💤Sleep Like a Baby in 3,2,1 🚼

Sleep Like a Baby in 3,2,1

Sleep is mission-critical to health—the hack to end all hacks.

You can see the people around you who sleep well - they're fresh, enthusiastic & most of all fun! You're jealous now, aren't you?

Trying to sleep without these tips is like trying to park a car racing at 70 miles an hour in a tight space. You're on a hiding to nothing!

Join them by following these simple rules:

3 hrs before bed stop eating 🍔

2 hrs before bed stop working or studying - put down the screens 📺

1 hr before bed, dim the lights to soft, warm light 🛋️

If we could add one more, it would be to avoid caffeine 10 hrs before bed.

If sleep is the number 1 hack, the sun is your catalyst to get you there.

You've two major light switches, and you can use them daily.

Waking, you want to throw the energy switch & put the bright lights on.

This change is the biggest sleep hack - notice it’s at the opposite end of the day to sleep itself. Weird, huh?

Powering up your screens delivers blue light - not natural white daylight. Unfortunately, your screen also causes you to stress checking social media or emails on waking.

Daylight through the window’s not enough - get out in it. 15-30 minutes is enough. Walk the dog - sit with a drink in the garden. If that’s not possible, get a SAD light to wake you with the added bonus of topping up your Vitamin D levels. Hold for now on the sunscreen this early (even if you’re an alabaster & freckly Celt like me). Make sure you slap on the SPF 50 later to keep the wrinkles (and cancers) away.

So this should energise and wake you. We do the same in reverse at bedtime.

Before that, an extra boost of bright light in the daylight late afternoon lifts us when we might start to flag. Better than the strong black coffee or fatty, sugary doughnut. Again 15-30 mins are enough. Inspiration flows when you get outside, so don’t scrim or think it’s wasted time.

To reverse things, we can put down the screens (2 hrs before bed) and switch to warm yellow or orange-hued soft lights. Then, when we sleep, blackout curtains stop all morning. Keep the room cool & you’re all set.

No sheep required, the zzzzzz’s will flow & your energy levels & health will soar.

Let me know how you get on!