Anyone have tips for managing sleep in the winter months? It seems like I can stay up forever (until 02-04) and don't get so tired. I need to be in bed by 23 actually.
* have an early dinner. I eat at 4 or 5 pm. This is extreme, but earlier will probably help if possible. No snacks after dinner
* Get light exposure as early as possible after waking. A morning walk is good
* Exercise close to waking. In practice I do a 7 min workout, eat and walk
* blue light blocking glasses help
* A sleep mask can help. I use a manta mask + their glasses. I don’t actually sleep with the mask as I side sleep, but I wear it for 10 min or so while laying in bed and I fall asleep, then shift to my side to continue. (For whatever reason I can’t sleep on my back)
* Fewer household lights in evening. Lamps are good.
* Decide to get ready for bed even if you’re not sleepy. If you start a wind down routine by dimming lights, brushing teeth, reading, whatever you do before bed, you’ll start to get sleepier. It sounds dumb, but if you are, say, staring at your phone for three hours waiting to get tired you won’t get tired.
* Keep a log. You may identify changes or factors specific to you that help improve things
Thank you for reminding me of this.
Two years ago I had a sleeping revolution and I had success with a barrage of efforts I did, most notably giving up caffeine and having this routine, and ensuring 100% darkness. But I have to recognize that I lost the routine now.
But yeah simply deciding to start each night is the stupidest yet most effective thing. I think it’s easy to forget this as sleep sort of feels like a non activity vs. say working out or reading etc where deciding to do the thing is obviously the first step.
- Do not eat or drink anything but water at least 3 hours before when you are going to bed.
- Do not have screens in the bedroom.
- No screens 1 hour before before bed.
(That last one I utterly fail at, but I am mainly doing textual things not from an attention-economy leach on the screen so, and it works out. Either the other 3 is enough or that screen time is sufficiently less stimulating.)
I've figured lately that working "hard" at chores at home can replace some of it, the point is to not be too lazy.
Good quality sports cloth are not that expensive anymore and make winter outside exercising possible and pleasant. Really, buy merino shirt and sport pants.
The other option is fast wall outside, but that have to be longer to amount to exercise.
Third option is to have a look at bodyweight exercising. Most of it you can do at home with zero equipment and don't require much space. Some of it requires stomping, so you may have to skip those is someone lives under you.
Avoid caffeine. If not entirely, at least don't have any after noon. Everytime I have a really hard time falling asleep it'a because I had a (delicious) coffee or cola after lunch. Enough times that I've almost learned my lesson. ;)
Go to bed quickly if you're feeling drowsy in the evening, even if it's before your preferred time. I often feel sleepy just before 21; and if I get into bed then, I usually sleep through the night and wakeup rested; but if I push through it, for whatever reason, I'm no longer drowsy in 30 minutes, and I will have a hard time sleeping until much later.