Extra Win: A good night's sleep
Wellness, somewhat deinfluenced. Part one of five
There’s a lot of advice out there about how to improve your life. Too much. And a large proportion of it — whilst sounding good — ends up being unsatisfactory because it either isn’t practical, isn’t accessible or isn’t easy enough to keep up.
A lot of it also sets us up with unrealistic expectations that only lead to one thing: more anxiety — and I don’t know about you but when my anxiety goes up, productivity goes down.
So over the next couple of months, I’m going to share a five-part realistic, very human guide to enhancing your wellbeing across some of life’s key pillars: sleep, food, movement, home and work. Based on a whole lot of trial and error on my side.
This is not about big transformations — I’m simply going to share small, easy-to-implement changes (small wins!) that will make a difference (at leastm they have in my life) without requiring some gargantuan effort on your part.
I appreciate that there is a lot of noise out there about wellness — but I hope that this series will cut through that noise rather than adding to it. I suspect that most of us want to feel well… we just don’t want the process to feel stressful or devoid of joy.
Love,
Alexina
Coming up — tomorrow, it’s Vegetarian Cooking 101 (for paid subscribers) and next week, the best chocolate sauce happens to be vegan (small win #15 - for all!). The next part of this wellbeing series will land on 25th Jan and will be about easy ways to nourish our bodies better.
A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
The foundation to a good day is arguably a good night’s sleep.
Sleep underpins all aspects of health: if you are, on average, getting decent sleep, that is probably going to help you with your executive functioning, your emotions, your relationships, your productivity and your physical health — essentially, your life.
The concept of ‘sleep hygiene’ (terrible term) has been rammed down our throats the last few years. As a result, many of us are probably familiar with the long list of things that we’re supposed to do every single day:
go to bed at the same time
wake at the same time
sleep in a dark room
sleep in a cold room
no coffee after 7am (or whatever it is)
no looking at your phone before bed
get morning light into your eyes
get evening light into your eyes
Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
The problem is this: I simply don’t have the mental capacity to fight myself every day to try and achieve the so-called perfect sleep routine that the likes of Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss (etc.) regularly shout about.
I’m sure the scientific studies that suggest that these habits have some bearing on your sleep quality aren’t wrong… But I’m also fairly sure that they are not so helpful in the real world when we’re dealing with the average busy, lazy person (hello, it’s me).
One thing the productivity gurus do talk about, though, is the effect of your environment. The messaging is often buried in and amongst a litany of other advice — but it’s there. And it’s the buried gold in this whole productivity-wellbeing matrix.
Motivation and discipline are overrated (we are animals, remember). So give up on trying to generate motivation where there is none, and stop fighting against yourself to become more disciplined if that’s just not you — instead, just hack your environment.
Below is a list of 6 almost-effortless changes that can instantly make a difference to your sleep — and help you to implement some of the good sleep habits above without the daily willpower struggle.
Let’s get into it.
1 - Never experience another unpleasant wake-up
You know those mornings where you get jolted violently awake by your alarm? It’s like you were resting deep underground, peaceful and snug, and suddenly you’ve been snatched up by some invisible hand and exposed to an assault of light and sound?
I haven’t had a wake-up like that in 5 years.
First step: stop using your phone as an alarm. Please. It’s counterproductive to good sleep in three ways:
It requires you to have your phone in your room overnight
It ensures that the first thing you look at in the morning is your phone
It’s just a horrible way to wake up
Second step: get yourself a radio alarm. Seriously. Do it now. And set your alarm to BBC Radio 4.
A radio alarm means you can leave your phone outside of your bedroom (or even turn it off overnight). But more than that, a radio alarm set to BBC Radio 4 will never wake you violently ever again. Because waking up to human beings talking is the most natural wake-up in the world.
I’ve had this radio alarm for years, but obviously buy whichever floats your boat. Just please try it: doing this changed my mornings.
