dark chocolate.

On those nights when I really can't sleep, I have tried GABA, which will stop your neurotransmitters from firing wildly if you are the type to replay stressful events from the day on a closed loop. There are also sleep supplements with valerian and passionflower in them. They all work for me, but, personally, I wake up feeling spaced out from these so tend to avoid them.

6) Reduce your caffeine and alcohol intake

It's a fact that coffee or caffeine at night shifts your circadian rhythm and delays the onset of sleep [16], but some of us take longer to clear caffeine from our systems than others. The only real way to find out if you are a fast, slow or medium metabolizer of caffeine is to take a genetic test, such as 23andme to find out. Most likely, you already have your own suspicions. If you are sensitive to caffeine, switch to decaf or herbal in the 6 hours before bed and track how it impacts your sleep.

Alcohol is another no-no before bed. While it may help you to relax and fall asleep more quickly, you will have less REM sleep during which you dream and consolidate memories. In addition, you will be more prone to sleep apnea, which is a health risk in itself. [17]

7) Relax your mind and your muscles

For those of you who just can't get out of your heads or wake up in the night trying to problem solve or worry, I suggest doing a 10-minute Sleep meditation on Headspace, a wonderful app with a wide variety of meditations to help you perform better. When I do this before bed, it always meaningfully impacts my sleep quality.

If you can't do that, you can always try an old trick I learned in college. Slowly tense every muscle in your body up starting with your toes and working your way up to your neck and head. When you reach your forehead, release all muscles at once. The release of your muscles will cause your body to experience an all-over 'ahhhhh' moment and should help you relax enough to fall back to sleep.

I hope these sleep solutions help. If you have any specific requests, please leave me a Comment below and I'll try to answer your questions in subsequent posts.

Happy sleeping and experimenting!