Ep 18: 25 Ways to Improve Sleep (The Missing Ingredient to Nutrition and Recovery)
Today’s topic may not seem exciting, but it could be the critical missing ingredient to your nutrition and recovery, whether everything else is dialed in or not.
I’m talking about sleep: too little sleep, low quality sleep, irregular sleep, and poor sleep habits.
Many people suffer from insomnia or a sleep disorder, and a lack of sleep can lead to terrible consequences like medical errors and car accidents. A lack of sleep can increase hunger, reduce your metabolism, impair memory, affect hormone balance, and even accelerate aging.
Yet there is hope. In a paper published in 2019 by Vitale et al., called Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations, the authors reviewed the effects of sleep deprivation and extension on athletes to see how applying sleep hygiene methods could improve their performance.
In this episode, I am shamelessly borrowing from their list of sleep hygiene recommendations. First, we talk about the tremendous benefits of improving your sleep, even just a little bit. Then, I review the list of 25 ways to improve sleep recommended by the authors, sharing some of my personal anecdotes and strategies along the way.
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Transcript
This podcast was transcribed automatically, so please forgive any errors or typos.
[00:00:00] Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, for busy professionals who want to get strong and healthy with strength training and a sustainable diet. I’m your host, Philip Pape, and in each episode, we’ll examine strategies to help you achieve physical self-mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent lifting and nutrition.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 18 of Wits & Weights today's topic may not seem exciting, but it could be the critical missing ingredient to your nutrition and recovery, whether everything else is dialed in or not. I'm talking about sleep. Too little sleep, low quality sleep, irregular sleep, and poor sleep habits.
[00:00:54] Many people suffer from insomnia or sleep disorders, and a lack of sleep can lead to terrible consequences like medical errors and car acts. Uh, lack of sleep can increase hunger, reduce your metabolism, impair memory, affect hormone balance, and even accelerate aging. Yet there is hope in a paper published in 2019 by Vitaly at all called sleep hygiene for optimizing recovery in athletes review and recommendations.
[00:01:23] The authors reviewed the effects of sleep deprivation and extension on athletes to see how applying sleep hygiene methods could improve their. In this episode, I am shamelessly borrowing from their list of sleep hygiene recommendations. First, we talk about the tremendous benefits of improving your sleep even just a little bit.
[00:01:44] And then I'm going to review the list of 25 ways to improve sleep recommended by the authors, sharing some of my personal anecdotes and strategies along the way.
[00:02:03] Sleep is more beneficial than you could even imagine. According to the paper that I referenced earlier by Vitaly at all sleep deprivation can negatively affect quote, reaction, time, accuracy, vigor, submaximal strength and endurance in quote and quote, cognitive function such as judgment. And decision-making.
[00:02:24] And conversely, getting more sleep can improve reaction times, mood, sprint times tennis serve accuracy, swim turns, kicks, stroke efficiency, and increased free throw, and three point accuracy. Now I realize some of these are very specific, but you get the idea. Furthermore, more sleep can reduce chronic stress levels and prevent a spike in cortisol.
[00:02:50] The.
[00:02:59] Cortisol being the stress hormone, too little sleep can disrupt your regular cortisol pattern and having low cortisol during sleep is critical to Siler repair. That's one reason you can feel extremely fatigued when you don't sleep at night. Uh, lack of sleep can impede performance and recovery because it adds an additional stressor and even sleeping too often.
[00:03:23] So this goes back to sleep quality and sleep quantity can reduce estrogen, throwing off hormone balance, both in men and. Don't discount the impact of being in a caloric deficit. So when you're trying to lose weight, you're in a deficit, you could experience metabolic adaptation that along with the under eating negatively affect sleep and sleep quality, which then just requires you to prioritize the sleep even further.
[00:03:57] Now, before I get into the detailed list of sleep hygiene recommendations, because it's a long list, but I think there's a lot of great things you can try in there before I overwhelm you with that. I wanted to take a step back and just talk about habits, mindset. When it comes to sleep. My recommendation is simply to change one thing from this list that you're not doing today and give it maybe two weeks, see how it affects.
[00:04:25] If things improve, then that's great. If they don't, maybe you try something different. I think that's a, maybe a more appropriate approach for most people than to try five or 10 of these things all at once. Because first of all, it will be hard to. That many new habits. And secondly, it would be hard to tell which one of them had the biggest impact.
[00:04:46] Now, what we really care about the most is sleep quality, which is your ability to fall asleep and stay there throughout the night. Particularly getting enough deep sleep early on, there are trackers for these. Like, I have an aura ring that I wear on my index. And it tracks things like heart rate variability, but also my cycles of sleep deep sleep REM sleep.
