[0:00] So over the last few months,
[0:00] I've interviewed a bunch of sleep experts
[0:02] and listened to loads of podcasts
[0:03] and read loads of books
[0:04] all about the science behind effective sleep.
[0:07] And these are the nine evidence-based things
[0:09] that I've built into my routine
[0:10] to help me get an amazing night's sleep
[0:11] and feel well rested throughout the day.
[0:13] Let's get started.
[0:14] First off, I try to sleep
[0:15] for around seven to eight hours each night.
[0:17] Now the science on how long you should sleep for
[0:18] isn't straightforward,
[0:19] but most research says that between seven
[0:21] and nine hours of sleep at night
[0:22] is ideal for a healthy adult.
[0:24] And according to a big 2015 study
[0:26] by the American Academy of Sleep Science
[0:27] and the Sleep Research Society,
[0:29] "adults should sleep seven or more hours per night
[0:31] because regularly getting less than seven hours of sleep
[0:33] can lead to a load of bad stuff like weight gain
[0:35] and heart disease and depression
[0:37] and charmingly increased risk of death."
[0:38] If you're not sure if you should sleep seven
[0:40] or eight or nine hours,
[0:41] then the solution is pretty simple.
[0:42] Just experiment with how much sleep you need
[0:44] to feel happy and productive the next day.
[0:46] And remember, if you get too obsessed
[0:47] with getting eight hours of sleep every single night,
[0:49] that actually might spike your stress levels,
[0:51] ironically making it more difficult to get to sleep.
[0:53] And this is called sleep anxiety.
[0:55] So the second thing I try to do for healthy sleep
[0:56] is to build a sleep rhythm.
[0:58] I set a regular time for going to sleep and waking up
[1:00] and I try my best to actually stick to it.
[1:02] So for example, I usually go to sleep
[1:03] around 11 or 11.30 PM and get up around 7 AM.
[1:07] The more consistent your rhythm,
[1:08] the easier it's gonna be to fall asleep and to wake up.
[1:10] And this is because of the homeostatic sleep drive,
[1:12] one of the main systems in our body
[1:13] that determines when we feel tired and when we feel awake,
[1:16] which is powered by the chemical "Adenosine".
[1:18] See, adenosine makes us feel this intense need for sleep.
[1:20] From the moment we wake up in the morning,
[1:22] adenosine starts building up in our body
[1:24] until eventually we start feeling sleep hungry.
[1:26] The more adenosine we have, the sleepier we feel.
[1:28] When we actually do get enough sleep,
[1:30] that drives our adenosine levels down again
[1:32] and we wake up feeling well rested.
[1:33] Okay, so why does this mean we should have consistent times
[1:36] for waking and sleeping?
[1:37] Well, if we start going to sleep and waking up
[1:38] at the same time every day
[1:39] and get our proper seven to eight hours of sleep,
[1:41] then our adenosine levels will regularly peak
[1:43] at the same time each evening,
[1:44] making us feel properly tired and ready for bed.
[1:46] And after seven to eight hours of sleep,
[1:48] that adenosine will be low enough
[1:49] that we can wake up naturally
[1:50] without feeling too groggy or tired.
[1:52] So the more we can invest in building the steady rhythm,
[1:54] the more we can bring our sleep schedule in sync
[1:56] with the chemicals in our body
[1:57] and the less likely we are to feel weirdly awake at 2 a.m.
[2:00] and start playing video games.
[2:01] And here are four practical things
[2:02] that can help you build that rhythm.
[2:03] First, set an alarm for the same time every day
[2:05] to help you wake up consistently.
[2:07] Secondly, ignore the weekend.
[2:08] As far as your body is concerned,
[2:10] the weekend is just two days where you do your best
[2:12] to mess up your healthy sleep cycle.
[2:13] For me, I try to personally avoid lie-ins
[2:15] or having a different sleep schedule
[2:16] on Saturdays and Sundays,
[2:17] so I don't mess up this adenosine rhythm
[2:19] that I've been trying to build.
[2:20] Thirdly, try to phase shift your social life.
[2:22] Basically, try to schedule evening meetups with friends
[2:24] a little bit earlier in the day.
[2:25] The occasional late night is totally fine,
[2:27] I just try not to make too much of a habit of it.
[2:29] And the final tip is to actually listen to your body.
[2:31] Try not to push through that sleepy late evening feeling.
[2:33] That's the exact trigger we're working towards,
[2:35] which makes it easier to fall asleep.
[2:37] Okay, so the next thing I do to get a good night's sleep
[2:39] is to catch the morning sun when I wake up.
