three simple sleep hacks you can implement TODAY (even if you’re going thru emotional stress)
Let’s take a break from exes and emotional stress. And compensate it with taking care of your self in the middle of all the stress. Your sleep is a reflection of how stressed you are, and at the same time your stress levels for the day is a reflection of how good your sleep was.
It’s a feedback loop. So if stress is inevitably high these days (like mine), the variable left to play with is your sleep. And to play with your sleep, you have to hack the factors affecting your sleep.
In this story, I will share with you what moved the needle to drastically improve my sleep. If I only knew this hack, I would have performed at my best in the previous weeks!
The story
Okay! So last October 9 (when I was at my lowest), I made the decision to do everything in my power to improve my sleep quality. Because I’m feeling the toll of poor quality sleep in my day-to-day activities. I don’t feel like myself and my emotions are all over the place most of the time.
Every morning I analyze my sleep the night before, and I have tried different strategies. And in this story, I will be sharing 3 hacks which worked perfectly for me.
I’m particularly interested with deep sleep because this is when your body recovers from whatever you’ve gone through the day. This is what makes us feel refreshed and energized waking up. Spending 8 hours in bed but with zero deep sleep means you wasted 8 hours of your time.
According to my data, I had 1hr 43 mins of deep sleep on Oct 9th.
Red = NOT GOOD
Yellow = ALMOST GOOD
Green = VERY GOOD
AutoSleep’s Deep Sleep Goal says the ff.:
Studies have shown that an adult requires 1.5–1.8 hours of deep sleep per night.
Or around 30% of your sleep should be spent on deep sleep.
That means if you’re sleeping for 8 hours, that’s (30% of 8hrs) 2.4hrs.
Last week, I‘ve been grinding for my business every night after my day-job until 11pm or 12mn. So it translates to less sleeping time for me.
But I don’t want to be boxed with going to bed at exactly 9pm so I can have a good night’s rest.
Luckily, this is hackable! You will discover what I did and apply this to your life!
Sleep hacks to wakeup feeling like a goddess
#1 Utilize your gadgets’ night-shift feature
In This Is Turning You Into a Zombie (Without You Knowing It), you learned about blue light and how it ruins your sleep in a huge way!
However, I only applied reduction of blue light exposure from my light bulb, phone and laptop an hour or 2 before going to sleep. And this didn’t do the trick for me.
What I did differently in the past few days was to turn on night-shift feature as soon as I open my phone and laptop. And for the light bulbs, I utilize the natural light from outside during the day.
If you add it all up, I realized it greatly reduced my exposure to artificial blue light. Which in theory helped me enter deep state of sleeping.
Yes, my screens are a bit yellowish but I’m willing to trade that for a good night’s sleep! 😌
#2 Train your heart for coherence
If you are already facing emotional stress right now, you can counter this by training your heart for coherence (the ultimate state of bliss, where your heart and mind are sync, thus reducing stress).
I’m using HRV4Biofeedback app for this which uses camera to give real-time feedback on your heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV). The goal is to train tell your heart in times of stress to think
“It’s okay, this isn’t going to kill me. Everything’s fine.”
I started heart-to-heart talks with my heart 😂 last October 19. Back then, my biofeedback score was 6.4. Today, my score has greatly improved and I attribute this to a higher quality of sleep!
I commit to two 10mins sessions in the morning and before I go to bed. So I can start and end the day with a coherent heart.
#3 Listen to your heart
I love working out I’m too stubborn to still do high-intensity workout even though my stress levels are already high.
In AutoSleep, there’s also a readiness report which is based on your heart rate variability (HRV). As I discussed in the HRV story, your HRV reveals so much about your current state.
For example, yesterday I did HIIT for about 20mins.
So today, I’m still in recovery mode from yesterday’s tough workout.
This reflects in my readiness score. My HRV went down by 66ms, which means I’m not at my best at the moment. I’m still recovering from the physical stress I subjected my body to.
The smart thing to do is to use this as a guide on how you will take on your day. Like today, I didn’t schedule a tough workout. I’m letting my body recover.
Tomorrow, if my HRV goes up, it means I’ve given my body enough time to repair and heal itself.
Once I’m recovered, I could do high-intensity workout again!
So those are the 3 hacks that moved the needle for me. Give this video a thumbs up if these strategies worked for you. And I want to hear your stories in the comments below.
That’s all I have for you. Sleep the best way you can so you can show up at your best everyday.
Thanks for reading!