2 - Treat yourself like a toddler
I don’t know if anyone else struggles with leaving their phone outside of their room overnight but it was something that I battled with myself over for years.
Getting a radio alarm helped, but even so, I would plug my phone in next to my bed to charge it and no matter how much I knew that I shouldn’t do that, I just couldn’t break the habit.
If you’ve ever read James Clear’s Atomic Habits (or learnt about habit theory in general), you’ll know of his 4-step framework for encouraging good habits (or discouraging bad ones):
Make it obvious (/invisible)
Make it attractive (/unattractive)
Make it easy (/hard)
Make it satisfying (/unsatisfying)
And look, it’s useful to know the whole framework, it is. But when it comes to breaking a bad habit, all you really need to remember is this:
make it hard
This is the one step that doesn’t depend on your willpower, or your mood, or remembering to do something, and so it’s necessarily the step with the highest success rate.
How did I stop myself from plugging my phone in beside my bed every night?
I blocked the socket.
I bought those socket covers that you can get to protect toddlers from getting electrocuted — except, in this case, it was simply a matter of protecting me from myself.
I’ve never plugged my phone in beside my bed since.
I probably should be embarrassed to admit that I am too lazy to faff about with removing the plug cover… but in reality I am thrilled: because who knew it could be that easy?!
3 - Do as the Scandinavians do
When was the last time you contemplated your duvet?
I feel like it’s the kind of purchase that you make once — and give some thought to at that point — but then you never think of it again. It becomes a default, invisible part of your home.
But it might make more of a difference to our sleep than we realise.
During Easter of last year I stayed with my family for a couple of weeks. And I slept terribly. It wasn’t that the mattress was bad — it was the exact same one that I have at home — and it wasn’t that the room wasn’t nice (on the contrary: it was lovely!). But for some reason, I was waking up every single day feeling unrested and one of the issues I was having was with temperature. I was struggling to get warm enough when going to bed, but then frequently overheating during the night, and ultimately waking up in the morning feeling sweaty and horrible.
At my family’s house I was sleeping under a synthetic duvet, whilst at home I have a silk-filled one — one I had bought so many years ago that, to be honest, I had forgotten what it was even supposed to achieve. It had simply become ‘my duvet’.
In the midst of these unsatisfactory nights, however, I wondered if the duvet was the thing making a difference. So I picked up my silk-filled duvet from home and tried it that night… guys, it was transformative. I had no more issues with sleep for the rest of my stay.
All of this to say: if you are struggling with your sleep (particularly if you have a sense that it’s down to temperature and/or allergies) and you have a synthetic duvet, consider opting for one made of natural materials. This could be a down-filled duvet or a silk-filled one, as I have (I bought mine from GingerLily).
Down duvets feel more plush, whilst silk-filled duvets are thinner and a bit weightier. Where silk-filled duvets come into their own; however, is when it comes to temperature regulation (there is no better material for this) and allergies (silk is naturally hypoallerginic and resistant to dust mites). Admittedly silk-filled duvets aren’t cheap but IKEA do a range of wool-filled ones that have similar temperature regulating properties (not so much the hypoallergenic side of things though). Their down and feather range are great value also.
But that’s not all.
When I was in Norway over the summer I discovered that double and king-sized duvets are just not a thing there. Instead, all double beds have two single duvets. This didn’t register much at first — I just thought it was a cute Scandi quirk — until I shared a double bed with my friend and realised that it made all the difference.
When I looked into this more, it turned out to be part of the ‘Scandinavian sleep method’ and was entirely consistent with Scandis’ love of personal space. Case in point:
With separate duvets, each person gets their own individual cocoon. They get to choose the material and weight of the duvet that suits them best. It is a no-brainer — and something worth considering if you don’t particularly enjoy sharing a bed (guilty).
4 - Blackout
I’m not sure any of us can argue with the notion that we should all sleep in a dark room. The problem is that you can’t travel with your blackout blinds. And you can’t turn the bedside lamp off if your partner’s reading.