[2:40] That's because in addition to adenosine,
[2:42] there's a second system inside all of us
[2:44] that affects when we feel sleepy and when we feel awake,
[2:46] a kind of internal 24-hour clock
[2:48] called the circadian rhythm.
[2:49] Now, this system is mainly controlled
[2:50] from a master clock in our brain called the
[2:52] suprachiasmatic nucleus,
[2:54] which lives just above the roof of our mouth,
[2:56] and sends signals to the rest of our body
[2:57] about whether to feel sleepy or awake.
[2:59] The circadian rhythm generally looks like a wave,
[3:01] with our brain releasing the chemicals cortisol
[3:03] and epinephrine to drive our upward spike
[3:05] in alertness during the morning and the rest of the day,
[3:07] and melatonin driving the downward curve at night,
[3:10] making us feel like going to bed.
[3:11] And the number one thing that influences
[3:12] this circadian rhythm is light,
[3:14] particularly morning sunlight.
[3:15] When morning sunlight hits the retina in our eyes,
[3:18] it sends a message to our internal circadian clock
[3:20] to trigger that release of cortisol and epinephrine,
[3:23] which makes us feel awake and alert.
[3:24] Now, the sun doesn't need to be just
[3:26] peeking over the horizon,
[3:27] it just needs to be within a few hours of sunrise.
[3:29] And the sooner you can get it after waking up, the better.
[3:31] So in terms of my personal morning routine,
[3:33] I wake up, I grab some water, I take my medication,
[3:35] which in this case is finasteride
[3:37] and Heights supplement and probiotic.
[3:39] And then after having a shower,
[3:40] I'll normally go for a walk
[3:41] and I'll walk over to the local Pret-A-Manger,
[3:43] where I've got the Pret Coffee subscription,
[3:45] because that encourages me to actually
[3:46] get out of the house in the morning to grab my coffee,
[3:48] and that means I'm getting the morning sunlight
[3:50] and I've also delayed my caffeine consumption,
[3:52] more on that a little bit later.
[3:53] Now, other types of bright light
[3:54] can trigger our wake up mechanisms,
[3:56] but our brain responds best to the quality
[3:58] and amount of light that's coming from the sun
[4:00] when it's at a low solar angle.
[4:01] So on bright cloudless days,
[4:03] you should apparently stay outside
[4:04] for around 10 minutes after waking up
[4:06] to properly trigger your circadian clock.
[4:08] On cloudy days, it might take a bit longer, like 20 minutes,
[4:10] and if it's really overcast,
[4:11] it could take 30 minutes to an hour.
[4:13] But the main thing is that we don't wanna overthink this,
[4:15] perfect is the enemy of good,
[4:16] and just getting any amount of morning sunlight
[4:18] in the morning is actually great for our circadian rhythm
[4:20] and for our sleep quality.
[4:21] Now, there's a second reason it's important
[4:23] to get that morning sunlight,
[4:24] in that it sets our circadian clock on a timer
[4:26] to release the hormone melatonin
[4:28] from the pineal gland in our brain
[4:29] in about 12 to 14 hours time,
[4:32] which is gonna make us feel sleepy later that evening.
[4:34] So the earlier we get that morning sunlight,
[4:35] the sooner that clock starts counting down,
[4:37] and the sooner we start feeling sleepy in the evening.
[4:39] So if I wake up at 7 a.m. and then I go for a morning walk
[4:42] to get that strong burst of morning sun for about 10 minutes,
[4:45] I should start getting the sleepy signal from my brain
[4:47] between about 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night.
[4:50] But if I wake up later at 8 a.m., for example,
[4:52] the sleepy phase is gonna move forward
[4:54] to between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
[4:55] And before we continue,
[4:56] I wanna give a massive shout out
[4:57] to the Huberman Lab podcast.
[4:59] Andrew Huberman's podcast is absolutely sick,
[5:01] I listen to it all the time,
[5:02] and the episodes about sleep really helped me figure out
[5:05] all of this stuff around the evidence around sleep
[5:07] and helped inform a lot of the research for this video.
[5:08] So thank you, Andrew Huberman, and your team.
[5:10] Okay, next, let's look at what time
[5:11] we ideally wanna be exercising
[5:13] to get the best possible sleep.
[5:14] So sunlight is the most important thing to focus on,
[5:16] but exercise does release endorphins,
[5:18] which also make us feel happy and more awake.
