Is What We Know About Sleep True?
Is what we know about sleep true?
On average, we spend about a third of our life asleep. It’s a necessary function, and it impacts our physical and mental health. We know that a good night’s sleep makes us all feel good in the morning, but it can also help your digestive system, immune system, and even your heart.
But are we getting the sleep that we want and need?
There are so many things that prevent us from sleeping for as long as we should, and as deeply as we should. Many of us are guilty of spending hours on our phones before bed - mindlessly scrolling through social media, stimulates the brain, making it harder to fall asleep. The brain can’t just turn off like a switch, it needs to unwind and our habits are basically only winding it up.
But poor sleep can also be caused by other lifestyle choices, such as caffeine or sugar before bed, that keep your mind and body awake. Other times it can be a lack of exercise - for some people, having an unusually sedentary day means you have excess energy that can’t just go away when you need to sleep.
The good news is that if you are struggling with sleep, there are ways that you can help yourself!
Empowerment is the key to changing your sleep patterns. Some people have very serious, legitimate health conditions that can negatively impact their sleep - in these cases it is very important to seek medical support. But for others, there are tools you can use to change your own life.
One of the first places to start is your knowledge base. There is so much information floating around about sleeping and good sleeping habits. It can be hard to know what is true, and what is actually negatively impacting your rest.
So let’s help you to find the facts, so you can start to make some healthy changes.
Our sleeping habits can’t be changed: True or false?
FALSE
Some people think that because a sleeping habit or pattern has been going on for so long, it can’t be changed. If they have always slept for only a few hours at a time, or they always take a long time to fall asleep, they can’t do anything to change it.
The good news is, that you CAN change your sleeping habits.
As with any habit, it will take time to see changes, but perseverance is key. Start by creating a healthy routine for yourself, then commit to sticking to it. Some good ideas you can incorporate:
Give yourself a set bedtime, so your body naturally begins to get sleepy around the same time each night.
Make sure that you put aside all your devices. A screen should not be the last thing you see at night, as this can stimulate your brain into waking back up. Try and put those away relatively early in your routine, giving yourself time to really focus on what you are doing.
If you find yourself very stressed and anxious while you are trying to fall asleep, try and incorporate some relaxing physical and/or mental activities into your night routine. This might be five minutes of light yoga or stretching or some meditation. Whatever works for you!
My phone is keeping me awake: True or false?
TRUE
Whether it’s your phone or tablet, technology is designed to keep you focused and alert - the exact opposite of what you want when you are trying to sleep!
As much as you can, you need to reduce the number of devices in your bedroom and the time you spend on them when trying to get ready for bed. Most of us use our phone as an alarm so turning it off isn’t always a good idea, but you should put it on Do Not Disturb. Notifications are designed to draw your attention, but in reality, they can wait.
And if you find you can’t avoid checking your phone, investing in an alarm clock to get your phone out of the bedroom can be one of the best things you do for your sleep.
If you are someone who loves to check social media right before bed, consider swapping the action for an alternative, like reading a book. Even though you need to focus, reading still helps to slow you down, because the pace at which you receive information is drastically reduced compared to your phone. If you really can’t leave social media alone, at least consider limiting the time you spend on it, so don’t accidentally scroll for hours.
Sleeping medications are addictive and therefore can be dangerous: True or false?
TRUE
It is true that some medications designed to help you sleep, like ones that are prescribed by a doctor, are addictive. They are still useful and they can help people, but only when they are taken correctly. You should never use any form of prescribed medication for someone else, and you should only take them for as long as you have been prescribed them.
If you have been prescribed sleeping pills or tablets by a doctor, make sure that you take them according to the instructions, and always seek help if you find yourself struggling with side effects.
All sleeping medications are bad: True or false? FALSE
Prescribed sleeping medications are designed to help you sleep and when they are used correctly, they are safe. The danger is when you use them differently from the instructions, e.g. taking too many at once, or taking them longer than recommended.
The good news is that you can also find over-the-counter sleeping supports that are safer for more people to use and still offer the same great support. A great option is Deep Sleep by Genuine Health. This is a natural supplement that utilizes natural ingredients that work together to promote better sleep health:
Reishi mushroom extract - This has been used for centuries to help cure a range of ailments. It can help to stimulate your adrenal gland, which in turn increases the amount of cortisol in the body. Cortisol reduces stress and can increase feelings of relaxation, helping you get to sleep faster and stay asleep for longer. Deep Sleep can also help you to enter deeper sleep cycles, which promote brain rejuvenation and can improve physical health over the long term.