[00:05:17] Sometimes we talk a lot about quantity and quantity is definitely a good thing. If you only get five hours of sleep every night increasing to six or seven can make a huge difference, but there's also the quality of the things you're doing throughout the day. The various hygiene habits that enabled the sleep itself to be of a high quality, even if it isn't as much as you possibly could get.
[00:05:39] Now I'm going to go through the long list and we're going to start with the first 10, which are they consider the top 10 recommendations. And the source that's credited is the UCS D center for pulmonary and sleep medicine, patient information handout. So this isn't something you couldn't just Google, but I'm compiling it all here into one episode.
[00:06:02] Hopefully you find it helpful and you can try one of those. Over the next couple of weeks as a new habit and see if it improves your sleep. All right. Number one, don't go to bed until you're sleepy. Sounds obvious, but if you're not sleeping and you try to go to bed, then. You may have trouble getting to sleep.
[00:06:21] So it's this vicious cycle. Simply wait until you are sleeping. Now there's other things we're going to talk about that can affect whether you're sleepy, like blue light, you know, doing too much activity right before bed, eating big meals, things like that, but don't go to bed. Tears, sleepy. Number two, having a ritual or routine can help you relax.
[00:06:44] This can help you prepare just like any other habit. It becomes a part of who you are for me. This is reading. I like to read. Maybe 20 minutes before I fall asleep, it helps me get to sleep. It sort of slows my mind down, even though it is reading, it's not as stimulating as for example, watching TV.
[00:07:05] Another technique is to take a warm bath as a bedtime routine or a warm shower instead of showering in the morning, maybe shower before you go to bed and maybe some sort of meditation routine, number three. Keep a consistent schedule get up at the same time every day, including weekends and holidays. I know this can be difficult.
[00:07:27] I, for one, like to get up very early on the weekdays that I work out and not as early on the days that I don't, but the spread is maybe only a half hour. And I think that. Good enough for most people just try not to get up at five in the morning on weekdays and then nine in the morning on weekends. Try to keep the same schedule.
[00:07:46] Number four, try to get a full night's sleep every night and avoid naps during the day. If possible. Now this one was interesting to me because I've also heard that taking maybe a 45 minute nap between say one and 3:00 PM could be helpful. To recovery, if you didn't get enough sleep the night before. And I think that still might be the case for some people, but the idea here is if you're trying to be consistent, get a full night's sleep every night so that you don't have to try to take a nap and definitely don't nap late in the day after 3:00 PM.
[00:08:23] Number five, use your bed for two activities and only two activities sleep. Intimacy, don't use them to watch TV, to work on your computer, to use your phone. And my only exception of this personally is I like to read. In the bed as I'm falling asleep versus outside the bed and then get into bed to me, it helps me wind down, but the idea here is stay off all the devices, anything stimulating, use your bed for what it's intended for and nothing more.
[00:08:56] Number six. Avoid caffeine, if possible. Now this is going to be very hard for us who lift. We like caffeine is a stimulant. So the exception to this is if you must use caffeine, avoid it after lunch avoided after say one or 2:00 PM because of the half-life of the calf. And getting it metabolized in your system, you should be fine by bedtime, but if you drink soda or coffee, any form of caffeine after two or three, especially around dinnertime or later, it can really disrupt your sleep.
[00:09:26] And by the way, I personally incorporated this habit maybe a month ago, I used to have a diet soda late in the afternoon, as I was getting a little bit tired from the Workday. And I stopped doing that. I switched to either seltzer, water, water, or caffeine free. Soda so that I stopped drinking caffeine around 2:00 PM and it did make a difference.
[00:09:47] I started having more restful sleep. Number seven, avoid alcohol, if possible, again, just like caffeine. It can disrupt your sleep. So if you must drink alcohol, then avoid drinking it really close to bed. This is not as restrictive as caffeine. You can still have a glass of wine or beer with your dinner to stone.
[00:10:07] Have it right before bed. Number eight. Don't smoke cigarettes or use nicotine ever. There's not much to say about this from a health perspective should be obvious by now we know better. Don't use it in fact, sleep as well as everything else that affects negatively. Number nine. Consider avoiding high intensity exercise right before bed, because it can increase your cortisol, which impairs sleep.
[00:10:36] Now high intensity exercise may be different than say a lifting session. 5:00 PM. So there are recommendations that if you have an issue with cortisol, shifting your workout from early in the morning, when your cortisol levels are high to the afternoon, when they're starting to come down is actually a good strategy for cortisol and for sleep.
[00:11:00] But this recommendation is to avoid high-intensity exercise right before bed. So I just want to be clear at the end of the day, though, if the only time you can exercise is close to. And you're still feel like you get adequate sleep. And the alternative is you wouldn't exercise at all. I'd rather you be consistent and do something that works for you and exercise when it makes sense.
[00:11:22] And then number 10 of the top 10 out of the full list of 25, make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark and cool. It says here, quote, unquote, similar to a. So there's a few things wrapped up in this one. This one suggestion, the quiet part of it just means you don't want to have honking horns, dogs, barking, car alarms, things like that, going off, not everyone can help.
