Sleep Hygiene Made Simple

Sleep Hygiene Chart From The Huffington Post

“Sleep Hygiene” is a term for a set of habits that promotes sleeping well and that helps ward off insomnia.

If you go see any kind of specialist about sleep issues, the first thing they will ask you about is your sleep hygiene. Better sleep hygiene will be their first prescription.

The chart above is from a Huffington Post article. I like this chart because it is simple. However, the chart does not show all sleep hygiene habits, but that is probably fine for people who do not have persistent sleep issues.

The one sleep hygiene habit not on the chart that I think is the most useful is a regular bed time.

Most of the recommendations on the chart seems to make sense from common experience. One that might not, is stopping the use of electronics an hour before your bed time.  Televisions, computer screens, screens on mobile phones, and artificial lighting all emit blue light. Blue light inhibits the production of melatonin in your body. Melatonin is a hormone that tells your body that it is night time and time to begin preparing to go to sleep. You can get your smart phone to emit less blue light at by installing special software on it to emit less blue light at night.  On your computer you can install the free software f.lux for Windows ( and Linux though it might not work well ) and Redshift for Linux.   You can also wear amber colored goggles to filter out blue light.

The other recommendation that might not make sense is the one to stop consuming alcohol 3 hours before your bed time. Alcohol will relax you and knock you out right? Yes, it will, but at a price. Alcohol disrupts the electrical patterns in your brain, stopping your brain from regulating your sleep rhythms properly. If you have persistent trouble sleeping you might want to think about minimizing your drinking.

I would also encourage people with trouble sleeping to cut off their caffeine intake even earlier in the day. Stop at lunch time/noon. If you are having persistent problems sleeping you might want to consider permanently reducing your caffeine intake or eliminating it altogether until you start sleeping well again. If you have a serious coffee or soda habit, please gradually step down to spare yourself some of the withdrawal symptoms. Green tea can be a great aide, as it has very little caffeine, but it has just enough caffiene to keep caffeine to keep withdrawal headaches away.

Lastly, you might want to read the book “Say Goodnight To Insomnia”. It was written by a Harvard researcher and pulls the best practices, as verified by real clinical research,together into one place. The author tries too hard to make the book friendly to a popular, sleep deprived, audience. You may find that the first few chapters sound like a snake oil pitch, but please soldier through reading those chapters( don’t skip them ). The advice in the book is incredibly good.

Looking At The World Through Amber Colored Glasses To Fix Insomnia?

Can’t fall asleep? Wake up earlier than you want to?

I’ve been reading that blue light emitted from artificial lights, computers, televisions, and hand held devices inhibits melatonin production. Melatonin is a hormone that tells your body that it is night and time for you to sleep.

There are various products on the web for blocking blue light.

One of these products are amber colored glasses you start wearing 3 hours before your bed time.

About $70.

However, you can also buy the welder’s safety goggles pictured above, which block out almost 100% of the blue light.

About $10 on Amazon.

Uvex S1933X Skyper Safety Eyewear, Black Frame, SCT-Orange UV Extreme Anti-Fog Lens

You can also read the company’s documentation about the kinds of light blocked out by their glasses  here and here.

Noise

How to reduce unwanted noise is a question many people have these days.

There are many common issues ranging from the noisey coworker in the cube farm spoiling your concentration, to the immature neighbors without full time day-jobs keeping you up at night.

This short post will be about the best noise reductions options I have found so far.

The not-so-great news, and the bottom line, is that a reduction of about 30 decibels is the best noise reduction you are going to get with easy options.

Noise reduction products generally fall into two distinct groups: passive and non-passive. Passive products are things like ear plugs and ear muffs. Other products like ear phones may use powered technology to reduce, block or attenuate noise.

A coworker of mine introduced me to the Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones:

Cost? About $300.

My coworker let me try them out in our noisey office. I found that the passive Pro Ears Ultra 33 worked about the same for me.

Cost? About $35.

After I bought Pro Ears. I repeated my test at the office trying those on, trying on my coworkers fancy electronic thing and trying out drug store ear plugs during someone’s conference call on speaker phone. They all seemed about equally effective for me. The Pro Ears Ultra 33 had the advantage of being easy to put on/take off and did not involve stuffing things in my ears.

Since I can’t sleep on my back remaining 100% still for a full night, I found myself returning to ear plugs to compensate for those noisey neighbors without day-jobs. Googling around, I couldn’t find any objective information on what made one ear plug more desirable than another. The best I got were comments like

“Try these! They are the best!”

Then I found “The Sound of Silence Sussing out the ear-plug market.” by Ulrich Boser on slate.com. The author methodically tested a large number of ear plugs for several different qualities, assigned a score for each quality and then gave each ear plug an overall score. It is the closest thing I found to an objective review of ear plugs on the internet.

Lastly, there is the Ear Plug Super Store, a family owned business that specializes in selling everything that will reduce, block or attenuate noise. There is a lot of useful information on the site and their knowledgeable customer service will gladly answer any questions you have about what the right product is for you to get.

Remember, parole for a life sentence on a murder charge is about 30 years. Tempting as it may be, homicide is the lesser option to one of these products, moving or finding another job.

HTH!