GABA - is a natural amino acid found in the brain. Supplements safely increase the Gaba levels in the body, making them more functional, by reducing the neurotransmitter actions that are leading to stress and anxiety. This results in a more relaxed and peaceful feeling.
Melatonin. This is found in a lot of sleep supplements, and it helps to regulate the internal circadian rhythm of the body, so you sleep as your body is intended to.
L-Theanine - Found in tea, L-theanine is another calming compound that helps to get our body out of a stressed state and into more deep relaxation.
Magnesium - Magnesium is an important mineral for many of the functions in our body and can help to relax the muscles and promote better sleep.
Even more good news: Deep Sleep is safe to be used by anyone. It is soy, gluten, dairy, and egg-free so even people with dietary requirements can take it and experience its success.
I’m having trouble sleeping, so I’m a bad sleeper: True or false? FALSE
Many people think they are bad sleepers when in reality they probably aren’t! There are a number of reasons why you might wake up still feeling tired, or not as relaxed as you want to be. In reality, this might not actually be a sleep problem!
People who think they are bad sleepers may internalize this belief, which can result in a lot of stress and anxiety. You may focus on your sleep problems, but not the other things in life that may be impacting your sleep. Are you very busy at work at the moment? Are you only sleeping five hours a night because you are trying to juggle work and children and a million other responsibilities?
Our sleeping behaviours can sometimes be a reflection of other behaviours or habits in our lives and it’s important to recognize that everything is connected. Always be kind to yourself - health is a constant journey and as long as you’re working on it, you are moving in the right direction.
Deep Sleep is available at Flow Spa - Pick it up in-store today!
Creating a Sleep Routine For Consistently Getting Better Sleep
We all have faced sleep issues at one point in time or another. It seems inevitable that sleep will eventually be impacted by our external circumstances and we’ll have to do something about it to get back on track.
Whether it’s a struggle to fall asleep or to stay asleep, we know what it feels like when our sleep isn’t as good as it should be.
Sleep is undeniably the most important step to improving your wellness.
If this critical component isn’t addressed first and foremost, it doesn’t matter what other health hacks you try to use, they will not fix the root cause of your issues.
So whether you think that you’re a world-class sleeper or you know that you can do better, read on and pick up or remind yourself of a thing or two that can help to make a difference in your sleep.
A Sleep Primer
Before we snuggle under the covers of the best tips to help you sleep, let’s take a really quick look at the importance of sleep and the different sleep stages.
Most of us are aware that sleep is essential to good health. We all need certain amounts of sleep each night in order to feel and function at our best. Usually, we can estimate this number pretty well based on our past but these numbers also change as we age. The simplest strategy is to test waking up without an alarm clock on a morning when this is possible for you. If you slept well and feel well-rested then you’ve got a good idea of how much sleep you consistently need. This test works even more reliably after several days of waking without an alarm, so make a plan to try it out for yourself and go sans alarm clock for your next vacation (or staycation).
When we sleep, our brains and bodies use the time to go through a dishwasher cycle and scrub clean our internal systems. This is an essential recovery process for performing our best and without it, our health will decline over time. Sleep is used for memory consolidation, repair from physical activity, and for reducing stress on our brains and bodies.
We cycle through different phases during sleep and each phase is essential for a well-balanced sleep.
Pre-Bed Routines
The way we prepare for bed is one of the keys to better sleep. There are many different things that we can do to get ourselves ready for bed and the best way to know what works for you is to be open-minded to trying as many strategies as you can over time and sort out the tips that are too inconvenient for your circumstances.
Food
For many people, the timing as well as the food choices for our last meal of the day can impact our sleep quality quite dramatically. Going to bed too full or too hungry will make it difficult to fall asleep (sleep latency) and may also affect the amount of deep sleep that you get or the overall quality of your sleep.
Usually, it’s best to have your last meal a couple of hours prior to bed and not eat to the point of feeling stuffed. For individuals who eat relatively low carb diets or are on a stricter diet, also eating carbs with the last meal of the day is a way to signal the body into a calmer state and helps with relaxing and triggering sleep.
