It’s the end of a long day of being a productive member of society and now
you can’t wait to take a load off and relax for a few hours before eventually turning in.
But hang on… you might be going about it all wrong! Because, according to science,
there’s a whole range of things that you might be doing that can cause you more harm
than good. And hey; who doesn’t want a scientifically optimised night? I know I do.
I’m Stu, this is Debunked, and we’re here to sort the truths from the myths,
and the facts from the misconceptions.
This video has been made with the support of Fabulous.
While it is generally true that exercise is good for you, many people underestimate
the extent to which a lack of physical activity can prevent a good night’s sleep
and around 48% of you say you DO NOT
exercise. If you find you’re suffering from poor sleep this could be the answer.
Numerous studies and investigations have shown that exercise during the
day helps you to fall asleep faster and improves the quality of your slumber.
In his best selling book, author David K. Randall noted studies which demonstrate that:
“THOSE WHO EXERCISED REPORTED A BETTER QUALITY OF SLEEP THAN THOSE WHO REMAINED SEDENTARY”,
while Charlene Gamaldo, M.D., medical director of Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep
at Howard County General Hospital, states
“WE HAVE SOLID EVIDENCE THAT EXERCISE DOES,
IN FACT, HELP YOU FALL ASLEEP MORE QUICKLY AND IMPROVES SLEEP QUALITY”.
Indeed, it has even been shown that engaging in just 10 minutes of exercise
helps to prevent some common sleeping complaints like sleep apnea.
But, if you’re like me, and appreciate the idea of exercise but often don’t have time to do it,
you might try to squeeze in that 10 minute bout of exercise
just before you head off to the land of nod.
Around a third of you who do partake in exercise
are doing this and unfortunately this turns out to be a big no no!
You see, if you work out in the couple of hours leading up to bed,
you fill yourself with stimulating endorphins and raise your body temperature,
neither of which are things you want just before you settle down for some shut eye.
It’s worth pointing out, however, that the reason why exercise improves your sleep
isn’t as obvious as you may have assumed, as it isn’t solely a matter of tiring yourself out.
In 2010, Swiss researchers surveyed hundreds of college students about
their sleeping habits and fitness level,
asking them to record not only how much they exercised and how well they slept,
but also to state how physically fit they believed themselves to be.
Interestingly, the researchers found no real correlation between the actual
amount of exercise the subjects did and how well they slept.
Rather, what did appear to be linked to high-quality shut-eye was
actually one’s perceived fitness level and degree of activity.
Indeed, many of those who engaged in lots of exercise yet
considered themselves to be physically unfit reported having poor sleep.
As such, the researchers concluded that what affected sleep quality the most was
not whether these students were actually particularly physically fit or active,
but the extent to which they believed they were.
Participants who felt fit and active reported better sleep, while those
who felt more sedentary reported poorer sleep, prompting the lead researcher to state sagely:
“WHAT PEOPLE THINK IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT THEY DO.”
So yeah… it is generally a good idea to work-out if you want better sleep, but not
too late and make sure you also believe in your work-out too. Turns out that’s pretty crucial.
EATING AND DRINKING BEFORE BED
Another huge contributor to subpar sleep is everyone’s favorite oral activity…
that’s right!
Eating and drinking! As it turns out, ingesting copious amounts of
food and drink in the late evening isn’t particularly conducive to restful sleep.
My apologies to all those habitual late-diners over in Spain, but science is not on your side.
Yep, gorging on your evening meal too close to bedtime means increasing your metabolism and
forcing your body to work on breaking down food, when it should really be focusing on relaxing,
trying to fall asleep, and manifesting
vivid nighttime hallucinations that you’ll struggle to recall upon waking.
This is especially true of foods that are high in carbs and sugars, which are extra tough to digest.
Food in your stomach also triggers the release of insulin…
. …which suppresses
the effects of the body’s sleep hormone melatonin, further impairing your sleep.
Not only that, eating too much before bed also increases the risk of acid
reflux and indigestion, which as you can imagine are not particularly soothing.