[00:11:49] Where do they live? So considered that you might need earmuffs or earplugs to make it quiet. The dark as possible part is avoid. Light disrupting your sleep pattern of cortisol, especially blue light or big nightlights. I know in our bedroom, we have the computer router off in the corner that has some annoyingly, bright LEDs.
[00:12:11] So I covered them in tape. I also use orange. An orange light bulb in my nightstand light so that when I'm reading, I don't have any blue light. And then here's the kicker. This is a habit. I just started a few weeks ago. I wear a sleep mask. I know it sounds a little odd, but I suggest you try it. If you've got any light bleeding into your room and you can't use blackout curtains, for example, or let's say your spouse, doesn't like blackout curtains, try a very lightweight sleep mask.
[00:12:44] Covers your eyes and the area around your eyes, you get used to it pretty quickly, and you might find you get a more restful sleep that way. And then the third part of this number 10 suggestion is. Being on the cool side rather than the warm side. So this is temperature. And I understand if, if you've got a partner that she, and you may have different levels of what you consider cool and warm, you could always get special blankets or mats that contains change the temper.
[00:13:12] Or just make sure to set your thermostat to go low saves energy. Well, it saves energy in dirt, in the north, during the winter, I guess during the summer you can use fans, things like that. So just make sure it's on the cool side. Hey guys, I just wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast. If you find it valuable, you'd be doing me a huge favor by sharing it on social media.
[00:13:33] Just take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram story or Facebook, please tag me so I can personally. And we can talk about what you found helpful and how I can improve again, an incredible thank you for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Moving on to the last 15 on this list, which are considered other tips and tricks for healthy sleep hygiene, we have number one, avoid blue or.
[00:14:00] Emitted from screens at least two hours before bed. So this would be your smartphone, your laptop monitors for a computer television, blue light suppresses melatonin, which you need to. Go to sleep. The worst thing you could do is be on your phone, text messaging, you browsing social media, playing games, using apps, all of this stuff, even watching TV right before bed and a two hour window might seem long, but this is where having an evening ritual to take that space can really help improve your sleep quality.
[00:14:36] Number two, get bright, natural. If possible the sun to wake you up. Now, the sun is ideal, but I get up at five 30 in the morning to work out. This time of year, the sun is starting to come up, but throughout the long dark winter, I actually use a smart bulb in my nightstand that starts to gradually Brighton to a normal sunlight type of bright white to coincide with my, the time I need to wake up.
[00:15:07] So the other suggestion here is eight, 10,000 Lux lamp to give you. Look, there are special lamps you could buy just for that purpose that having a built in alarm. Think about it. If you can't wake up to the sun and you wake up early, when it's dark, think about getting a special device that. Give you simulated sunlight, number three.
[00:15:27] And you probably have heard this one, many times before don't hit the snooze button and I'm guilty of this as well. I know I am. This, this is probably the next habit I need to break. Don't hit the snooze button. It doesn't improve your sleep quality to get the extra 10 minutes, especially if you do it over and over again, you might as well just get that extra time to sleep.
[00:15:46] And then. One trick that I've heard is just to put your alarm clock, your phone, whatever. On the other side of the room, forcing you to get out of bed to turn the darn thing off. Number four, if you have trouble waking up. So this is tied into number three, about the snooze button. If you have trouble, some people suggest using a Dawn simulator alarm clock, which is redundant with number two, I'm realizing now, but good to reiterate it.
[00:16:12] Number five, if you must use your computer at. Think about putting a color adjusting or blue light reducing software on it, or now here's the one I like where blue light blocking glasses. This is another habit I also recently incorporated. And I know it sounds like I'm doing a lot of these things. I did them over.
[00:16:33] I did them for a few weeks. Then I added something else that I added something else. I wear blue light blocking glasses, about two hours before I go to bed, I might wear it to watch TV. And then as I'm getting ready for bed, and then as I'm reading, I'm wearing those blue blocking glasses also on your computer.
[00:16:51] If you have, for example, a windows computer, you could turn on, I think it's called nightlight and you could do it earlier in the evening to get you ready. Your smartphone should have a night shift or similar feature. All of these tools can help you block out the blue light. Before we go to bed, number six, consider meditation some sort of relaxing mind based ritual.
[00:17:15] Now there's a mention in here of brainwave entrainment, such as binaural beats, and that's considered experimental in terms of helping you go to. I'm actually not sure what that is and I'm not going to look it up right now. Um, consider that a homework assignment. If you're interested, it's called brainwave entrainment.
[00:17:33] But anyway, the general recommendation here is meditation. Find some way to meditate. It could be helpful. Number seven, higher carbs, especially high-glycemic carbs at night can improve your sleep. And this is true. Sometimes people are in a low carb. They have trouble with their cortisol and adding your carbs helps break that pattern and can improve your sleep.
