2: Prioritising Sleep
In order of priority, when thinking about effects on health, it perhaps makes sense to improve things in this order:
Sleep (since it affects our actions in the day so much)
Food (since it affects our training so much)
Exercise
So I have been thinking again about sleep. I want to get this in order before moving on to nutrition and training.
I re-read a digest of sleep research and have made myself another daily tick-list. I am not kidding myself that I will stick to these lists forever but want to use them as a tool for a short period to try to engrain the habits I want.
Based on the research, here’s what I intend to do:
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, including weekends. The earliest start I need to have for work in the week is 06:30 on Fridays, so I’m going to try to wake up at this time each day.
This means that I should probably be going to bed between 21:30 and 23:30. To determine this, I will begin at 8 hours (22:30) and then adjust my bedtime until I am waking up naturally 5-10 minutes before my alarm.
I will make sure the bedroom is dark, quiet and cool.
I already spend most of the day with my phone in a box in the dining room, so no need to be strict about not having electronics in the bedroom - we originally repurposed an old bread box to keep all the chargers and ugly stuff in and now I just leave the phone in there most of the time, especially since working from home.
Finish supper three hours before bed (19:30 if I’m sleeping at 22:30).
Try to reduce the use of electric lights in the evening.
Develop a consistent pre-bed ritual that begins an hour before I want to go to sleep. At the moment this consists of:
Tidying up and making sure the bedroom is tidy
A bit of light exercise (some stretching and physio-like strengthening of weak bits, though yesterday I did a guided lying meditation from Kit Laughlin)
A warm shower, finishing with a brief cold shower if I’m feeling like it (apparently the drop in body temperature helps us feel sleepy)
Reading in bed
I did it yesterday and slept well. I don’t sleep particularly poorly but am interested to see how approaching sleep with the same intention as I approach training could feel.
One thing that I really noticed last night was how different the house felt just from keeping it naturally dark in the evening - just using small lamps and candles rather than ceiling lights. It was quite magical, and made the space feel very different to how it does in the daytime. I really appreciated this because otherwise working from home can feel quite claustrophobic and samey.