Now perhaps some of you so-and-sos think you’re off the hook,
since the only thing you consume around bedtime is good ol’ booze,
just as God intended. Alcohol actually helps you get to sleep anyways, doesn’t it?
Ehhh… not really. While alcoholic beverages may indeed help you to drop off sooner,
as your body begins to break down that delicious pre-slumber G&T,
the alcohol in your bloodstream makes you more likely to briefly wake up,
once again impeding your sleep cycle and making your sleep less restorative.
Frankly, even drinking too much water can be sleep-disruptive; not for any specific chemical
reason but purely because it fills up your bladder and makes you need to get up to go drain the tank.
As a result, medical professionals, sleep experts,
and dieticians generally recommend not eating or drinking up to 3 hours before you go to bed.
Hey… don’t shoot the messenger.
WHEN SHOULD YOU SHOWER?!
Another hidden consideration in the fight against substandard slumber involves hygiene,
specifically showers; the general consensus on showering appears to
be heavily biased in favor of pro-morning showers,
but what if I told you that showering at night might be best for honing your sleep quality?
As it happens, temperature is one of the biggest factors in play when it comes to
first-rate snoozing. Having a chill bod is very important in this regard,
as body temperature is critical to the smooth operation of your sleep cycle.
Towards the end of the day, in the hours immediately before bedtime,
your core body temperature dips, making you drowsy and signaling that it’s time to turn in.
As you sleep, your body slowly cools even further, reaching its nadir around 5 o’
clock in the morning. At this point, your body temperature rises again,
encouraging mental alertness and physical activity upon waking up.
So cooling yourself down pre-bedtime is actually a grand way to encourage good sleep,
and a great way to do this is to take a warm shower.
This might sound counterintuitive,
but as long as your shower isn’t too hot and you aren’t in for too long,
When you leave the shower water will then evaporate from your skin,
working under the same principle as sweat transferring heat away from you body.
This relative cooling effect will get your body in the mood to snooze.
Hormonally, the after-shower cool-down encourages melatonin production,
working with your natural circadian rhythm, rather than against it.
The trick is having time to cool down enough before bed, so make sure to give yourself
an hour and a half between showering and bed to reap the benefits of a night-time shower.
Showering pre- rather than post-sleep also has the added benefit of washing
all the day’s dirt and grime, as well as allergens like pollen,
off of your body before you get into bed, leading to cleaner
and more comfortable bedding. Yep, a pre-bedtime shower might be just what the doctor ordered.
While habits like these are hard to break, Fabulous is a tool that helps
you brush off the bad habits and usher good healthy ones into your daily life.
It uses behavioral science to introduce habits to improve your life over all and achieve goals
that you would otherwise just put off or delay because of a lack of motivation or importance.
After researching this video I added habits into my Evening Routine using
Fabulous that would counteract everything I was doing wrong…
…and introduce rituals that complement my natural circadian rhythm and aid with my sleep.
I’ve stopped snacking after 8pm and
have set up a Melatonin alarm at 9pm that encourages me to help my
body's natural melatonin production, like having a nice lukewarm shower around 9pm.
My new routine has also helped me break another bad habit that we are all
guilty of, and I’ll talk about that next!
Start building your ideal daily routine, by visiting thefab.co/debunked2
The first 500 people who click on the link will get 25% OFF on Fabulous Premium
Now let’s see what else you’re doing every night that you really shouldn’t be doing!
GETTING ALL WARM AND COZY
Well, now that you’re actually ready to get in bed, temperature is more crucial than ever.
Having already cooled your body temperature to an agreeable level with our lukewarm shower,
don’t undo all that work by having a toasty ambient temperature in your
bedroom while you're snuggled under a thick puffy duvet.
As we’ve discovered, as part of your natural Circadian Rhythm,
your body cools down towards the end of the day in order to prepare you for sleep. Ergo,
messing with your body’s ability to cool itself at night can wreak sheer havoc on your sleep,
So, exactly how hot or cold should your bedroom be at night?
Well, while opinions on what constitutes the perfect nighttime temperature
do differ slightly from expert to expert, generally-speaking, you want to keep your
bedroom somewhere between 15.5 to 19.5 degrees Celsius, or about 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit.