Experimenting with the right combinations of foods and timing for your best sleep quality, like with any of these strategies, takes some patience to find your own sweet spot.
Drugs and Alcohol
Nightcaps and other options for taking the edge off at the end of the day are sedatives that help to initiate sleep but they come at a cost. We know from research that alcohol, THC, and even prescription sleep medications all reduce the amount of deep sleep that we get which is the time when our brains and bodies go through most of the important restoration at night.
Whenever possible, we should try to get away from these options being our go-to strategy for sleep.
One alternative that helps to calm our minds and prepare for sleep and also seems to support better sleep quality is using a CBD tincture that doesn’t contain any THC. CBD is an anti-inflammatory compound found in cannabis and hemp and a dose of around 20 mg seems to effectively induce sleep and also contribute to better quality sleep overall.
Screen Time and Work
After the sun goes down, our brains are already thinking that it’s time to get ready for sleep. When the receptors in our eyes sense this change, our brains start to release the circadian clock hormone of melatonin which initiates sleep and also helps to keep us asleep.
The blue light from our digital devices is known to impact melatonin production to some extent which is why if you have trouble falling asleep, it may help to adjust your tech time in the evening so that the screens go away 1-2 hours before bedtime. Not only is this helpful for reducing blue light exposure that may blunt melatonin release, but it’s also a lot less stimulating which will also help your mind to calm down and get ready for sleep.
Whether you work on your device or just scroll through social media, an important part of getting better sleep is to let your mind settle down through less stimulation. A lot of people work relentlessly until the minute their head hits the pillow and then wonder why they spend all night thinking about their to-do list and the work they have to do the next day.
Winding Down
Instead of watching tv or playing on your phone, use the last 1-2 hours of the day to read a book, have a relaxing conversation with family or friends, get outside for a walk, or do any other enjoyable and peaceful hobby.
Sometimes watching tv at the end of the day is the truly pleasurable or mindless activity that someone wants to do, which is ok as well, and if this is the case, it’s a good idea to look into trying a pair of blue light blocking glasses. Blue light blockers help to reduce the amount of blue light your eyes are exposed to which can help if you are particularly sensitive to the effects blue light can have on your sleep quality.
When you give your mind permission to settle down, it will follow suit for you over time.
Sleep Hygiene
Sleep hygiene is a term that’s used to describe the environment in which you sleep, and involves making it as supportive of your sleep quality as possible.
When it comes to sleep hygiene, the three main factors we want to control are:
Temperature
Timing
Light
Controlling the amount of light in your bedroom is important for the same reason that we want to reduce our blue light exposure when winding down to sleep. Ideally, we want our bedroom to be as dark as possible, which may mean looking into getting blackout blinds or using a sleep mask to block out the light. Any devices that emit light should also be unplugged in your bedroom, moved to a different room, or use electrical tape to cover up any tiny lights on the devices.
Our bodies signal to us that it’s time to sleep when body temperature drops by a few degrees and so much of us get our best sleep in slightly cooler rooms, typically in the mid-60s. When your bedroom isn’t exclusively your own bear cave and you’re sleeping with a partner, you may consider using a fan or a cooling pad on your bed to help with the temperature regulation. Using a fan can also create a helpful white noise if you live in a noisy neighbourhood that isn’t a constant sound.
Timing is another important factor with your sleep hygiene and schedule. Consistently going to bed at the same time will help with sleep quality and usually, the best way to initiate this is by waking up at the same time every morning regardless of if it’s a weekday or weekend.
When it comes to getting enough sleep and still waking up on a consistent schedule, most sleep experts recommend that you keep your wake up time the same even if you missed out on a full night of sleep and to try to catch up on the sleep you missed by going to bed early the following night.
Staying Asleep
Staying asleep can be a big problem for a lot of us. Maybe you fall asleep no problem because you’re super tired all the time but then your body jolts you awake in the night and you struggle to get back asleep. Some people will just get up and start their day, or pace the house, or go and watch tv or read a book.
