Sleep hygiene is the combination of both routine and dedicated time and place, to ensure optimal sleep patterns, and improve heart and metabolic health while we’re at it.
Routine:
The sleep hygiene routine is the steps you take before bed each night. This looks different for everyone, it could be a cup of tea, reading a book, planning tomorrow’s schedule, taking a shower, but hopefully at least includes brushing and flossing!
Creating these habits is a way to signal to your brain that you’re winding down and sleeping soon. For me, this nightly routine is just brushing and flossing. If I don’t for some reason, like recently I was not feeling well so I was already in bed for the evening, then I notice that something feels off and I have a much harder time when I’m trying to fall asleep. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it - but my sleep hygiene was off! I didn’t complete the routine that my body needs in order to signal bedtime.
Time and place:
Having a regular bedtime routine is important - but consistency in both bed TIME and reserving your bed and bedroom for sleep is equally as important!
Our sleep-wake cycle is referred to as our circadian rhythm - it’s exactly that, a rhythm. It requires dependable timing in order to strengthen the waves of that pattern. This circadian consistency is also important because it’s reinforced by our microbiome, which operates in the circadian rhythm with us. Disrupting our sleep habits has a two-fold effect, affecting us and our microbiome, which plays a huge role in hormonal signaling, neurotransmitter production and immune function.
Going to bed and waking up at a similar time each night (including weeknights and weekends!) supports this rhythm (for us and our microbiome) each day, and actually results in better health! One recent study showed that irregular sleep duration, as well as bed time (meaning a late night can’t just be counteracted by sleeping in) increases your risk for metabolic syndrome and heart disease significantly (1). For study participants, a 90 minute gap on average between regular sleep times over the course of a week, doubles risk of cardiovascular disease over the next 5 years. Additionally, when your bedtime varies by 90 minutes or more, the risk of developing metabolic syndrome is 58% higher. Metabolic syndrome is a set of abnormalities that increase the risk for heart disease and diabetes, including increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels (2).
The second piece is that your bed and bedroom should be for sleep (and sex) only. When we bring our phones in for a bedtime scroll or podcast, laptops for the last of Netflix series, or even a ‘non-screen’ activity like reading or journaling, we’re allowing our bed to signal both sleep and wakefulness to our brains. However, not all pre-bedtime routines are created equal, the research does show that reading from an iPad (or other screen) before bed, inhibits sleepiness far more than reading from a paper book (3). If you must, read a paper book!
We know how important sleep is but actually getting enough prevents a lot of people from experiencing those health benefits. To get higher quality and more restorative sleep work on sleep hygiene (and microbiome health). Pick one or two bedtime habits, be consistent on bed time, sleep duration, and keep screens out of the bedroom! Implementing these changes can be quick, but seeing the benefits can take longer. It can take a couple weeks or even months to retrain our brain to recognize the sleep signals we’re giving it, and our internal clock to normalize and strengthen. My best advice, be consistent and patient with these changes.
If you’re still struggling to get quality sleep, or maybe you’re getting plenty of sleep but still feeling flat and fatigued, there might be additional drivers for fatigue and poor sleep quality. There’s no reason to agonize over poor sleep, let’s get to the root of what’s really going on!
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Sources:
Brues, Michael. “Why a Regular Sleep Schedule Matters to Your Health”. March 21, 2020 https://thesleepdoctor.com/2020/03/21/why-a-regular-sleep-schedule-matters-to-your-health/?cn-reloaded=1
Rapaport, Lisa. “Varied bedtimes tied to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure”. July 2, 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-bedtime-metabolic-syndrome/varied-bedtimes-tied-to-obesity-diabetes-high-blood-pressure-idUSKCN1TX2YH
Doyle, Kathryn. “Reading from a tablet before bed may affect sleep quality” March 11, 2016. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sleep-ipad-reading/reading-from-a-tablet-before-bed-may-affect-sleep-quality-idUSKCN0WD1Z5
National Institute of Health. “Study finds irregular sleep patterns double the risk of cardiovascular disease in older adults”. March 2 2020. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-finds-irregular-sleep-patterns-double-risk-cardiovascular-disease-older-adults