Sleep Better to Feel Better: Helping Your Body Help You

As finals season approaches and the temptation increases to cram information until the early hours of the morning, I encourage you to take a deep breath and bring some awareness to your body. Notice how you’re feeling. Are you waking up already feeling tired? Are you living with a constant stuffy nose? Do your shoulders tense at every corner, ready to deal with the next stress-filled item on your to-do list? 

These symptoms could stem from any number of things, but a pretty good place to start if you’re trying to focus on your physical or mental health is to look at your sleep patterns. This includes not only how long you’re sleeping, but also the quality of your sleep. It might seem too simple or silly, but it makes sense when you understand how much of the body’s systems rely on adequate and good quality sleep. Poor sleep can raise your risk for long-term health problems, as well as affect your circulatory system, metabolism, respiratory system, and immune system. These are all important systems in the body, and if they aren’t operating properly, your brain will have to spend more energy repairing and focusing on those systems. After all, there’s only so much the brain can focus on at one time.

The brain is one of the most important and complex organs in the body and is hugely affected by sleep. Sleep prepares your brain to learn, remember, and create. This is especially important to remember as college students. If we expect our brains to take in all of the information we feed it every day, a constant flow of retaining and understanding new things, we must also give it what it requires in terms of reparation. Aside from the expectations there are in college, it is crucial to every aspect of our lives to be able to learn, remember, and create things effectively. From relationships to personal enjoyment, our lives will feel better if our brains and our bodies are in the best condition they can be in.

Some proven benefits of getting enough sleep are getting sick less often, lowering the risk for serious health problems, reducing stress, improving mood, thinking more clearly, better formation of long-term memories, making better decisions and avoiding injuries, and even just getting along with other people better. With this list, we see that sleep has the potential to improve our lives in so many ways. All of this is to say that sleep plays a much larger role in our physical and mental health than we often remember. If you notice yourself feeling a little more run down than usual, in a constant cycle of sickness, or even feeling mentally foggy, check in with yourself and see if you’ve really been allowing your body the rest and restoration time that it needs. Taking care of yourself and your body is the best thing you can do in stressful times, whether it’s exam season or any other season of your life.

So we know how important sleep is for you, and why you should think about your own sleep, but how do you actually improve sleep? Maybe it feels a little daunting, or even feels like just another thing you have to worry about, but remember that every effort counts. Even if you don’t get it perfect every day, it only matters that you try. Just like everything else in life, practice is key, so don’t beat yourself up when you inevitably take that four hour nap after a long day of work or classes. Tomorrow is a new day!

Here are some ways to improve your sleep from Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford School of Medicine:

1. One of the most effective and simple ways to improve your sleep is to view sunlight within 30-60 minutes of waking up, for around 10 minutes, as well as viewing sunlight in the late afternoon, around sunset. It is best done without sunglasses so that your eyes can actually register the light. Keep in mind, of course, that you should never look directly at the sun! On cloudy or overcast days, it would be a good idea to stay outside for longer than 10 minutes. The goal of this practice is to help set your body’s circadian rhythm, signaling to the body when the day is starting and when it’s ending with the help of the sun. This is why you might have heard that the bluelight from our phones negatively impacts our sleep, because it is artificially signalling that there is still light outside, and tricks our body into thinking we should still be awake. 

2. Along similar lines, it is very beneficial to have a set sleep schedule to stick to, where you wake up at the same time each day, and go to sleep when you start to feel sleepy at night. The circadian rhythm is the body’s internal clock, and consistency is a huge indicator for the body. In college, it is so important to manage your time so that you don’t have to force yourself to ignore your body’s signals when it’s tired and wants to go to bed. This means making time to study and do assignments before bed, so that you aren’t cramming information into your brain when it’s ready to go into sleep mode. 

3. Avoid caffeine within 8-10 hours before bedtime (ideally 12-14, according to Dr. Matter Walker, author of “Why We Sleep”).While it might seem like the caffeine is worth it because you think it will wake you up enough to get you through the day, it might be worth reconsidering. Many people claim that caffeine doesn’t affect them when they go to bed, and while this might be true, it does not mean that the caffeine in their system isn’t affecting the quality of their sleep. 

4. For the nap lovers, it is important to limit your naps to 90 minutes or less. By napping for longer than 90 minutes, you run the risk of entering REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep). During this stage of sleep, your body goes into temporary paralysis of the muscles, aside from your eyes and the muscles that control your breathing. Waking up in the middle of this temporary paralysis is very disruptive. This is why waking up from a three hour nap often leaves us feeling more tired than before. It will impact not only the sleep you get that night, but also your sleep schedule as a whole. Your body will expect to complete the entire cycle, so when it can’t, it will feel confused and it will be harder to fall asleep later that night. 

5. If you experience insomnia, sleep disturbances, or even have general anxiety surrounding sleep, there are apps, like Reveri or Headspace, that have guided practices to help improve your sleep. Both of these apps have other meditative features, and require payment, but there are lots of videos on Youtube, like this Guided 20 Minute Sleep Meditation, that you could try if you don’t want to shell out any money. That being said, if you are willing to spend the extra money, I think one of the best things you can spend money on is your health. Your most important investment is yourself!

Whether you choose to specifically integrate any of these tips or not, the important thing is to think about how you could focus a little extra effort on ensuring that you get the sleep your body needs. Amidst the endlessly busy world we live in, it is absolutely essential that you carve out the time for the things that are important to you, and I would argue that your health should be one of those things. It seems that as we move more and more towards filling our schedules and striving for more in our lives, we forget more and more of what we fundamentally need as human beings. This means making time for rest, for slowing down, and if nothing else, for a good night’s sleep. 

Some additional resources on sleep and sleep health if you’re interested:

Book: “Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” by Matt Walker

Podcast: “Improve Sleep to Boost Mood & Emotional Regulation” by Andrew Huberman and Dr. Matt Walker

Podcast: “Timing Light, Food, & Exercise for Better Sleep, Energy & Mood” by Andrew Huberman and Dr. Samer Hattar

Ted Talk: “Sleep Is Your Superpower” by Matt Walker

Ted-Ed Video: “The Benefits of a Good Night’s Sleep” by Shai Marcu

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• physical health
• sleep
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