Oh, to sleep like a baby…or a kitten (as the case may be)!  Do you wish for better sleep?  I know I sure do.  I don’t have a sleep disorder (like insomnia or apnea), but I do find that my sleep quality is irregular – some nights it’s great, some nights it’s not.  

While our society often downgrades the importance of sleep (we’ve all heard the phrase “You can sleep when you’re dead.”), a quality night of sleep is quickly being shown to be one of the best things you can do for your health AND your performance.  

Here are is a list of 10 reasons you might want to improve your zzzzz’s:

1. Body weight is better regulated
2. You’ll eat fewer calories
3. Concentration & productivity will improve
4. Better athletic performance (consider it a free & legal performance-enhancing drug!)
5. Risk of heart disease & stroke goes down
6. Glucose metabolism improves which lowers Type 2 Diabetes risk
7. Risk of depression is decreased
8. Immune function is increased (you’ll get sick less)
9. Systemic inflammation & cellular damage are decreased
10. Quality of your social interactions improves

Whew!  That’s quite a list of positives!!  

In my search to improve my sleep quality, I started using an Oura Ring to track various sleep markers.  With the help of this little device I’ve been able to see what sorts of things both positively & negatively affect my sleep.  

Here are a few things I’ve learned…or rather, had reinforced by looking at data.

Negative Influencers:

1. Sugar in the evening (i.e. dessert). Sugar does a number on my sleep making it more erratic. I wake up more frequently which decreases the overall restfulness.
2. Alcohol in the evening. Drinking has basically the same effect as sugar – it makes my sleep less restful.
3. Sugar AND Alcohol together. This is the fatal combo. Ain’t getting no good sleep when I do this!!
4. Eating too close to bedtime. When I was younger I made jokes about older folks eating dinner at 5:00PM. Now, at age 52, I understand why they do this! If I eat too close to bedtime my sleep is not as great. Bring on the Blue Plate Specials!! 😉
5. Exercising too close to bedtime. See #4…same results.
6. Watching certain TV too close to bedtime. Too exciting, too scary…it’ll affect me. I was reminded of this recently while watching the Olympics. The very exciting 100m Breaststroke final came on around 8:30PM (my bedtime in the summer is roughly 9:00PM). I was so amped up I couldn’t go to sleep for a good 2 hours!!

Positive Influencers:

1. Consistent bedtime. Regardless of whether it’s the weekend or a work day, I try to keep my bedtime within a 1/2hr window.
2. Choose when to eat dessert. It’s not that I won’t eat dessert…rather I choose when to eat dessert. Since I get up pretty darn early during the week this often means that I won’t eat sugar M-Th evenings.
3. Choose when to drink. Same as #2. I know that there will be sleep consequences from drinking. So now I choose when to drink & accept the fact that I just won’t sleep as well.
4. Eat early & eat smaller. I try to keep my last meal about 2 hrs before bedtime. And I try to keep it on the smaller side. Big portions certainly don’t help!
5. Exercise early. This one fits in with my body’s natural rhythms anyway. I’m an AM exerciser…if it’s not done by 10AM…it probably ain’t gonna get done! So this one is pretty easy for me to stick to.
6. Establish a bedtime ritual. Eat dinner no later than 6:30PM, turn the phone off, watch a few relaxing TV shows (we’re watching older shows like Frasier & Star Trek: Next Generation), turn the thermostat down, brush teeth, take out contacts, hit the hay by 8:30PM! Rituals are wonderful – they signal your body that it’s time to settle down & sleep!

Now, for some data. Here are the graphs from my last few nights of sleep.

This was Thurs., 7/22 & it was a pretty good night of sleep for me. I got a Sleep Score of 84 (out of 100) which is higher due to the markers with blue bars. The red bars are the problematic indicators: REM sleep is low & Latency (how long it takes you to fall asleep) is also too low at 2 minutes (that means I was really tired!).

By way of comparison, Sat., 7/24 data tells a much different story. While the total sleep time (7hr 22min) is very similar to Thurs’ (7hr 27min), my Sleep Score of 75 was much lower. I had a chaotic night – I obviously had a significantly difficult time falling asleep & I didn’t stay asleep nearly as well. Can you guess why?? I had a beer, a fairly heavy dinner & half of a ginormous chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert! Yup – sugar AND alcohol – the deadly combo!!

Sun., 7/25 got a bit better. My Sleep Score was 87…pretty darn good considering I had a beer with dinner. But, dinner was earlier & NO DESSERT. I still woke up a bunch during the night, but I got more total sleep which helped to offset that.

And finally, I’m back on track! This was Mon., 7/26 which was a travel day in the car. Early light dinner, no alcohol, no sugar – everything’s pretty well back to normal with a Sleep Score of 89.

The last thing I’ll mention is this. One of the main things that my Oura Ring has made me aware of is that I regularly get about 1hr less sleep than I am in bed. For example, on Mon., 7/26 I was in bed for 9hr 39min, but I got 8hr 24min of sleep. I’ve seen this trend repeated over & over again. It’s important because, if I want to get 8hrs of sleep, I now know I have to be in bed at least 9hrs.

It’s all good stuff, folks! It’s the little changes we make along the way to improve. Be it changes to our training programs, our diet, our relationships, our sleep…it all helps us be our best selves. So, good luck & good night!!