I’m going to share with you how to blackout a room for the best sleep ever. But first I want to tell you where my obsession with sleep started.

I’ve always been really into getting a good sleep. It’s funny because my wife makes fun of me because I always ask her how she slept or how many hours of sleep she got when we wake up in the morning.

I think it’s because when I was in my teenage years my dad worked for FedEx driving a 15 wheeler truck from Irvine to LAX. He’d start at 3;30am in Irvine so that means he’d get up at 1:00am to leave enough time to take a shower, eat breakfast and make the 35 minute one way commute from Dana Point to Irvine.

There would be many times when he’d stay up “late” in order to watch us play our little league games or do something for us. For him going to bed “late” was around around 7pm. That means he’d only get about 6 hours max.

He’d generally work about 10 hours but it was all driving. I’ve always been somebody who falls asleep driving. I’m not a good driver in that way. My dad on the other hand can drive 10 hours without falling asleep after only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before.

I don’t know how he did it for 17 years.

We were always concerned with how much sleep he got.

I think that’s why I got obsessed with sleep at an early age. I was always worried he’d fall asleep at the wheel. I remember being in high school (knowing he got 2 hours of sleep because he stayed up late for us) wondering if I was going to get notified by a TA to go to the office for a phone call from my mom about my dad.

I was always worried about him and his sleep. As a result, I’ve always loved sleeping. I always feel so good when I sleep well. I don’t know if you’re like this but if I get really bad sleep on a particular night, it effects my motivation, my outlook my mood and every aspect of my day.

Some people with gene mutations (like the DEC2 gene aka “Differentiated Embryo Chondrocyte 2” aka BHLHE41, which stands for Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Family Member E41)  can get by on way less sleep. My dad must be one of them. Not only is that not me, but I feel like I’m ultra-effected when I get too little sleep.

I love it when I sleep well (which I do 95% of the time these days because I live a circadian lifestyle) and feel extra horrible when I don’t.

There would be times when my dad would complain that he couldn’t fall asleep because of the neighbor’s dog that was barking or his bedroom was too bright. When he went to bed at 5 or 6pm sometimes the sun would still be streaming into his bedroom window.

If I knew then what I know now about sleep and all the little details about how to optimize it, I could have helped him get longer and deeper sleep.

Benefits of Sleeping in Darkness

To get the most deep sleep (nREM sleep) and REM sleep you want to be in total darkness. This can be an issue is your window do not black out ambient light or direct sunlight. People that live in far northern environments (above the equator) and far southern environments (below the equator) can have a real issue with how much light gets into their bedroom.

But the amount of light streaming into your bedroom windows can even be a problem in Summer. Here in California the sun sets in the Summer at around 8:15pm.

Melatonin gets released from the pineal gland and from your mitochondria for about 4 hours after sunset. Isn’t it strange how your body knows when the sun sets? When the sun sets in our area the color temperature or Kelvin is around 1,200 to 1,400 depending on the time of year.

As soon as the sun sets you go from a light source (the sun) that emits 1,200 kelvin to 0 in about 1 second. That’s a huge crescendo that your body keeps track of. The way your body does this is from the light coming into your retina during the day and getting into the suprachiasmatic nucleus in your hypothalamus.

The SCN is your master clock. It tells every other clock (in EVERY cell of the body) what time it is. All the other internal clocks communicate through biophotons with the SCN to be tightly regulated.

You might be familiar with the pH of the blood and there’s very little “wiggle room” for changes in blood pH. The same is true with our circadian clock timing. It attenuates and recalibrates its own internal timing every second of every day.

When the body through its own internal timing mechanisms detects total darkness the secretion of melatonin begins. Many people think that melatonin is a sleep hormone, when in reality inducing sleep through circadian rhythm activation is just one of its thousands of benefits in the body.

Since it seems like everybody is dying from cancer these days, it should be shouted from the rooftops that melatonin is your body’s number one way to prevent cancer.

Another misconception is that people think melatonin is a nighttime hormone. The reality is that it is made in the body during the daytime through sunlight exposure to the skin and naked eyes. The body then stores this hormone and it gets released when it detects darkness.

Light In Your Bedroom Can Keep You Awake

It’s one thing when you’re trying to fall asleep and you have no curtains, blinds or window shades to block some light. In this case your room would be too light. It’s another thing entirely when we have devices in our room with indicator lights that can suppress the body’s release of melatonin.

Those indicator lights from your nightlight, air conditioner or air purifier can literally be keeping you awake. For these situations I use Junk Light Dots to remove the light coming off of them.

Whether it’s light from your cell phone, alarm clock or light coming in through a window that hasn’t been blacked out, it’s all going to suppress melatonin and keep you awake.

You need a pitch dark room with zero light to have optimal sleep.

How to Blackout a Room

I’ve seen lots of products over the years and some work well while others do not. One thing I really want to stress is the idea of embrace the brightness and sunlight during the day, and accentuating the darkness after sunset.

This is so important.

I hear sleep coaches say things like “well just stop screentime 2 hours before bed” to help with your sleep. People that say things like this, haven’t read the scientific literature. They’ve done very little sleep research.

The reason I say this is because just a few photons of light can suppress melatonin for multiple hours. Even if you stop looking at screens 2 hours before bed but you’re living under toxic indoor lighting, it doesn’t matter.

Then they come to me and tell me these “sleep hygiene” tips don’t work. It’s  not that they don’t work it’s that you didn’t fully understand the principles when you tried to adopt them. The same is true for taking melatonin.

I hear people all the time say “I tried melatonin and it didn’t work for me“. That’s like saying, “I tried food and food just doesn’t work for me.” Melatonin is an endogenous hormone your body makes by God’s design. If it didn’t work, you never would have slept in your whole life up until now.

And if it didn’t work your body wouldn’t be making it.

To black out a room the best product I’ve ever seen is from a company called UBlockout. I’ve looked at shutters, blinds and other cheap window tints and coverings but nothing ever seemed to work and not only that, it would fall off in the middle of the night.

At one point I was considering getting a blackout window film that you put on your window. The problem with these products is that it’s a semi permanent solution. I want the windows open during the day with as much light coming in and then making them 100% pitch black after sunset.

The UBlockout is a pretty cool design and concept. When you purchase them, you actually have to measure the exact size of certain parts of your bedroom window and it gets custom made for you.

Installing it is easy and it blocks out 100% of light. Nothing has come close in my opinion and it looks really cool too. I’m a fan of this company and what they’re doing. It’s worth investing in them for your bedroom and your kids bedroom as well.

Everybody feels happier and is healthier when they get a great sleep each night.

I know I am.

Conclusion

The takeaway here is to embrace the light of the sun during the daytime and accentuate darkness after sunset. One of the ways you can do that is to completely blackout your bedroom. How to blackout a room is simple but not easy. It’s a concept that makes sense. Less light does improve sleep, but the question is will you take action to improve your sleep?

Questions:

1. Do you sleep well?
2. How much REM and deep sleep do you get?
3. Did you know you can improve your sleep scores just by blacking out your room?
4. Would your partner be on board with making your bedroom darker?

Comment below.