The Case for Good Sleep
When I was 11 years old my parents gave me a small TV for my bedroom. That was the beginning of the end to any sort of normal sleep cycle for me. I would stay up past midnight watching the Joan Rivers show on week nights, something an 11 year old shouldn’t be doing. By the time I was a teenager, I would spend the summer nights watching reruns of the Golden Girls until 2am while the rest of my family slept. I’d wake up the next day at noon feeling groggy and mad at myself for wasting the day. Every night I was like, “I’m not doing this again,” and then it would happen anyway. I was addicted to not going to bed.
It’s an addiction I haven’t been able to quit until recently. As an adult who doesn’t have the luxury of sleeping until noon or skipping class, I became conditioned to 5.5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. I was falling into bed at 12:30 or 1am after endless scrolling on Instagram or binge watching Netflix, only to wake up at 6:30am. When I seriously lack sleep I am cranky and bitter and my aversion to sleep makes me feel guilty and defensive. Especially when my husband asks me, “What time did you finally come to bed?” I lie about it because he just doesn’t understand why someone wouldn’t prioritize sleep. Neither did I. I’ve worked it out with some therapists that I have some sort of “Unsupervised child syndrome”, where I stay up late as a form of indulgence (the 11 year old with a TV in his room) but I end up sabotaging myself when it’s time to show up in the world as an adult with a career.
It had gotten much worse in the pandemic, because for months I had no place to be in the morning. I was staying up until 2:30 or 3:00am binging on news and sleeping later than I care to admit. Then a friend referred me to Sarah Moe, a sleep health expert and everything I’ve struggled with since age 11 has changed in a week.
Sarah Moe, Registered Polysomnographic Technologist (aka SLEEP EXPERT)
Sarah Moe is a Registered Polysomnographic Technologist which is a fancy way of saying she’s a qualified expert on matters of sleep. She’s been doing this for 15 years and 5 years ago she founded Sleep Health Specialists, where she’s the CEO.
I spent 45 minutes with her on a Zoom call with her this summer and within days began to get 7 to 8 hours a night consistently, based on somewhat simple suggestions she made. I can’t remember the last time I’ve gotten this much sleep or felt as compelled to keep it up. It’s not that the case she made for 7+ hours was enough to get me into bed. It’s that the cure for my bedtime aversion was so simple, that I wanted to see if it actually worked. And it did.
According to Sarah, 76% of the American workforce reports continued fatigue throughout the week. Beyond that, additional people struggle who aren’t reporting it for fear of punishment or repercussions at work. Your boss doesn’t want to hear you are tired, because we all are. She estimates that ¾ of people who struggle with sleep don’t have a good routine or discipline. The other ¼ probably have an undiagnosed sleep disorder that needs to be treated. I fall into the category of people who don’t have good sleep discipline. I watch TV until late while scrolling or texting or shopping online, that keeps my mind wound up and then it’s past midnight and I’m in the same place I was the night before.
Where to begin changing sleep habits:
No Blue light:
“Our sleep is the baseline for everyone else being good. The first line of defense is discipline. We rule out sleep disorders by changing habits first,” Sarah explained. “Approach sleep like flying a plane. When it’s time to land, it descends slowly.” Just like you have to turn off and store your computer and phone before the plane lands, the same is true pre-bedtime. This is because blue light emitted from TVs and devices stimulates our brain for up to 2 hours after staring at it. The longer I watch, the later I stay up. It’s also why kids are so off the wall after staring at a device. Time away from the device equals time to calm the mind. “One hour before you want to initiate sleep, turn off the TV, the computer and your phone. Blue light is having so much more neurological impact than you will understand. It is the worst negative influencer on our sleep.” So that’s rule number 1 to getting better sleep habits, no devices 1 hour before bed. She said it’s even better if I don’t bring it into my bedroom at all. But what about using it to wake me?
Buy a cheap alarm clock and don’t look at the time:
Sarah had a clear directive: “Get an alarm clock, like the basic red digital one. You can get them for $10 at Target. And turn the numbers against the wall. This is a really important thing for most people to hear. If your alarm is not going off you don’t need to know what time it is. Most of us have awakenings during the night and the first thing we do is say, “What time is it?” Then you look at your phone and then you start doing panic math in the middle of the night to figure out how much longer you have to sleep, which is reactivating neurological system.”