[5:20] Now, in an ideal world,
[5:21] I would be doing weight training in the morning,
[5:23] but I personally find that if I go gym in the morning,
[5:25] then I kind of feel a bit groggy for the rest of the day,
[5:27] so I'm not a huge fan of that.
[5:28] Instead, I do my morning walk thing.
[5:30] This is a thing that I figured out with my health coach.
[5:32] He was like, you know,
[5:33] try and get some steps in in the morning,
[5:34] and it also doubles as an effect
[5:35] in that it gets me the morning sunlight as well.
[5:37] Now, if you can actually do some proper exercise
[5:39] in the morning, then according to Andrew Huberman,
[5:41] there is evidence that our body starts
[5:42] to develop this anticipatory circuit,
[5:45] expecting that hit of morning exercise,
[5:47] because it happened over the last few days,
[5:48] and getting us to wake up
[5:49] and feel ready for it to happen again.
[5:51] And that adds to that morning spike of energy that we want,
[5:53] and it sets us up for healthy sleepiness in the evening,
[5:56] because our body is gonna be tired
[5:57] and is gonna need sleep to recover from that training.
[5:59] Like, think about the last time you went
[6:00] for a really long hike or had a lot of exercise.
[6:03] You probably had a long, deep sleep that night.
[6:04] So we've talked about some of the stuff
[6:06] that I do in my morning routine so far,
[6:08] but one thing that I do that's unrelated to sleep
[6:09] is browse a cheeky newsletter called Morning Brew
[6:12] on my phone, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
[6:14] Now, Morning Brew is a totally free,
[6:16] 100% free daily newsletter that's delivered
[6:18] every single day, Monday through Sunday,
[6:20] and it just takes a few minutes to read,
[6:22] and it gets you up to date on all of the interesting news
[6:24] from the world of business and finance and tech,
[6:26] which are three of the things that I care most about.
[6:28] And it's my favourite way to consume the news,
[6:30] because A, it doesn't take very long,
[6:31] and B, it's written in a dry, witty,
[6:33] kind of entertaining manner,
[6:34] unlike most other sources of news,
[6:36] which are kind of dry and kind of boring.
[6:37] And it's really useful for keeping up to date
[6:39] with the content creative business stuff
[6:40] that affects me personally,
[6:41] like for example, Zuckerberg recently rolling out
[6:43] Meta Verified, which I heard about
[6:45] because I read my Morning Brew newsletter.
[6:47] And it's been great for also keeping me up to date
[6:49] about what's going on with the whole AI stuff,
[6:50] because there's just too much going on,
[6:52] it's hard to keep track of it on Twitter,
[6:53] and so on Morning Brew, I get like a decent write-up
[6:55] of what Microsoft Edge is doing,
[6:57] and how ChatGPT is going,
[6:58] and like what's going on with Bing,
[7:00] and how it's just started making
[7:01] absolutely ridiculous statements.
[7:03] And it's just generally funny and interesting reading
[7:04] about this kind of stuff.
[7:05] So if you are interested in anything to do with business,
[7:07] or finance, or tech,
[7:08] or you just want an entertaining way
[7:10] to browse the news once a day,
[7:12] then there is no reason not to sign up to Morning Brew.
[7:14] It is completely free,
[7:15] and it takes less than 15 seconds to subscribe.
[7:17] So if you're interested,
[7:18] then head over to morningbrewdaily.com forward slash Ali,
[7:20] and then you can subscribe there,
[7:21] and you'll be supporting the channel along the way.
[7:23] That link is also in the video description,
[7:25] so thank you so much Morning Brew for sponsoring this video.
[7:27] All right, time to talk about a big topic, caffeine.
[7:29] Now, remember the chemical adenosine,
[7:31] which makes us hungry for sleep?
[7:32] Well, to actually make us feel sleepy,
[7:33] adenosine needs to get picked up by our adenosine receptors.
[7:36] And what caffeine does is act like an adenosine antagonist,
[7:39] blocking those adenosine receptors in our brain
[7:41] to stop the sleepy adenosine signal from being processed.
[7:44] So the caffeine keeps us alert and awake initially,
[7:46] but when the caffeine wears off,
[7:47] we get a caffeine crash as the blocked adenosine
[7:50] rushes through our receptors again,
[7:51] making us feel really tired.
[7:52] Now, I drink coffee every morning
[7:54] and around two to three times a day,
[7:55] but there are two things when it comes to caffeine timing
[7:58] that I find quite useful.
[7:59] Firstly, I try to avoid coffee
[8:01] for the first hour of the day.