It can take some experimentation to find what works best for you but sleep experts like Matthew Walker suggest that we don’t stay in bed, not even to try to meditate or read something. It’s best to get up and move to another room to do something calming, even boring, like that and once it feels like you’re ready to sleep again, go back to your bed. This keeps you conditioned to see the bed as the place to sleep and not just a cozy reading or meditation nook.
Healthy Wakeups
Being blasted out of bed by a blaring alarm may be one way to wake up but it sets your body off with stress first thing in the morning, which is not a great way to start the day. Our bodies naturally release more of the stress hormone cortisol as we start to wake up which helps with alertness but we still want to enter our days with relative calmness.
This is why it’s great to have a morning routine that lets you not rush out the door to start your day. Train yourself to wake to a soothing alarm or no alarm at all and do the things that set you up for a successful day in the morning, whether it involves meditating, exercise, journaling, writing, or another hobby that you enjoy. Unless the night time is when you perform your best, the peace and quiet of the morning are when we can do the things that we like that set us up for our best day possible.
Getting exposure to the sun in the morning is another tool to use for setting your circadian rhythm and priming yourself for wakeful alertness throughout the day. Get outside near sunrise whenever possible in order to take advantage of this naturally occurring mechanism.
So don’t miss out on the opportunity to audit your morning routine for a more healthful wake up because it will set you up for continuing a positive spiral with your sleep cycle and continuing to see better sleep.
Sign up for early access to our complete wellness course, which goes further in-depth into optimizing your wellness with sleep, nutrition, movement, and more.
Top Eleven Health Benefits of Float Therapy
Floating will make your life better. This incredibly therapeutic saltwater float experience has clinical evidence to back up a whole host of benefits. Here are 11 of the most common benefits supported by research and our own customer experiences when you come in for a Flow Spa float.
11 Ways Floating Makes Your Life Better
Jump to a Section:
Floating will make your life better. This incredibly therapeutic saltwater Flow Spa float experience has clinical evidence to back up a whole host of benefits.
Floating, float therapy, or REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulus Therapy), used to be called sensory deprivation tanks but the name has become a misnomer as improvements to the technology allows these spacious pods and cabins to be as comfortable as you want it to be. Customizations include leaving music, guided meditations, and relaxing lights on to help you get the most out your experience. Inside each of our pods and cabins are over 1,000 pounds of Epsom Salt dissolved into a solution at a depth of 11 inches. This makes the water denser than the Dead Sea allowing you to float effortlessly on the surface of the water.
Each person has their own unique experience with floating because it’s such a gentle therapy, the healing potential will benefit whatever is in most dire need of attention.
Here are 11 of the most common benefits supported by research and our own customer experiences when you come in for a Flow Spa float.
1. Pain Relief
Research supports the pain-relieving benefits of float therapy for chronic pains like neck and back pain. Because your entire body is gently supported in the Epsom salt solution, floating promotes better spine health by allowing the spine to decompress and all the tense muscles that don’t normally get a chance to relax - including during sleep - can reduce tension completely over time.
Other chronic conditions like fibromyalgia, ankylosing spondylitis, and arthritis have shown great promise in the customers we’ve had come in and long-term studies that are underway to gather further support for this beneficial effect of floating.
2. Complete Relaxation
Describing floating is challenging - it’s something you’ve got to see and experience to fully understand because it’s a completely new experience and sensation. One term that does get through most often in describing floating is that it is a complete and unrivalled relaxation experience. This type of stimulus reduction and peace sets the entire body and mind at ease in a way that’s hard to compare to anything else. The temperature of the water is the same as your body and most people liken it to feeling more like floating on a cloud rather than being in water
3. Deeper Sleep
Many people report having the best sleep of their life after floating. This is why it’s popular to float in the evening while winding down after work to allow the body to gently ease into sleep with a reduction in racing thoughts and to-do lists shuffling through your mind.
4. Anxiety Reduction
We live in a busy and distracted world and a byproduct of this is that many of us are facing greater levels of anxiety daily. Because floating is so relaxing and allows our overactive nervous systems to completely tone down for an hour, clinical evidence supports a dramatic reduction in symptoms of anxiety from float therapy. Many customers relish the feeling of leaving the spa without a care in the world about the things that usually bother them. More often than not customers will take some extra time to relax in our lounge and enjoy some tea or water after their float.