Don’t Snooze:
The next thing she told me to do if I wanted to get serious about improving my sleep is to put the alarm clock on the other side of the room to lose the opportunity snooze: “When it goes off get up out of bed and turn it off and don’t go back to sleep. Our last hour of sleep is REM. This is the cellular restorative state that keeps us alive and every time you hit snooze you’re pulling yourself up out of REM and then your body spends 9 minutes trying to get back in and then it’s up again when the alarm sounds. So don’t set alarm to build in snooze. Set alarm for the last possible moment you need to get up. It sounds terrible until you try it for 2 or 3 nights and then you feel better.”
Wear a sleep mask:
According to Sarah, “If you make a behavior modification like putting on a sleep mask, the minute you put that on your body is going to start secreting relaxation and sleep hormones because when you put that thing on, your body knows that it’s bedtime. Also, don’t let the light wake you up if you don’t have to. Wear a mask, it will change your sleep health.”
Sarah told me all these little things would add up to good habits that create good sleep adding, “If you have the same routine every night, it becomes a habit. Our bodies are so trainable.” So, I went to Target and got the $10 digital alarm that beeps when it goes off. It is across the room facing the wall. I started turning off the TV and my phone at exactly 10pm in hopes of getting to bed somewhere between 11 and 11:30pm. The 1 hour before bed without a phone has become an adventure. One night I actually folded laundry I’ve been avoiding and another night I read a magazine that’s been on my coffee table forever. It’s kind of delightful thinking of things to do while avoiding blue light.
I leave my phone in another room when I sleep. I haven’t looked at the time if I’ve gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I can’t say I haven’t snoozed at all, but I’m doing it a lot less. What I can say is that I’ve been in bed every night for the last 10 nights well before midnight and I’ve gotten a minimum of 7 hours a night, closer to 8. That last time I did that was when I had mono in high school. It’s a total turnaround for me and I really only did a few simple things, mainly not looking at TV or my phone for an hour before bed and I bought an alarm clock. The rest is willingness. This produced a miracle for me.
The benefits of putting down the phone before the endless social scroll takes over are kind of endless. “When you are more rested every aspect of your life is higher quality. Once you feel rested on a regular basis, other shit doesn’t matter. You could be like ‘Go ahead and have your platters and make your quarantine tiktok’s. Guess what, I’m over here rested, I know I’m doing better than you are.’” That’s when the case for sleep becomes more important than the last glimpse of social.
Beyond that, the knowledge I gained in my 45 minute chat with Sarah was fascinating and also surprising. Like beauty sleep is actually a thing and couples really shouldn’t be sleeping together if they want to be high functioning in the world! Want to know more? Read my full Q&A below!
In honor of Sleep Awareness Week, I partnered with URGO Night to see if I can train my brain for better sleep. URGO Night is the world’s first daytime Sleep Training Program based on neurofeedback technology to train your brain to produce the brainwaves clinically associated with sleep. Learn more HERE and if you try it use code DOUG57 to save $57.
full Q&A with sarah moe:
Doug: Do you think a lot of people are self medicating to sleep – like drinking before bed to “relax and fall asleep”?
Sarah: Alcohol is iffy because it is an antidepressant so if you do have an alcoholic beverage you are going to feel more fatigued but then the problem comes with excessive alcohol consumption, which is 2 or more. Once you start to drink more it fragments our sleep or we’re not getting into the stages of sleep that help us feel rested. So if you have more than one or two drinks to fall asleep, in some way we’re preventing ourselves from being able to feel all of the benefits of sleep. It also becomes habitual. It's more than “it helps me sleep” mentality. When we do our attempt to remove it our sleep is very bad. We very quickly as human beings will feel the ramifications of withdrawal symptoms. It’s a vicious cycle once alcohol becomes involved to help people get to sleep.
Doug: What about sleep aids or sleeping pills?