[8:02] And the idea behind this is that it gives your body
[8:04] enough time to naturally clear the adenosine
[8:06] that's left behind in your system.
[8:08] And secondly, to get better quality of sleep,
[8:09] I try to avoid drinking coffee
[8:11] or any other caffeinated drinks too late in the day,
[8:13] specifically after around two to 3 p.m.
[8:16] Now, caffeine has a half-life of five to six hours,
[8:18] which is the time it takes for the caffeine levels
[8:19] in your system to drop by 50%,
[8:21] but it takes even longer than that,
[8:23] after drinking caffeine,
[8:24] for our adenosine to be working normally again.
[8:26] So to stop caffeine interfering with our sleep,
[8:28] Dr. Huberman reckons that we should avoid it
[8:29] eight to 10 hours before our normal bedtime.
[8:32] So stop drinking between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
[8:34] if your bedtime is 11 p.m.
[8:35] Matthew Walker, the author of Why We Sleep,
[8:37] is a bit more conservative
[8:38] and says aim for 10 to 12 hours.
[8:40] So basically only caffeine in the morning,
[8:41] but I personally stop around 3 p.m.
[8:43] Everyone has different caffeine tolerances though.
[8:45] Like some people can't drink any caffeine past 11 a.m.
[8:47] without it messing with their sleep.
[8:49] But for other people,
[8:50] the cutoff point is more like 4 p.m.
[8:51] There's a small percentage of people
[8:52] that can even have caffeine late at night
[8:54] and still fall asleep easily,
[8:55] but that probably still affects their sleep quality,
[8:57] even if they get technically a full night's sleep.
[8:59] And by the way, if you're enjoying this video so far,
[9:01] I'd love it if you could drop a little thumbs up
[9:03] on the thing, apparently it really helps us
[9:04] for the algorithm.
[9:05] Now, this is potentially getting a bit overboard,
[9:06] but the sixth thing that I try to do every day
[9:08] is to go outside around an hour or so before sunset
[9:12] and get a good 10 to 30 minutes of evening sunlight.
[9:14] So the sunlight trick that we talked about earlier
[9:16] works in reverse.
[9:17] When the light-sensitive melanopsin neurons in your eye
[9:20] detect the specific colour and intensity
[9:22] of evening sunlight,
[9:23] they send a signal to your circadian clock
[9:25] that it's getting to the end of the day
[9:26] and that sleep is coming.
[9:27] Again, try to be in direct sunlight if at all possible
[9:29] because windows and other kind of barriers like sunglasses
[9:31] make the sunlight a lot less effective.
[9:33] So if you get the sun in the morning and in the evening,
[9:35] you give your internal clock consistent light anchors,
[9:38] making it way easier to get into a healthy rhythm
[9:40] of waking up and going to sleep at the same time every day.
[9:43] All right, so now it's evening.
[9:44] And for me, I try my very best not to expose myself
[9:47] to artificial lights after around 8 p.m.
[9:49] And I try to avoid viewing bright lights
[9:51] between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.,
[9:53] including my laptop screen and my computer monitor
[9:55] and my phone.
[9:56] The reason we wanna avoid light
[9:57] is because bright artificial lights
[9:59] mimic the effect of bright light.
tells our brain that it's daytime
[10:03] and releases cortisol and epinephrine that keeps us awake.
349
0:10:06,040 --> 0:10:02,240
 at sunlight somewhat, which like we've seen,
[10:06] And being awake in the evenings
[10:07] is exactly what we want to avoid.
[10:08] Now, scarily, the longer that we've been awake,
[10:10] the more sensitive we are to bright lights,
[10:11] making us feel even more awake.
[10:13] So the later it gets in the evening, the higher the stakes.
[10:15] In fact, this 2018 study,
[10:16] which was published in the journal Cell,
[10:18] which is a high quality journal,
[10:19] showed that light arriving to the eyes
[10:20] between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. even suppresses dopamine,
[10:23] the thing that makes us feel good,
[10:25] and is a natural antidepressant.
[10:26] And it also activates the habenula,
[10:28] the disappointment nucleus in our brain.
[10:30] And so over the next few days, this lowers our mood
[10:32] and makes us feel more disappointed
[10:33] and actually can make it harder to learn new things.
[10:35] So for me personally, the way that I avoid all these lights
[10:37] is I try to avoid going on the computer beyond 10 p.m.
[10:40] If I am on the computer,
[10:41] I try and dim the brightness setting on my computer down.
[10:44] I try and use the kind of flux night mode display setting
[10:47] on the Mac to try and avoid the blue light
[10:49] that comes in from the computer screen.