5. Stress Relief
In addition to reducing anxiety, floating busts through similar symptoms of stress. Researchers have shown a significant drop in the stress hormone cortisol after just one hour of float therapy. Having less cortisol present in your system allows you to have a clear and focused mind and to be more productive or to fully embrace the bliss of treating yourself to some well-deserved R&R.
This reduction in stress levels also contributes to a significant reduction in hypertension that comes with floating. High blood pressure is temporarily improved even after just one float session.
6. Theta State - REM Sleep
The theta brainwave state sounds like something very mystical, and sure, it can be but in essence, it is the slow and calm state our brains get into during REM sleep when we are dreaming. It is a sign that our brains are deeply relaxed and can be reached by experienced meditators as well. The cool thing is that research shows the deep state of relaxation that comes from floating induces a theta brainwave state without the need for years of practice in meditation or going completely to sleep. There are unique benefits to this including enhancing creativity, consolidating memory, and feeling refreshed without needing to completely fall asleep. While it’s not a perfect analogy, some people liken this theta brainwave activity that comes from floating as the equivalent of 4-6 hours of REM sleep. For people who sleep poorly, this can be extremely powerful when it comes to memory consolidation and recovery that sleep typically provides.
7. Skin Health
The float tank solution is nearly 30% Epsom salt which makes it supersaturated in magnesium. Magnesium is important for skin health and many customers dealing with dry skin or conditions like psoriasis and eczema report improvements in symptoms when adding floating into their routine.
8. Magnesium Deficiency
Testimonials from customers reporting that floating helps with restless leg syndrome or sleep quality (as magnesium is an important mineral for promoting deep sleep) suggests that magnesium may be boosted through floating. While it’s next to impossible for researchers to accurately support this due to differences in skin porousness and multiple possible pathways for absorption, it’s still great to know that floating seems to help with conditions often associated with magnesium deficiency.
9. Creativity
Deep relaxation and inducing the theta brainwave state has helped many artists and thinkers in a wide range of fields uncover incredible potential and ideas in their brains. Whether you go into a float with a particular problem you’re trying to tackle or it simply comes to you naturally from the depths of your subconscious, it’s undeniable that the unique environment of the float tank has produced countless fascinating works of art and ingenuity. Float centres in the U.S. have worked with various artists to put together entire music albums and art instalments produced from these artists after coming out of a float. Comedian Joe Rogan has also become a patron saint of floating as he often attributes this deep meditative state to helping him create many of his most popular bits of comedy.
10. Brain Injuries and Concussions
As if floating wasn’t good enough already, many doctors and health care practitioners working with patients dealing with brain injuries or concussions are starting to recognize the healing potential of float therapy. The typical post-concussion protocol involves having the patient spend some time each hour away from the blue light of digital devices and ideally in a quiet and dark area. Taking this a step further, the advantage of nearly-complete sensory deprivation that comes from floating provides an hour or longer free from stimuli, a significant amount of time for the brain to work its magic on healing itself.
This is an important point which has started to get the attention of athletes competing in high-contact sports and we’ve seen customers return to work after a shortened recovery period following traumatic brain injuries with the help of regular floating.
11. Sports Performance
Professional sports teams have started to take note of the potential of floating for more than just the potential to help with concussions. Athletes are highly driven and competitive and often have a hard time turning off their brains to enter a relaxed state. Floating can work wonders to allow athletes to shift into a deep state of relaxation to allow the nervous system to reset and recharge.
The very best athletes in the world also include visualization in their routine as a regular practice to perfect motor patterns for the repetitive movements involved in their sport. It sounds a bit odd at first and like magic to think that seeing yourself in your mind in action can lead to an improvement in the physical world but repeatedly this is the case in research done on a wide range of physical performances. Dry training with U.S. Olympic Swim Coach Bob Bowman’s athletes, including Michael Phelps, entails mentally rehearsing a race while timing it with a stopwatch. These world-class athletes become so myopically focused that they visualize their full race and can stop the clock within tenths of a second of their actual swim time. The sensory reduction of the float tank is the perfect place for athletes to mentally rehearse the practice of their sport to carry over to their performance in-game. Golden State Warrior’s All-Star Steph Curry floats multiple times per month to maintain crisp and perfect shooting.
