What is Sleep Hygiene: Sleep Schedule, Environment, and Routine
Effective sleep hygiene integrates consistent sleep schedules, optimized sleep environment (cool, dark, quiet), and stress relieving pre-sleep routines to promote deep sleep. Following these practices helps regulate the circadian rhythm, promoting melatonin production.
What is the sleep hygiene?
Sleep hygiene refers to a set of practices and habits designed to promote optimal sleep quality and duration. It’s essentially about creating the right environment and establishing routines that support healthy sleep patterns. Good sleep hygiene can help prevent sleep disorders, enhance overall well-being, and improve both physical and mental performance.
Improving sleep hygiene can have a profound impact on one’s health, hence why it’s being used as a public health strategy. (1)
The most important components of sleep hygiene include: (2)
- stimulants: alcohol, caffeine, and sugars
- bedroom environment: temperature, noise, and light
- wind-down routine and stress levels
- sleep timing, sleep schedule, and napping
Sleep can be difficult to manage and improve. To a large extent, it is influenced by psychological stress, one has no voluntary control over, acutely. However, improving sleep hygiene can be done voluntarily, enhancing the body’s ability to secrete melatonin, wind-down, and fall into a deeper sleep.
It’s about regulating behaviors related to sleep like the time one goes to bed and wakes up, or not drinking caffeine too late. A critical component of sleep hygiene is bedroom environment, emphasizing the importance of a cool, dark, and quiet place for sleep.
What is the sleep hygiene?
Sleep hygiene refers to a set of practices and habits designed to promote optimal sleep quality and duration. It involves creating the right environment and establishing routines that support healthy sleep patterns.
From creating a dark, cool and quiet environment, to respecting a consistent sleeping schedule and habits like blocking blue lights and limiting stimulants, it all constitutes sleep hygiene.
Why is sleep hygiene important?
Good sleep hygiene helps one sleep deeper, rest and recover better. Beyond, a consistent sleep schedule and quality sleep hygiene helps prevent sleep disorders, enhances overall well-being, and improves both physical and mental performance.
How can I improve my sleep hygiene?
Focus on:
- limiting stimulants: alcohol, caffeine, sugars
- optimizing your bedroom environment: temperature, noise, light
- establishing a consistent sleep schedule: going to sleep and waking up at the same time
- create a wind-down routine: massage, deep breathing, red light
What is the 10 3 2 1 0 rule for sleep?
- 10: No caffeine 10 hours before bed
- 3: no food 3 hours before bed
- 2: no work 2 hours before bed
- 1: no screens 1 hour before bed
- 0: 0 hitting the snooze button in the morning.
Sleep Schedule
Setting a consistent, strict sleep schedule is a key part of developing healthy sleep patterns. Essentially, the time one goes to bed and wakes up need to be the same, as many days of the week, preferably, everyday.
Having a consistent sleep schedule allows the body to tune in its circadian rhythm which eases the transition from wakefulness to sleep, and vice versa. It becomes easier to fall asleep, and to wake up in the morning.
The data shows a strong trend between greater sleep consistency and outcomes for health and cognitive performance. (3) (4) Irregular sleep patterns lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. (5)
Beyond consistency, sleep duration is important. The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7–9 hours of sleep for adults. (6) However, to get 8 hours of sleep, most people need more time in bed, about 30-60 minutes extra. This could be the part of the wind-down or wake up routine one has.
One of the most accurate ways to assess sleep schedule, duration, and consistency is by wearing a sleep tracker. It should track actual sleep time, reducing subjective errors, giving an insight into elements one can improve to get deeper sleep.
What is the best sleep schedule?
The best sleep schedule is consistent (same bedtime and wake time every day), allows for 7-9 hours of sleep (recommended for adults), and typically requires 30-60 minutes extra in bed to account for falling asleep time.
Typically, going to sleep close after sunset, 8-11 o’clock, and waking up at 5-8 o’clock, is know to be mostly aligned with the circadian rhythm of most people. Sleeping during the day, when the sun is out is less effective due to lower melatonin secretion.
Can I sleep 4 hours twice a day?
While there’s no long lasting RCTs to confirm, typically sleeping in such a disrupted and halved way is not how our body was naturally made to sleep. Most humans would need to put the second window during the day, which is less effective, and also interacts with social setting, work, and relationships in a suboptimal level.
Is it better to sleep 8 hours or 7:30?
The National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours for adults, so both are within the healthy range, however, that is specific to the individual.
Getting a quality sleep tracker and trying to optimize sleep to hit the highest score (100%) is a good set point. For those that require extra recovery like athletes or children, 100% will be achieved at longer sleep hours, for older people and more efficient sleepers (or less stressed people) probablyy at shorter duration (7-8 hours).
Sleep Environment
Optimal sleep environment is dark, cool, and quiet. Falling asleep in a noisy, warm, and light room while the TV is on is highly detrimental to sleep quality and depth. About 73.1% of adults consider watching TV before bed as a habit, being the top bedtime ritual for US adults. (7)
The positive link between TV and sleep people find is easing the mind. Entertainment decreases the drive to think and ruminate, letting one relax before bed. However, TV is not just eating into sleep duration but also stimulates the brain, suppressing melatonin function and impairing sleep.