Sarah: Sleep aids are becoming more advanced in general. There are a lot of over the counter options and there are a lot of prescription ones from your physician. As a sleep expert I am a huge advocate for sleep aids, which a lot of people think is a strange thing to say. If you had a sleep study and you know there is no undiagnosed or untreated sleep disorder or if you have great sleep habits and you still just cannot get good sleep, take a sleep aid. Because the physical ramifications of sleep deprivation are so much more severe than take a sleep aid that could help you get much needed sleep.
Doug: Do we form a dependency on sleep aids?
Sarah: No, but even if you did, sleep depravation and what it’s going to do to your cellular structure is so much worse. Some people are like I don’t want to get addicted to a sleep aid…but it’s literally going to literally keep you alive. You can go longer without food than REM sleep. You can go 11 to 12 days without food as long as you are hydrated. If you go 6 days without REM, you will die. Take the sleep aid.
Doug: Is there anything you recommend OTC?
Sarah: Everyone is so different metabolically, I don’t recommend anything specific as a generalization. It depends on the person.
Doug: How about Melatonin or CBD?
Sarah: Melatonin is not a sleep aid. We don't produce melatonin in our bodies to initiate sleep We produce melatonin to regulate our circadian rhythms. It was marketed in such a way where it's all natural and healthy to take to fall asleep and people have been accidentally interrupting and really restricting their sleeping cycles with melatonin. They say that melatonin is natural because we make it in our bodies but the melatonin that you took from a pill bottle at Target was a drug that was made in the lab. It's a drug and that's not natural.
I find with CBD oil it's a similar marketing practice. CBD oil can be very effective for a percentage of the population. Just because it works for one person doesn't mean that it will work for you based on your own metabolic structure.
The biggest issue we have with sleep education and the General Public is that it’s a constant battle with manufacturers jumping to make money off of people suffering with fatigue.
Doug: What about people who share a bed with someone who has sleep disorders like Sleep Apnea that leads to snoring.
Sarah: I don’t recommend couples sleeping together. I am a huge advocate for separate sleeping spaces. I have said this for years. In fact, we as a culture never slept together. We slept separately for the continued survival of our families. Back in the days when people were farmers or worked in factories, if your family had disrupted sleep and one member of the working or care giving unit was not rested, those are the families that had farm accidents or the kids got sick. Those were the ones who didn’t make it. Sleep is a huge part of what some people call natural selection. The people who were not rested did not make it. That’s all there is to it.
Then in 1968 the Queen Mattress was invented and they marketed it to a way where it was portrayed as you don’t care for your spouse if you’re not going to buy this big bed and sleep with them. People started sleeping together and they realized it’s a problem.
Doug: If you sleep OK but your partner doesn’t, you’re not sleeping OK either.
Sarah: We should not be sleeping together, be romantic and go your own separate ways.
When Sarah says this, she gets mean e mails and tweets. It’s often the people who have sleep apnea or sleep disruptions that don’t want to do anything about it and they take offense. But the bed partners are the ones who suffer, not the ones who have it.
Doug: When my sleep is disrupted and I feel bad and angry. When I get less sleep I’m more wound up, I’m cranky and then I’m supposed to show up and teach workshops on how you can have more energy and be happier.
Sarah: It’s not your fault because there are hormones secreted during sleep that regulate mood stability, so when they are not secreted at the proper times and the proper amounts because you’re not getting good sleep, they are going to be imbalanced.
READ THIS BEAUTY QUEENS: The same with the term beauty sleep. It’s all about hormones. If you have no reason but this to get over your FOMO and needing to go on social before bed, know this: When we sleep our dead skin cells slough off and new ones come up. If you are not getting at least 8 hours of sleep, your body will be producing more stress hormones like cortisol, the hormone that causes lines and belly fat. It will impact your day. You will go into your day with more stress hormone built up, you will go into your day with mood instability.
Leptin and Ghrelin are also hormones secreted during sleep. Improper sleep will cause these hormones to secrete differently as well. When we think about weight fluctuation and sleep impact, if you wake up already unable to control your appetite, we will be craving different foods like Doritos instead of bananas. Even if you find the energy to work out you won’t be burning sufficient calories as if you had good sleep. All of these hormones are regulated during sleep so if nobody’s sleeping properly they are going about their days wondering why can’t I live my life the way I want to. It is seriously the base line. Our sleep is the baseline for everyone else being good.