Just like with any therapeutic modality, many of the great benefits of floating come with time and our customers experience better results over time as compared to just one session. While you’ll love your experience of floating even the first time, know that it gets better with each subsequent visit. A common recommended is that you try floating three times to get used to it and figure out your preferences for having the best experience.
Book Your Float Today
World Sleep Day and Recovery
This week’s blog features an audio companion for anyone who prefers to listen - check out this week’s FlowCast here.
Today is world sleep day and with daylight savings time just passed last week, it’s an important time to think about sleep and getting yourself reset this weekend.
Daylight savings time has become a hotly debated issue because it forces us all to accept a lost hour of sleep when we spring forward and for many of us with already full schedules this means we end up losing that hour altogether.
It may not seem like a big deal but from Matthew Walker’s research which is covered in-depth in his masterpiece on sleep science “Why We Sleep” we don’t properly catch up when we’ve accumulated a sleep debt by sleeping more later.
Sleep is an essential part of the circadian rhythm and as such requires diligent daily, not weekly, attention. Something astounding that Walker talks about in his book is that the incidence of heart attacks skyrockets the Monday following the spring forward in DST and plummets when we get an extra hour of sleep when we fall back an hour.
This doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to have a heart attack because you lost an hour of sleep last weekend but from many people I’ve talked to this week, the change affects us all in subtle ways. The sudden shift in when the sun rises and sets, the sense of feeling the need to catch up all week, it’s kind of a funny feeling.
So what can we do about it?
Matthew Walker might suggest that we can’t make up for a sleep debt but getting an extra hour of sleep or recovery time for World Sleep Day or anytime this weekend can help to get you back on track still in my mind. Take a nap, spend an hour recharging in a float tank, get outside for a quiet walk in nature, turn off all of your devices and go to bed an hour early.
The quick transition of Daylight Saving’s Time is additional stress on all of us. Life is a constant balance of stress and recovery, sympathetic and parasympathetic - yin and yang. Out of respect for World Sleep Day, if you didn’t spend the March Break somewhere relaxing, take an extra hour to do something rejuvenating this weekend and perhaps start to make it a routine - but that’s a whole other topic for another day.
Does an hour of floating actually equal six hours of sleep?
Whenever something new meets Pop Media headlines, there’s a tendency for whatever tasty nugget might be included in this new thing to be sensationalized to attract greater readership. This “clickbait” opportunity has not been missed even on float therapy and sensory deprivation tanks.
While the comparisons to a portal to “Upside Down” from Stranger Things is often no longer included in the lexicon, the quote that is continuously blown out of proportion is in regards to the restorative effects of floating and sleep. Depending on which news source you’re reading, you’ll often see it stated that an hour of floating is equivalent to anywhere from four to six hours of sleep.
The most recent news blast that has likely proliferated this claim again was when Josh McDaniels from the New England Patriots said that 45 minutes in the tank was equal to four hours of sleep - extrapolate this and I think that is why people are now pushing the claim that an hour of floating is equal to six hours of sleep.
Is this really the case?
Let’s break down the components of this claim and decipher the reality from what is exaggerated.
What We Know About Floating as it Relates to Relaxation
Floating is a powerful way to combat stress and anxiety and multiple clinical studies have validated this claim. The absence of any external stimuli often allows your brain to sort things out on its own and realize that everything we stress about on a day-to-day basis doesn’t have to be such a big issue.
Because the brain doesn’t have all five senses providing input during a float session, our brain wave frequencies are able to settle down into a deeper state of relaxation. This relaxed state is called theta brainwaves and is the same state that expert meditators reach and we all achieve during REM sleep and dreaming.
Figure 1. This chart from my Oura ring shows the different sleep stages that I was in throughout the night. You can see that most deep sleep comes in the earlier half of your nightly slumber and REM comes during the latter part.
It sounds then very much like floating is pretty much the same as sleeping, right?
REM sleep is only one component of our total nightly sleep cycle. It often comes in the later stages of sleep and is associated with creativity and memory consolidation. REM sleep also plays an important role in re-energizing your mind and body. Reaching a theta brainwave state while floating is, therefore, one of the reasons why people love floating for the boost in creativity and energy that they get.
Most of the later hours of sleep are dedicated to REM (see Figure 1).