Any direct blue light stimulus before bed disrupts sleep. (8) (9)
Second element is temperature, the optimal one for sleep being around 60-67°F (15-19°C). The easier it is for the body to drop temperature, the faster the brain can drift off to sleep. (10) (11) (12) A warm bedroom causes discomfort and interferes with the body’s thermoregulatory abilities, increasing tiredness. (13)
The optimized bedroom should be quiet as well. Whether a person is highly reactive to surrounding sound or not, minimizing sound can remove distractions and prevent waking up.
What is the perfect environment for sleeping?
- Cool (60-67°F/15-19°C)
- Dark (no blue light)
- Quiet (no noise, or white-noise reduction)
- Comfortable mattress (medium firmness)
Is it better to sleep in a cool environment?
Yes, the optimal temperature for sleep is around 60-67°F (15-19°C). A cooler room helps the body drop its temperature, which facilitates falling asleep faster.
Is it healthy to sleep in complete darkness?
Yes, darkness is essential for optimal sleep. Any direct blue light stimulus before bed disrupts sleep by suppressing melatonin production.
Light Exposure
Light health refers to the proper use of light that’s aligned to one’s internal clock. The healthy way of using light is strategic exposure.
- in the mornings, sun exposure and blue light can increase alertness, wakefulness, and kickstart the internal clock, improving productivity and focus (14) (15) (16)
- at night-time, it’s best to avoid such stimulatory light and rather use longer, more relaxing wavelength like red or infrared light (17) (18)
Using devices at night-time is correlated to poor sleep scores. Being exposed to blue light from the phone, monitor, or smartwatch suppresses melatonin production, reduces REM sleep, and increases the risk of various diseases due to circadian misalignment. (19) (20) (21) It is by far one of the most sleep-disruptive habits, a part of a poor sleep hygiene.
The most practical ways to limit blue-light exposure at night is by wearing blue blocking glasses, using red and infrared lights at night, and automating devices to turn to night mode.
Is red or blue light bad for sleep?
Blue light is bad for sleep as it suppresses melatonin production, reduces REM sleep, and increases disease risk due to circadian misalignment. Red light is better before sleep as it’s less disruptive to the circadian rhythm.
Does light mode affect sleep?
Yes, exposure to blue light from devices (phones, monitors, smartwatches) at night suppresses melatonin production and reduces sleep quality. Using night mode with reduced blue light and taking your phone further from the eyes significantly reduces blue light intensity.
Why does light make it hard to sleep?
Light, especially blue light, suppresses melatonin production (the sleep hormone), increases alertness, and disrupts the body’s natural circadian rhythm, making it harder to fall and stay asleep.
Stimulants
Beyond light, the three key stimulants to be avoided before bed are alcohol, caffeine, and sugars.
Alcohol disrupts the gut microbiota, which alters mood and sleep. While it may be easier to fall asleep drunk, alcohol significantly reduces REM sleep in the first half of the night. It increases waking frequency, reduces sleep quality, and makes it harder to go back to sleep. (22) (23) (24) Additionally, alcoholics are at a higher risk of sleep disorders like sleep apnea. (25)
Caffeine is one of the most widely used psychoactive stimulants. Similar to light, it can benefit focus, alertness, and aid in productivity in the morning. However, high caffeine consumption, night-time (or after 3PM) consumption can significantly deteriorate sleep. The data shows prolonged sleep latency, reduced total sleep time and efficiency, and worse subjective sleep quality. (26)
Eating late at night should definitely be avoided, or limited to at least 3 hours before bed.
Sugars in particular, act as stimulants. Beyond contributing to high-insulin states and metabolic issues, sugars disrupt sleep. There’s a strong link between late-night snacking or increased sugar intake and poor sleep quality. (27) (28) Shifting the eating window earlier, to about 4-6 hours before bedtime increases the likelihood of optimal sleep duration. (29)
So, eating fewer sugars before bed, cutting caffeine to 3 PM, and excluding alcohol is a great way to improve sleep hygiene and set the body for optimal sleep.
What stimulants cause insomnia?
Alcohol, caffeine, and sugars are the three key stimulants that can cause sleep disruption.
Does caffeine and alcohol affect sleep?
Yes, caffeine prolongs sleep latency (time to fall asleep), reduces total sleep time and efficiency, and worsens subjective sleep quality. Alcohol reduces REM sleep, increases waking frequency, reduces sleep quality, and makes it harder to go back to sleep.
Stress Relief
Stress is likely the most limiting factor that makes sleep optimization difficult. There’s psychological stress that stems from work, relationships, and pressure. Then there’s physical stress that shows up as muscle tension, poor circulation, brain inflammation, etc.
Tackling life and personal problems via journaling, meditation, and perception shifts will likely give high ROI in calming the brain. Even if we can’t manage psychological stress voluntarily, there are quite a few strategies that help relieve physical stress, that overlaps with the mental one.
Such techniques worthy of inclusion in an optimal wind-down routine pre-sleep are:
- Self-Massage: by applying pressure to the muscle’s pressure points one can improve blood flow, increase vagal tone, and relieve muscle tension.
- Deep Breathing: by far the fastest way to wind-down the physiology by reducing heart rate, breathing rate, and brain activity.
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation: potentially by using a taVNS device to increase vagal tone which dictates parasympathetic (relax) dominance over sympathetic (activation).
- Natural adaptogens: specific adaptogens like Ashwagandha, Rhodiola rhosea, or the amino-acid L-theanine can help the body increase stress tolerance and adaptability, and reduce brain activation, respectively.
- Stretching: stretching the muscle activates the parasympathetic nervous system, relieving tension and increasing blood flow.