An often quoted sweet-spot appears to be a sensible 18.3 degrees Celsius,
or roughly 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
While being too cold can obviously affect sleep-quality,
lower temperatures don’t seem to disrupt your sleep cycle to the same extent
that higher temperatures do. So yeah… crack open a window, remember to switch
to lighter bedding during the summer, and of course, turn down the bloomin’ thermostat.
POSITIONS AND PILLOWS!
Now that we’ve taken away the coziness of a nice warm bed,
I’m afraid that another supposed creature comfort is next on the list to be struck off.
So, what’s so bad about lovely comfy pillows?
Well it’s all to do with the density of your pillow and
how that aligns with the position you sleep in.
If your neck is bent in any sort of position for an extended period of time
you’re likely to experience some neck pain
So for example, if you sleep on a nice soft pillow, but you're a side sleeper,
then you're not likely to be getting the correct support under your neck,
meaning your head will need to extend sideways to rest on the pillow.
If you have a firm pillow and sleep on your back,
the opposite occurs and the pillow will push your head forward, again misaligning your neck.
If you’re a Stomach Sleeper however,
you might want to reassess your sleeping position altogether.
"If you're on your stomach with your head to the side, you're sleeping in a full rotation position,
and that can become painful,"
On top of that, if you sleep on your stomach with a firm pillow,
it will push your head back, hyperextending your neck.
So if you find you are only able to sleep on your stomach
then get yourself a nice thin soft pillow, or even have no pillow at all!
Unless you’re suffering from any medical conditions,
then sleeping on your back is considered the best sleep position,
but a 2012 national sleep survey across the US, found that most people sleep on
their side, followed by 16% on their stomach and only 10% on their backs.
But, whether you’re a back sleeper or a side sleeper expert advice remains the same…
"Try to get the spine in a relatively straight position.”
If you're a side sleeper, this means using a second pillow between your legs to help
naturally align your spine and pelvis. This should ideally be a relatively firm pillow
placed between your knees, that elevates your upper thigh in order to keep your hip neutral.
Research has shown that this can offer a whole host of benefits,
and can alleviate back and hip pain.
SCREENS BEFORE BED
The modern era has normalized near constant use of our smart devices, especially phones,
and surprise surprise, it could be messing up your beauty sleep.
These addictive gadgets disrupt sleep in a number of ways, firstly just by engaging
your mind and holding your attention when you should be trying to mentally relax.
Using phones and tablets right before bed stimulates your brain,
which keeps you awake longer and messes up your sleep cycle.
However, the sleep-impairing effect of
smart-devices isn’t just a matter of pure distraction.
Turns out that exposing yourself to the light emitted from these devices
is yet another suppressor of our old friend, the sleep hormone melatonin.
This is particularly true of light found at the short-wavelength portion of the visible spectrum,
between approximately 445 and 480 nanometers, which you and I will recognise simply as
‘blue’. This is because bright, blue-ish light mimics daylight,
which fools the brain into thinking you should be up and about and doing stuff,
when really you should be unconscious.
Not cool, blue light. Not cool.
Now, many people - perhaps even people currently watching videos about things
that wreck your sleep - might think they can get around this effect with applications that
dim the light on your device’s screen or specifically filter out blue light,
but turns out that’s not really that much of a solution.
According to The Sleepyhead Clinic,
a sleep disorder organization lead by sleep scientist Stephanie Romiszewski,
…although these apps may somewhat reduce the sleep-sapping effects of your devices,
ultimately any amount of light, no matter how dim, inhibits melatonin production.
As a result, many experts generally recommend that you avoid using phones,
tablets and laptops entirely for at least an hour before bedtime,
so that you can properly wind down a little before sleep and you're not inadvertently
tricking your own brain into thinking it’s the middle of the chuffing day.
If this video has inspired you to make changes to your daily
routine that can improve your slumber and generally make the most of your day then
visit Fabulous.com/debunked where you can build your own personal ideal daily routine for free,
and if you like that, you can use our exclusive discount to access features on Fabulous Premium.