Sleep is a fascinating component of our lives and has a multitude of aspects that are necessary for good health, REM being just one of them. Another very important part of sleep is the deep sleep stage which is when our bodies release a beneficial cascade of hormones to help repair and grow muscle, making it the most restorative sleep segment.
There is no evidence thus far that floating can induce a deep sleep state and the associated release of healing hormones (that is unless you sleep in a float tank).
This is where making claims like sleep replacing 6 hours of sleep can cross the line from benefit to simply being misleading because people who only get about 6 hours of sleep each night might think that they can get away with replacing that with an hour float. (6 hours of sleep is simply not enough, for more on this read the excellent book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker)
Perhaps an even bigger issue with people making claims like this is that it puts floating at risk of being converted from a trend into a fad and lumped into the likes of fidget spinners and pogs.
Floating has strong scientific support that is growing every day but if we keep having people trying to sensationalize it for a quick buck or clickbait then it’s going to start being that much harder to get further research taken seriously if floating is just seen as quackery.
Sweet Dreams: 9 Ways You Can Sleep Better Tonight
Sleep is so important to health and performance that the next stage in the evolution of talking about sleep is that it will become a regular prescription from doctors.
When we think about sleep, the world has shifted to considering it that stretch of time where we have lost productivity from the constant grind and hustle that is preached by entrepreneurs and professionals alike. But the reality is that quality sleep is one of the most important factors for improving productivity and performance. It’s no wonder that professional athletes like LeBron James and Hafthor Bjornsson get upwards of 10 hours of sleep each night.
If you struggle to recover from heavy training or your progress isn’t as good as you expect it to be, your sleep should be one of the first places you look to make a change that will benefit you. Even if how good your workouts are isn’t a primary factor that you use to gauge how you feel, sleep quality will dramatically affect your performance at work and your mood.
In getting a quality night’s sleep, the term that is often used now is “sleep hygiene” and it refers to the different steps that you can do to make your sleeping domicile (aka the bear cave) as conducive for sleep as possible.
I find this to be particularly important as a competitive strongman athlete because for many of us our sleep isn’t great to start with due to a prevalence of sleep apnea. If you’ve gone through and made changes in the following nine steps and still don’t feel well-rested, you should consult a sleep lab to get a sleep test done to see if you’ve got sleep apnea or any other sleep disorder that can be treated. Using a CPAP for treating sleep apnea will make an immense difference in your quality of sleep, recovery, performance, and well-being.
In Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker put together the most comprehensive account for the fascinating effects of sleep. Walker outlines a multitude of sleep hygiene steps that can be taken to hit that recommended sweet spot of 8 hours of sleep each night.
A lot of it comes down to how well you prepare your nighttime ritual to prepare yourself and your bear cave for deep slumber. Here are some of the most important steps I have found to help, as well as some additional tips that may be worth checking out.
Steps to improve sleep hygiene (roughly in order based on the timeline before bed)
10+ Hours Before Bed
Avoid Caffeine - typically most people should stop around 1 pm if they aim to sleep around 10 or 11. Even if that afternoon pick-me-up doesn’t leave you feeling jittery, there may still be enough caffeine floating around in your system to impact your sleep quality and make it more difficult to fall asleep.
3 Hours Before Bed
No Strenuous Exercise - getting your heart rate pounding within a few hours of your scheduled bedtime can make it harder to relax and fall asleep. If that’s the only time you have available to workout and it’s a priority in your life, training may just have to come before sleep quality but you can also consider going to bed earlier and waking up earlier to get your workout in.
No Big Meals - Eating to the point of discomfort means your body has a lot to process and digest and can leave you feeling like you’ve got a rock pressing down while you’re trying to get comfortable for sleep. You also want to ideally time your last meal around the 3-hour mark so your stomach isn’t grumbling either as you try to fall asleep.
1-2 Hours Before Bed
Keep the Bear Cave Cool - You’ll want to start to drop the temperature in your room in the last couple of hours of the day, as one of the factors that trigger your brain that it’s time to sleep is a drop in temperature. Before we had temperature controlled houses, the temperature while sleeping in a hut or cave dropped as the sun went down and we went to sleep. It’s usually recommended that you set your room somewhere in the 65-68 F range and you’ll have to play around with this to find your own sweet spot. An additional tip you can try is sleeping with socks on. Your feet like to be a little bit warmer than the rest of your body for the best sleep possible.
