The Sleep Hacker

Is a power nap good for you? I am from the country of "siesta", and although it became less common than outsiders think, I still try to do one whenever I can but, you need to know how to do it.

You feel sleepy when adenosine builds up in your brain, creating what is known as sleep pressure.

There most common two ways to reduce sleep pressure is with caffeine and power napping. I already wrote about the mechanism of caffeine in another post so, let's focus in naps.

Every time you fall asleep, your brain begins to remove adenosine, and that's why if you don't sleep too much, you will feel refreshed. If you do more than 20-25 min, your brain will go into a too deep phase, and you will wake groggy.

A siesta helps to digest better as your body can enter into a proper "rest and digest"  mode but be careful: If you reduce too much the sleep pressure, you will have problems to fall asleep at night.

If you didn't sleep enough hours the previous night, you would have too much sleep pressure, to begin with, and you can be overtired and with a foggy brain the whole day. Having a power nap before afternoon can help you keep going, and it can be a better solution than caffeine.

My suggestion: 10-15 min after lunch never after 2 pm.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY WILL MAKE YOU SLEEP BETTER. Researches show that physical activity improves sleep quality and increases sleep duration.

Scientists found a link between regular physical activity and perceptions of sleepiness during the day, which suggests that participation in physical activity on a regular basis may positively influence an individual's productivity at work.

The problem comes when people overestimate the amount of activity they do so maybe they are not doing enough to get the minimum amount that helps sleep quality.

Exercise in early morning and afternoon may also help reset the sleep wake cycle by raising body temperature slightly, then allowing it to drop and trigger sleepiness a few hours later especially, if you are able to exercise outdoors and let your body absorb natural sunlight during the daytime hours.

So, in order to optimise your physical activity/sleep, practice sport really early in the morning when your cortisol is high or in the afternoon.
If you do it in the evening, you might increase too much your cortisol levels and also your body temperature. Both factors can affect your sleep quality

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED SLEEP DIVORCING? It is basically, sleeping in separate beds or even in separate rooms.

This sleeping solution might sound too radical, but if you’ve ever had a sleepless night because of your partner's snoring then you might even consider it.

The reasons for a sleep divorce can be snoring, tossing and duvet tussling or different sleep schedules

According to a survey from Slumber Cloud, 12 percent of American couples have filed for a sleep divorce, and 30 percent have discussed it.

A 2010 survey carried out by the American National Sleep Foundation found that almost a quarter of married couples already sleep in different beds, despite being in a healthy relationship.

And another study found that more than 200,000 Australian couples are choosing to sleep in seperate bedrooms so they can get a good night's sleep

Sleeping separately allow you to get enough rest so it can actually improve your relationship.

It's actually a practical solution because if you're being disturbed by your partner's snoring, and you're not getting enough sleep, then you need to do something to be able to rest well.

What do you do? If you could choose freely, would do it? Let me know! 😉