Power Down for Better Sleep
Power Down for Better Sleep
Lynn Taylor has a bad habit of sending emails at all hours of the night … at 11:45 p.m., then 12:29 a.m., and even as late as 2:23 a.m. When the rest of the world is checked out, Taylor is plugged in. “I spend my day thinking of emails I need to send, and the only time I can catch up is after hours,” says Taylor, 36, a government affairs executive in Washington, D.C.
Whether it’s email, a video game, the Web, or TV, electronic devices and their offerings keep millions of Americans like Taylor connected 24/7. But the price for leading our fully wired lives is high: These diversions can keep us from both falling asleep and sleeping well.
“One of the most simple but important reasons technology affects our sleep is cognitive stimulation,” says Mark Rosekind, PhD, former director of the Fatigue Countermeasures Program at the NASA Ames Research Center and president and chief scientist at the scientific consulting firm Alertness Solutions.
As your brain revs up, its electrical activity increases and neurons start to race — the exact opposite of what should be happening before sleep. A second reason has to do with your body: The physical act of responding to a video game or even an email makes your body tense, explains Rosekind. As you get stressed, your body can go into a “fight or flight” response, and as a result, cortisol, a stress hormone produced by the adrenal gland, is released, creating a situation hardly conducive to sleep.
That “glow” from electronics is also at work against quality shuteye. The small amounts of light from these devices pass through the retina into a part of the hypothalamus (the area of the brain that controls several sleep activities) and delay the release of the sleep-inducing hormone, melatonin.
All together, our wired way of winding down at night means we’re sleeping less and less. “As you stay up later on a consistent basis, you readjust your internal clock, and delayed sleep phase syndrome sets in,” says Rosekind. “Now, your body physically can’t fall asleep until that new, set time, whether it’s midnight or 2 a.m.”
The No. 1 way to get better sleep: Turn off the technology, especially in the sanctity of your bedroom
Slumber, Unplugged
Unwind before bedtime. Have a transition period, about 15 to 30 minutes, of technology-free time before you go into your bedroom for sleep.
Shut down your bedroom. Make where you sleep an electronic-free zone. According to AOL’s third annual “Email Addiction” survey, more than 40% of 4,000 respondents have checked email in the middle of the night. Put caps over your electric outlets to discourage plugging in for a recharge.
Disconnect your kids. A TV in your child’s bedroom has a negative effect on sleep quality. Give him or her a relaxing book to read before bed instead of the remote.
Nix the Nightcap for Better Sleep?
Joanne Brucker, 47, grew up with European parents, who considered it traditional to drink wine with dinner each night. But eventually she noticed her nightly quaffing was interfering with her slumber. “I tried to keep it up,” she says, “but anything more than two glasses definitely kept me from falling asleep. Why does alcohol before bedtime affect me so much?”
Simply put, alcohol makes it hard for you to stay asleep and sleep well, says J. Todd Arnedt, PhD, clinical assistant professor at the Sleep and Chronophysiology Laboratory at the University of Michigan.
Still, the nightcap has quite a following: Up to 15% of people use alcohol to seduce the sandman, large-scale surveys show, even though research suggests that it loses any benefit as a sleep aid within just a few days, Arnedt says. After a few nights of regular imbibing, your body builds up a tolerance to alcohol’s effects.
A larger dose than usual will put you out like a light, of course. However, according to Arnedt, this type of slumber steals from the sleep you would normally get early on in your nightly cycle (called dream sleep). Hours later, when your body has mostly metabolized the alcohol, your sleep becomes fragmented, and you’re prone to frequent wakings (often to hit the bathroom).
You may also struggle with snoring, night sweats, nightmares, headaches, and insomnia. And if you suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, be extremely careful when mixing sleep with alcohol. Because alcohol is a muscle relaxant, the muscles at the back of your throat ease even more than usual, causing extra-severe symptoms and even (though rarely) potential death. Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that men, especially, have longer episodes of sleep-disordered- breathing after drinking alcohol.
Then, there’s the morning after. If you’ve indulged a bit too much the night before, don’t be surprised if you wake up dehydrated and sleep-deprived. And if you’ve stayed up later than usual, you’ll likely feel even worse.
Brucker no longer drinks wine every night. “It ruins my sleep and gives me pounding headaches,” she says. “So I save wine for nights when I go out. When I do have a glass at a restaurant predinner, I actually enjoy it more.”
If you do want to savor a little wine with your dinner, here’s how to make sure alcohol won’t hamper your shut-eye that night:
Follow the three-hour rule. Finish drinking at least three hours before bedtime.
Take it easy. Don’t overdo your imbibing — stick with one or two drinks per day.
Retire early. Try not to stay up too much past your usual bedtime — this only increases alcohol’s sleep-depriving effects.
Hydrate. Follow the one-for-one rule: Drink one glass of water for every glass of alcohol to help prevent dehydration. And down a few extra glasses of water the next morning, too.