Most people have no idea how their bad sleeping habits impact their sleep at all. In fact they don’t even know that the things they do each day are bad for sleep.
The problem is that we’re taught nothing about circadian rhythms, sleep and connection to nature as we grow up.
By the age of 3 our parents are giving us iPhones to watch movies on and by the age of 5 we’re playing hours of video games on a screen. We spend most of our time indoors and living under blue light and wonder why we have insomnia or other sleep issues.
All of this is caused primarily by how we are living. We’re living in such an unhealthy way that’s so disconnected from nature that we’re fat, have diabetes and are on medications that all prevent us from sleeping.
If you really want to overcome your sleep problems you have to realize that this is an invitation to change your entire life by changing your overall health.
If your diet and environment is so terrible that it requires you to be on medication, then that medication is going to negatively impact your liver and your sleep.
Then when your sleep is not optimal you’re going to become more sick, which is going to require you to visit a doctor who’s going to put you on more medications which are going to further disrupt your sleep.
See the cycle?
You have to break it by completely overhauling your everything about your life.
This means…
- Your diet
- Your living and working environment
- Your relationships
- You exercise habits
- Your self worth (how you view yourself)
- Your lifestyle & stressors
I’m telling you if you break the bad habits and start investing in yourself you can eventually get a natural doctor to work with your medical doctor and slowly get off your medications. Doing this will remove a ton of side effects and most likely improve your sleep.
As you improve your sleep, you’re going to be more motivated and excited about your health pursuits.
Then you’ll be more motivated to improve your diet.
As you eat better, you’re going to have more energy.
With that energy you’re going to be more motivated to exercise (hopefully outside in the sun rather than under blue light in a gym).
As you exercise you’re going to notice you’re losing weight and maybe even building a little bit of muscle.
Now you can physically see some differences in your body.
Which motivates you to continue.
As you exercise more during the daytime in sunshine, you’re going to be more tired when the sunsets.
Now you’re going to bed earlier and falling asleep a bit earlier, you can wake up earlier to watch the sunrise (the most important health discipline you can engage in daily).
See how the cycle goes both ways?
But making that decision to stop the downward spiral is difficult.
So let’s talk about some really bad habits of sleeping that people do that causes insomnia.
Not Watching The Sunrise
Watching the sunrise is the #1 most important thing you can do to improve your sleep. Not watching the sun come up is a huge mistake and a habit you don’t want to repeat.
Why?
The rising of the sun, has specific wavelengths of light that enter your pupil and travel through the central retinal pathway to your suprachiasmatic nucleus. The SCN is the master clock inside your body that sets your circadian rhythm for the day. We are diurnal creatures.
Every day your body needs to set a stopwatch.
When the stopwatch is counting down and gets to zero, then your body gets that signal and starts producing hormones that get you ready for sleep. If you don’t start the stopwatch at the right time, your body will not know when to produce sleep related hormones (melatonin).
The worst habit of sleep is to NOT watch the sunrise.
Eating After Sunset
We know that many things can alter your circadian rhythm. Some of these include temperature, timing, light and dark cycles, food and water.
I recommend not eating any food after the sun sets. Food is captured photons of sunlight. When we eat food, we’re eating sunlight.
This explains why we have photoreceptors in our gut.
When the sun has set, it’s not time to eat, but it’s time to sleep.
To learn more about this, I’d recommend reading The Daylight Diet and Yes, No, Maybe Chronobiotic Nutrition.
Not Blocking Blue Light
Light is the #1 way we influence our mitochondria and our circadian rhythm. Blue light prevents us from releasing melatonin to make us tired and it increases the stress hormone made by our adrenals called cortisol and adrenalin.
Blue light also causes macular degeneration, blindness and cancer but that’s a different story.
Not blocking blue light is a very bad habit of sleep that you need to fix if you want to make sure you get enough sleep each night.
I block blue light from my phone, my computer and in our home using only special circadian lighting.
During the day I open my windows, and I wear yellow glasses while inside and orange after the sun sets. Two hours before bed I put on my red pair to optimize my sleep.
Not Getting Outside Enough
Human beings spend way too much time indoors and it comes at the expense of our sleep and ultimately our health. A huge bad habit of sleeping is not spending as much time as you can outside.
I recommend taking a lot of very short breaks. I work from home so my backyard is right outside my window (which are always open). I go out about 5 or 6 times per day for a couple minutes each. I’m always grounded to the earth when I do this in order to accentuate the process and receive electrons to lower inflammation in my body.
This is in addition to watching the sunrise and being outside for the sunset (I can’t see the sunset where we’re living).
If you wear reading glasses or sunglasses I recommend taking them off when you’re outside. The color spectrum of the sun is what recalibrates your circadian rhythm. Altering the sun through windows or glasses is like playing God.
Remember, connection to nature is the healer.
Taking Naps
A lot of great people took naps. I don’t recommend them unless they’re for 30 minutes or less. Taking naps is another bad habit of sleeping because naps can alter your circadian timing in a negative way.
If you’re taking a cat nap for 20 minutes where you’re not really sleeping but just laying there with your eyes closed then that’s something I can get behind. What I would prefer is if you were going to take a nap, get a towel and put it on the grass in your backyard and lay down for 20 minutes while getting some sunshine.
Drinking Coffee After 11am
Drinking coffee too late can be a terrible habit for sleeping. Coffee is very healthy and can even prevent colon cancer but make sure you’re not drinking it after 11am, especially if you’re a slow metabolizer.
I drink coffee in the morning with no issues with my sleep. If I did have sleep issues like I used to, I would 100% eliminate coffee until I got my body healthy again.
Not “Winding Down”
Another bad habit of sleeping is not having a wind down routine. When you go to bed at night you’re entering into another world. Somehow you have to leave this world and enter into another world. To get to that place you have to be calm, sleepy and almost be in an altered state of consciousness.
You can’t go from a heightened state of cortisol spikes and dopamine rushes from doom scrolling on your blue lit social media app and expect to fall asleep. You must wind down.
Here’s what mine sleep routine looks like…
- Red lights inside
- Magnesium bath
- Stretching
- Reading
- Breathing exercises
- Sleep
Exercising Too Late
Back when I had sleep issues, I’d go to the gym at 9pm and workout under blue light, which wired me. But at the time I didn’t know I was wired, I was used to it. I couldn’t fall asleep to save my life (now I’m asleep in about 5 minutes) and I had no idea why.
Just like with food, exercise is something humans were meant to do during the day. It’s only because we played God and reinvented the Sun that allows us to commit these sins against our biology.
If there were not light bulbs, would you workout at night?
Do your exercise during the day (preferably outside in the sunshine with no sunglasses on) and you’ll notice the benefits.
Don’t make this mistake when it comes to your sleep.
Not Having a Sleep Schedule
As I mentioned we are diurnal beings of light that live according to a 24/7 light/dark cycles. We’re meant to release hormones at specific times each day. The more you live a routine that’s the same each day, the better your body will function.
You’ll sleep better, have more energy, feel more motivated and experience better overall health. Your body loves routines and it loves the cycles of nature, the seasons and life.
Avoid this bad habit of sleep by getting on a regular schedule.
You make it to work on time.
Make it to bed on time.
Isn’t your life worth more to you than you job?
Go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, eat at the same time and you’ll notice better sleep and better health.
Live in accordance with nature and embrace the seasons and cycles of life.
Embrace the sun during the day and embrace the darkness at night for optimal sleep and health.
Conclusion
Questions:
- What are your bad habits of sleeping?
- Does it take you a long time to fall asleep?
- Do you wake up in the middle of the night?
- Can you fall back asleep easily?
Comment below.