Electronics out of the Bedroom - this really should be 24 hours before sleep thing because everyone who values quality sleep can agree that electronics need to be removed from the bedroom. When we watch tv in bed we tend to go to sleep later and the same thing goes for watching videos on YouTube or scrolling social media. It also ties into the next tip...
Blue lights out Before Bed - Depending on what time you go to bed relative to the cycle of the sun, this may even come before the 1-2 hour mark but blue lights should be eliminated as early in the evening as possible. Set all of your devices to Night Shift towards a warmer tone. I like to have mine automatically set to follow the sunrise/sunset cycle. This will also help to reduce eye strain if you find yourself constantly staring at the blue light. Taking it a step further, you can buy a set of blue light blocking glasses on Amazon for about 10 or 30 bucks depending on how fancy you want them to look.
In getting rid of this blue light before bed, it also means you should shut down the tv, tablet, and phone and read an actual book. If you’re in the market for switching out your light bulbs in the bedroom, you can also replace any bulbs with a colour-changing LED bulb that can shift towards a red light, like the Philips Hue. This is the ideal way to go about it. The best compromises that you can make would be to dim your existing lights and then use an offline e-reader so you aren’t being distracted with messages or phone calls when you’re trying to wind down for sleep. The backlight of a Kindle can be turned way down so that you can simply illuminate the page with your dimmed light the way you would for a hard copy.
Have a Contrast Shower or a Hot Bath - In Why We Sleep it’s suggested that you take a hot bath to prepare yourself for sleep because as you get out of the hot water, your brain will notice the dramatic temperature gradient and signal your body to prepare for sleep. I can’t stand getting so hot before sleeping so another option that many people including myself prefer is to do a contrast shower starting with hot and ending on cold. Typically this consists of alternating between 10 seconds of hot and 20 seconds of cold for a total of 8 to 10 cycles. I like that ending on cold gets you out of the shower with the temperature drop already started so you’re on your way to sleepy town. The contrast also works nicely before bed because I’ve found that simply doing cold may get you too cold which actually makes it harder to sleep.
Block EMFs in Your Home - I’m still not convinced that there’s much merit to these claims but it has been suggested that electromagnetic fields from electronic devices and WiFi routers are negatively affecting our health, including sleep quality. If you follow all of the steps above and still have a hard time getting quality sleep, you may have to “ground” yourself and eliminate EMFs. The simplest way to do this is to put all devices on airplane mode and turn off your WiFi router during the night. Plugging your router into an automatic wall timer may be the simplest way to accomplish this without having to remember to turn your WiFi router off and back on.
Bonus Tip: Know Yourself - the Oura Ring
The Oura ring is the most comprehensive sleep and recovery tracker that I have seen on the market. With the combination of sleep tracking and heart rate variability (HRV), Oura helps you to go a step beyond just “feels” to know how well you’re recovering and how prepared you are for training each day. If you’ve been working out for any appreciable amount of time, hopefully, you are introspective enough about how you feel in order to know fairly well what your body is dictating your training should be like each day. In using the Oura ring daily for two months now, I’ve noticed that much of how I think I feel is reflected in my score each day. The ring is sensitive enough though that you can get into the very fine details about things like how well you’re sleeping based on what time you ate your last meal or even what type of foods you ate at dinner (or throughout the day). Sleep can be messed up in all sorts of ways due to the foods we eat by throwing off blood sugar and stressing the body with highly inflammatory foods or foods that we are allergic or intolerant to.
The Oura ring also gets smarter as you continue to use it and it’s able to detect your own trends better. This makes it a neat tool to use short-term but a much more valuable part of your reflection on training and recovery as you use it more regularly. I said the same thing a few years ago when I wrote more about using HRV for training.
(If you are concerned about the EMFs from this little device you can also put it on airplane mode and only take it off airplane mode when you want to upload your data).
This sort of next-level biohacking is what can take your overall sleep and well-being from whatever mediocre state it currently is into being at your own pinnacle of health. It does take more conscious effort but if at the end of the day you are living a more fulfilling life or striving towards your goals better, it can be well worth it.
Sleep Well!