[10:50] I also try my best to avoid using my phone at nighttime.
[10:53] And instead I use my Kindle,
[10:54] which is generally on a fairly dim,
[10:56] dark mode, warm light setting.
[10:57] Now, apparently the positioning of these artificial lights
[10:59] can make a difference
[11:00] because we're particularly sensitive to overhead lights
[11:02] because we've evolved to detect the light from the sunlight.
[11:05] And so having warm lights that are positioned low,
[11:06] like lamps and candles that are low down,
[11:09] instead of having the ceiling lights on,
[11:11] apparently can make a difference
[11:12] to how effective our sleep can be.
[11:13] Okay, a really quick tip here.
[11:14] I always expect to feel alert
[11:16] around one hour before my natural bedtime.
[11:18] And I know that if I just read a book
[11:19] and stick to my normal habits,
[11:20] then I'll eventually feel sleepy again.
[11:22] Now, this is totally normal.
[11:23] And according to Dr. Hiberman's podcast,
[11:25] this is a naturally occurring spike in wakefulness.
[11:27] So don't freak out if it happens, it's gonna pass.
[11:29] Now, the final step in my sleep routine
[11:31] is keeping the room where I sleep nice and cool.
[11:33] Now, our bodies need a drop in temperature
[11:35] by one to three degrees to fall asleep
[11:37] and to stay asleep effectively.
[11:38] So here's what I do personally.
[11:39] Firstly, if I'm in a hotel room or anything
[11:41] that has air conditioning and thermostat,
[11:42] I generally set it quite low.
[11:44] Some people say that 19 degrees Celsius is the ideal.
[11:46] I find that that's still a bit warm for me.
[11:48] And I like to set it at like 16, 17 degrees if I can.
[11:50] In my own home, I don't have air conditioning.
[11:52] And so I'll sometimes open the windows
[11:54] if it's particularly warm in the room
[11:55] and I'll use a fan if it's particularly hot.
[11:57] Plus I like the white noise of the fan
[11:58] which helps me fall asleep.
[11:59] And this one's a bit extra,
[12:00] but I do also happen to have an Eight Sleep mattress.
[12:02] I interviewed the founders of Eight Sleep
[12:04] on my podcast a little while ago.
[12:05] We talked a lot about sleep.
[12:06] I'll link that episode down below
[12:07] if you wanna check it out.
[12:08] But the Eight Sleep mattress
[12:09] is basically like a mattress topper thing
[12:10] that has a liquid cooling system in it.
[12:12] And so I usually have that set to the colder setting.
[12:15] Honestly, something like that is pretty overkill.
[12:16] You really don't need it.
[12:17] It's pretty expensive.
[12:18] You can just leave a window open
[12:19] or just get a cheap ass fan
[12:20] just to cool your body down
[12:22] to the temperature that it needs to be.
[12:23] And some people find that having a hot bath
[12:24] or a hot shower before bed really helps
[12:26] because it helps reduce your internal body temperature.
[12:28] So if you incorporate each of these nine science-backed tips
[12:31] for my routine,
[12:32] your day might look something like this.
[12:33] You'd have a regular bedtime and waking time
[12:35] so you'd get around seven to eight hours of sleep.
[12:37] You'd view the sun just after you get up
[12:39] and maybe do some exercise as well.
[12:41] You'd delay your caffeine consumption
[12:42] for around an hour after waking up
[12:44] and you'd stop drinking caffeine
[12:45] after around two or 3 p.m.
[12:47] You might go for a walk and view evening sunlight
[12:49] for about 10 minutes just before sunset.
[12:51] You would dim all of your house lights
[12:52] just a few hours before bed and avoid any bright screens.
[12:55] You'd try and ride out any spike in energy
[12:56] before your bedtime.
[12:58] And finally, you'd keep your bedroom cool
[12:59] so that you can fall asleep easily.
[13:01] Now, I'll be honest,
[13:02] I don't do all of these things every day.
[13:03] I try my best to stick to them,
[13:05] but I don't beat myself up if I have a little bit of a lie
[13:07] or if I have coffee a little bit too early in the morning
[13:09] or a little bit too late in the day.
[13:10] And if you go to this video,
[13:11] you might like to check out this video over here,
[13:13] which is a video about
[13:14] why you might find yourself always tired.
[13:16] And it's about seven myths that are ruining your sleep.
[13:18] And so with this video and that video,
[13:19] that's basically everything you need to know
[13:21] to have a fantastic sleep routine.
[13:22] Thank you so much for watching.