How to sleep hack if sleep hacking isn’t working…
| Ⓒ By Jonathan Roseland |
I'm not a doctor, medical professional, or trained therapist. I'm a researcher and pragmatic biohacking practitioner exercising free speech to share evidence as I find it. I make no claims. Please practice skepticism and rational critical thinking. You should consult a professional about any serious decisions that you might make about your health. Affiliate links in this article support Limitless Mindset - spend over $150 and you'll be eligible to join the Limitless Mindset Secret Society.
Last weekend I did an in-depth consultation with a Canadian guy with a serious lifestyle issue that most people don’t take very seriously. I think we came up with a really good multi-vector biohacking strategy to address his issue, perhaps you have the same issue. Namely, bad quality and insufficient quantity of sleep.
Here’s the thing that frustrated the Canadian guy, he was following a lot of mainstream sleep hacking advice…
- Wearing orange-tinted glasses in the evenings.
- Avoiding fluorescent lights or bright glowing screens before bed.
- Supplementing magnesium and some other vitamins.
- Exercise.
…But his sleep was still pretty awful. He would wake up in the middle of the night. He felt tired and under-slept all the time.
For at least a decade of my own life, I suffered from bad sleep and now I sleep great, even when I’m stressed out by the hectic entrepreneur/digital nomad life. I feel like I have really figured out this crucial human function that so much of our happiness, productivity, and health depend upon.
I’ll summarize here some advanced sleep hacking strategies I shared with him…
Before-bed beverage regime
What I’m drinking has a noticeably relaxing effect on putting me to sleep, especially these beverages...
- 3–4 hours before bed Decaffeinated Green tea
- 1–2 hours before bed Chamomile or Valerian tea
- 15–30 minutes before bed Apple-cider vinegar tea
I drink these almost every night.
Anxiolytic supplements
I would NOT use all of these every night. What I would do is cycle them throughout the week…
Melatonin
5–20 milligrams of this stuff gives you just the hormone you need to fall deeply asleep but using it EVERY night will desensitize the receptor site, you’ll build up a tolerance to it, and then you won’t be able to fall asleep without it. But if you use it sparingly, just 1–2 times a week you won’t develop much of a tolerance. Melatonin is pretty benign stuff other than the tolerance issue, feel free to experiment with the dosage - up to 50 milligrams, just don’t use it frequently!
Ashwagandha
500–1500 milligrams of this Adaptogenic herb will melt away your stress and you’ll sleep like a baby. You may even fall asleep in the middle of reading a book or cuddling with your partner. Ashwagandha you can use more frequently; 3–5 times a week.
A couple of other sleep supplements...
Red strains of Kratom — This relatively benign opioid herb will relax you before bed. I love to sip some Kratom tea while reading in the evening before bed. When I had it, I’d use it once or twice a week before bed.
Phenibut — I’ve had some of the best sleep of my life on this Gabaergic stuff! But it doesn’t work as consistently as the other sleep hacks. If you use this stuff about once a week, 500–1500 milligrams it will be awesome for your social life, your stress, or your sleep. Use it more frequently and it will lose its luster for you!
The before-bed beverage regime is quite soothing! When you combine it with the Anxiolytic supplements you really will have great sleep, especially if you combine them with…
Mindfulness or non-stimulatory thinking
Meditation is really good for your sleep. But you probably already knew that, the Canadian guy certainly did but he had a pretty common objection to meditation...
I’ve used some of these different meditation apps and audio programs which are somewhat relaxing but I don’t know if I’m doing the meditation correctly… I don’t want to waste 20 minutes a day, every day doing meditation wrong.
To which I responded...
Well, you could hire a meditation coach and work with them. You could read some good books on meditation. You could do a meditation retreat where all you do is meditate all day with a bunch of other people.
If you need some inspiration for your non-stimulatory thinking before bedtime, check out this cool music video I made about sleep hacking with AI...
Subscribe to the Limitless Music channel
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Quantify your mindfulness and upgrade your sleep using Biohacking tech, like…
Heartmath's devices - are probably the most effective tools for this. It’s a little heart rate sensor that you wear on your ear or hold in your hand. Which accurately measures your heart rate variability, a measure of the degree to which your autonomic nervous system is effectively and dynamically responding to stressors, both internal and external.
- You spend 10–20 minutes daily training with it and it significantly improves your stress management — you will be one cool cat. It’s one of the few pieces of Biohacking tech that has good human research demonstrating its helpful effect.
- I’d been meditating for several months prior to starting to use the emWave2 and it taught me what it feels like to be in a coherent meditative state.
- It’s also the only Biohacking device I’d buy, all the rest I’m a bit skeptical of for one reason or another.
- emWave tech costs between $100 — $200.
10-20 minutes of red light therapy before bed stimulates melatonin release, they are pricier but will improve your sleep for 5-10 years (if you drop it on the floor a few times, as we have!)
The next option for quantifying your mindfulness costs between free and $29.
Dual N-Back software
Is a brain game that you play on your smartphone. It requires 100% of your concentration and thus is like a RAM upgrade for your conscious mind. It teaches you what true concentration feels like and will increase your intelligence markedly over time.
The Sleep Deficit Protocol
Occasionally, despite your best efforts you're going to have nights of awful or insufficient sleep. Here’s how I deal with these situations...
- Get up early. For one reason or another, you wake up early and underslept, instead of hitting snooze or sleeping in or trying to take a nap later just get up and get going. You’ll experience a pleasant boost of motivation which you can use to get more done that morning than you sometimes do all day.
- Cold shower. 60–120 seconds of cold water blasting you in the face first thing, will get your adrenaline and cortisol flowing. You won’t be tired for hours.
Wakefulness promoters
Here’s where the Nootropics play their role, on days that I’m facing a sleep deficit I will combine all (or some of) my wakefulness promoters.
Modafinil
Tyrosine
Rhodiola
Caffeine
I’ll do a morning dose and a mid-afternoon dose.
Stimulate yourself. If you’re just sitting around for hours you will inevitably get tired and unproductive. Get up. Go to the gym (for a light work out - injury risk goes up when you're underslept!) Run some errands. Do some body-weight exercises throughout the day.
In the evening do all the sleep hacks mentioned above and go to bed early, try to resist mindlessly browsing the web or playing on your smartphone at the end of the day.
You’ll sleep deeply so set your Sleep Cycle alarm clock app to wake up early the next morning, around the same time you did the morning previous. Now you’ll wake up and have another awesomely productive morning BUT this time fully refreshed by the sleep you need.
Following this sleep deficit protocol, my days operating on insufficient sleep are more productive than less. Occasional sleep defects are probably not a great long-term lifestyle thing but if you’re a relatively young, healthy person they can help your productivity.
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