Sleep Smarter

Sleep Smarter is a collection of 21 simple tips and tricks to optimize your sleep environment once and then reap the benefits of more restful nights forever.

When it comes to getting a good night’s sleep, light plays a vital role. To understand the relationship between light and sleep, we need to understand melatonin. It’s the hormone primarily responsible for regulating our circadian rhythm, or the internal clock that helps us know when to sleep. How much melatonin our bodies release depends a lot on the light around us. Less light signals melatonin release, making us sleepy come sundown.

To take advantage of melatonin’s help getting us to be sleepy at night, make sure you get as much sunlight as you can during the day. The most important time to soak up rays is in the early morning because it helps us wake up. And studies show that when people are exposed to more light early in the day, they make more melatonin at night.

In the evening, you should try to make things as dark as possible because this will increase melatonin production and help you be sleepy. Avoid nightlights and try blackout blinds to ensure you aren’t absorbing light when you want to sleep. Having light in your bedroom suppresses melatonin production by a whopping 50 percent! Eliminating light will help you sleep deeper and longer.

Lastly, avoid those little glowing screens at night. The blue light in electronic screens inhibits melatonin production and makes it harder to sleep. The author suggests putting down electronic devices 60 minutes before going to sleep. Rather than scrolling through the news or social media before bed, try reading a book.

If you want to get better rest throughout the week, start respecting your internal clock and keep your bedtime within the same 30 minutes every night. Many of us live in the cycle of not getting much sleep during the week and then catching up and sleeping in over the weekend. This pattern is terrible for our circadian rhythm. Think about it, our bodies won’t know the difference between a work night or the weekend. Going to sleep and waking up at drastically different times all week messes up your natural rhythm. If possible, waking up early every day is the best sleep schedule to be on. A study comparing night owl students to morning bird students found that morning people had better grades. The morning people had a 3.5 GPA on average, while the night owls had a 2.5. We have been evolutionarily conditioned to react to light patterns and sleep during the night. Our ancestors were wired to want to sleep at sunset because sleeping during the day was…