The solution to this isn’t revolutionary, or new: it’s a sleep mask.
A sleep mask can go wherever you go. If you get the right one they are also super comfortable (comforting, even).
What people don’t tell you about a sleep mask is that if you wear it every day it becomes a signal to your body that it’s time to go to sleep: I find that I typically doze off in a couple of minutes once I’ve put mine on.
I’ve not tried lots of different sleep masks — I’ve always gone for silk ones, since they are soft and gentle on your eyes, good for your skin, hypoallergenic and temperature-regulating. But a couple of years ago I did switch from a classic eye mask to one of those big, squishy, cloud-like ones sold by Drowsy.
It wasn’t love at first sleep — it took me a while to get used to it — but now that I have, well, it’s a love sure to endure. I cannot convey how soft, and snuggly, and deeply comforting this sleep mask is. Plus, it’s 100% blackout.
And although wearing the Drowsy sleep mask is never going to be a knockout look in bed, they do sell it in different colours at least — so there’s that.
5 - A routine for nights when you need good sleep
Not every night can be a great night. And most of us don’t have time to carry out an elaborate pre-bed routine every day. But when I want to be sure I’m going to get a good night’s sleep, these 3 things typically have me waking up feeling deeply rested the next morning:
Avoiding caffeine and alcohol that day.
Bathing with plenty of epsom salts (2 to 4 cups) just before bed — don’t skimp.
The huge hit of magnesium that you get from the salts does a good job of making you sleepy, but I think the extent to which it makes your muscles relax is what results in that yummy, rested feeling the next day.
Reading a book in bed
A surefire way to get your mind to slow down, and help you to doze off quickly.
It should go without saying that your lights should also be dimmed as soon as the sun goes down.
6 - Let it go
I know. You’re thinking has she really just shared a whole newsletter about sleep only to end with ‘don’t sweat it’?
Hear me out.
All the changes that I’ve proposed above are ones that I think will improve your sleep with very little effort from you — a lot of them are a one-and-done situation, don’t require consistent willpower on your part or at least minimise the need for willpower in your day-to-day.
You can get obsessive with trying to reach some kind of perfect sleep track record but stressing out about sleep is probably going to be counterproductive. The reality is that you’re going to have good and bad nights, good and bad weeks. Having realistic expectations is half the battle.
Also, I don’t care what the science says, I suspect our amazing bodies were designed to be able to cope without perfectly consistent sleep patterns...
So make the changes that you can, and aim to do the right things for your sleep on average, but don’t fixate on each individual night of sleep as if it’s going to affect your life expectancy. Don’t pull your hair out over the mounting sleep debt being flashed at you by your fitness tracker (I’m not sure I’m on board with the long-term use of fitness trackers — anyone else?). Just pay attention to how you feel, try and get at least 7 hours a night (again, on average) and do your best in a relaxed, laissez-faire sort of way.
Oh, and make your bed every day. Capiche?
FOOTNOTES + FURTHER INFO
If you are interested in reading/learning more about sleep then Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep is a great place to start.
This is my eye mask and this is my radio alarm. These are the plug protectors I bought (I found them to be the best-looking).
For when you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but don’t want to risk stubbing your toe in the dark, nor waking yourself up by switching on the overhead lights, you must, must get these utterly brilliant Eufy lights. They turn on for 20 seconds when they detect motion and can gently guide your way when it’s pitch black. One of the best things I’ve ever bought.
For more on the Scandinavian sleep method, check out this video:
You are so right about the not-phone alarm...I must resolve this!
I had a radio alarm that was set to Radio 4 for years, but then it broke and since then I've used my phone. You are right, I must find a replacement. The other thing that I've found helpful is the mediaeval concept of the "second sleep" - that our sleep cycles mean we may wake up in the night, then go back to sleep again, and that this is natural and ok. Absolves the insomniac guilt.