[00:17:55] Now they said also high protein, including trip to fan could help sleep. Whereas high fat intake at night can disrupt sleep. And this is all consistent with the nutrition airy advice. I tend to give people which is have a carbon protein meal or snack. If you're going to have something later. And limit the fats, a corollary to this is that if you don't get enough calories during the day, you may have also trouble sleeping at night.
[00:18:22] And this goes back to what I mentioned in the introduction that when you're in a caloric deficit trying to lose weight, and you've got that hunger and you're not eating as much, that also can cause you to have trouble sleeping. So this is where you might want to play around with the timing and shift some calories to right before.
[00:18:39] And it may be it's something as simple as a casein protein shake or a casing pudding mixture with almond milk. Number eight, topical or oral magnesium can help. If you are deficient by topical, they mean a salt bath or a topical mineral oil. And by oral, they mean a supplement. Now I also started taking magnesium recently, specifically magnesium.
[00:19:03] Glycinate. I think it's how it's pronounced, which is considered a highly bio available version of magnesium. And I take that with dinner because I've learned that it also can help you relax and get ready for bed, which then leads me to number nine, melatonin naturally occurring in foods, tart cherry juice, raspberries, goji, berries.
[00:19:28] Wow. Almonds tomatoes may improve sleep, but they recommend avoiding artificial melatonin supplements. Some people will say, there's no problem with those with taking melatonin. I don't do it myself, but I know it can work for some people. And there's always a prescription for individuals based on their unique circumstance, but melatonin, we know helps us sleep one way or the other.
[00:19:53] If you can get it from food, that's a good way to do it. Number 10, don't fall asleep to your. This kind of ties into the whole blue light and device thing, and that you shouldn't be watching TV in bed anyway, even if you're on the couch and it's late at night, don't just keep watching the TV mindlessly until you fall asleep.
[00:20:11] The sleep studies support that when you do this, you wake up multiple times during the night, and then this is juices, sleep quality. Number 11. Herbal supplements, which are not regulated, can cost side effects, which may impact your sleep. Let alone result in banned substance tests and failures for athletes.
[00:20:32] If they're on the prohibited list, but in general, just be aware of what you're taking and be aware if it could possibly impact your sleep. Number 12. Consider reducing your fluid intake before we go to bed. Just so you don't have to get up to go to the bathroom. This is a really important one. I like to drink throughout the day.
[00:20:49] I drink lots of water. Maybe I'll have some tea or diet soda. And sometimes I'm not thinking about when I'm drinking and I'll have a big glass of water at 8:30 PM. 9:00 PM. Well, for sure, given that I'm in my forties, now that will make me have to get up in the middle of the night one time, at least. So if you want to avoid that, if you want to have continuously through the night, stop drinking at a certain point that you know, works for you, as long as you're hydrated enough to prevent you from getting up in the.
[00:21:20] Okay, we're getting close to the end of the list here. Number 13, cooling your body temperature can help improve sleep. Now we talked about keeping the room cool already between 60 and 70 degrees, but keeping your hands and feet warm in the winter with socks or gloves can also help improve sleep. Number 14, they recommend checking your mattress.
[00:21:43] If your mattress is too old and, and the lifetime of mattress is supposed to be around 10 years. It may have allergens. Any allergens can disrupt your sleep, especially if you're particularly sensitive to allergens. So think about your mattress and hygiene in that, from that perspective, if it's clean, if it's been rotated, if it's too old, these could affect your sleep.
[00:22:01] And then the last item on the list. Number 15. Recovery from exercise, from training, isn't just about muscle repair. It's also about mental fatigue, reducing external stressors, and all of these things are tied in very closely to better quality. All right. That's all I have for you. I only have those 25 items to consider a lot of great stuff in there.
[00:22:29] A lot of great techniques, just to recap the things that I do personally, that have worked really well and are simple to. One is having a sleep mask to make it dark. Number two is to use blue blocking glasses. Number three is to avoid caffeine later in the day. Number four is to consider orange light bulbs in your bedroom.
[00:22:54] As you're getting ready for bed. Number five is to think about your supplementation. Something like magnesium. If you're deficient taking it close to bedtime could be. And number six, try not to use the snooze and think about an alarm that can wake you up similar to the sun or a time waking up with the sun.
[00:23:14] I hope these were helpful. I hope you can take at least one of these implemented right away, implement it to night. See how you fare over the next days and the coming few weeks, and then either jettison. And if it doesn't work. Or add something else and keep improving step by step. That's how we improve our sleep, improve our recovery, which translates to our nutrition.
[00:23:37] Our hormones are lifting our performance, everything holistically ties in to sleep. And that's why I call it the missing ingredient to nutrition and recovery.
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