During my travels in December and early January, I was struggling to get more than 6 hours sleep per night. Once I got back to London, this trend continued. I knew I needed to make changes because consistently getting fewer than 7 hours sleep per night is unhealthy. So I’ve been trialing a few sleep-related experiments, and the early results are promising.
First, I realised my caffeine intake was too high. I was drinking between 4-6 cups of coffee per day—mainly for the taste, rather than the kick—but ingesting this much caffeine was almost certainly impacting my sleep. So I’ve since gone cold turkey, and today is Day 5. I definitely miss coffee, have thought about having a cup every day since stopping; that alone has told me I was addicted to the stuff.
Second, I didn’t have a reliable bedtime. I would typically hit the hay between 22:30 and 01:00, which wasn’t giving my body a firm routine to anchor in. What I’ve changed is I’ve set an alarm on my watch to go off at 22:30 each evening, and at this point I start getting ready for bed. I think I’ll try keep this up for weeknights, and allow a bit of flex on weekends.
Finally, I didn’t have a “wind down” routine. This meant the transition between work, chores, or hobbies and bed was quite abrupt. So now when my watch alarm goes off, I get my workout and work gear ready for the next day, I brush my teeth, write in my journal, and settle into bed with some reading. By 23:15 or 23:30 I’m usually feeling tired, and soon after drift off to sleep.
For the last 3 nights in a row, I’ve slept about 8 hours. This is still a small sample size, but it’s already a massive improvement. I don’t know if it’s one thing, or a combination, that has contributed to the change, but I’m pleased with the progress.
I’ll report back in a couple weeks. I’ve set the goal of staying off coffee for 2 week and seeing how I feel at the end of it.