Especially after diving even deeper into the research on sleep for my book,Good Energy, I can tell you sleep is one of the single most important investments we can make for our mental and physical health. The research is clear and overwhelming. And right now, we are not doing a good job at it. Compared to one hundred years ago, we are sleeping on average 25 percent less. That’s 25 percent less time for our bodies to do its critical processes of biological repair, recovery, and memory consolidation. Every time we skimp on the quantity, quality, or consistency of sleep, we inch toward the grave—and toward metabolic symptoms and diseases— by generating oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation, plus a big helping of microbiome dysfunction. Lack of quality sleep is a profound “danger” signal to the body, throwing off proper metabolism and promoting fat storage. I think about sleep in three ways:
Study highlight: One study found healthy, normal-weight individuals who slept fewer than 6.5 hours per night had to produce 50 percent more insulin than normal sleepers to achieve similar glucose results—placing the short sleepers at significant risk of developing insulin resistance in the long term. Remember, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes are insulin resistance—a root of nearly every other chronic symptom and disease.
Study highlight: One study followed over two thousand adult men for eight years and found that subjects who reported difficulty maintaining sleep had a two- fold to threefold higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. And in the short term, studies showed a link between sleep quality and the immediate ability to manage blood sugar efficiently the next day
Poor quality and quantity of sleep generate a wide array of downstream effects that damage the mitochondria. Lack of quality sleep leads to hormonal imbalances, including altered cortisol, insulin, growth hormone, and melatonin levels, all of which interact with the mitochondria. Additionally, sleep deprivation disrupts the expression of genes involved in the production of new mitochondria and replication of mitochondria. Sleep deprivation generates increased damaging free radicals, both by activating cellular machinery that makes free radicals and by inhibiting the production of antioxidants.
I mention Professor Matthew Walker in my book, Good Energy, because he notes that the Guinness Book of World Records still recognizes “Most Motorcycles Driven over the Body While Lying on a Bed of Nails” but has stopped recognizing attempts to break the sleep deprivation record because these attempts are just too dangerous. Lack of sleep is dangerous. Every person should prioritize the quantity, quality, and consistency of sleep like their life depends on it!
Historically, my sleep issue is that I am a notorious night owl and go to bed at late times and my bedtime bounces around night to night. This is NOT good for your health, particularly because we tend to get more deep sleep earlier in the night. The research shows that "sleep consistency" -- meaning regular sleep and wake times — is really important for metabolic health, above and beyond sleep quantity and quality (which we all know are important!).
I have tried every sleep hack in the book to get to bed at a more consistent time, including having a sleep coach for a while (through the app Crescent Health, which was great!), texting my sleep data to my best friend every day (and having to literally Venmo her money if I don't go to bed at the goal time I'd set), and planning early workouts so I’d be forced to get up early (and hopefully then go to bed earlier). I believe in accountability and these strategies were helpful, but the honest truth is that the thing that has transformed my sleep more than anything is living with my partner who likes to go to bed at a more reasonable time than me!
Simply living with someone I deeply respect and love who has a healthier habit than me (consistent sleep!) rubbed off on me almost instantly. This isn't to say that you should pick a partner just based on their bedtimes! What it did solidify to me, though, and is the takeaway, is that having support for health goals from the people closest in your life can be transformational for success, and we should aim to surround ourselves with healthy people if being healthy is our goal!
Research has shown that who you surround yourself with directly impacts your health. For instance, if one spouse becomes obese, it almost doubles the risk of their partner becoming obese. What a mother eats before conception, during pregnancy, and even after a child is born is an extremely strong factor in the child’s health outcomes. What’s more, social support and a sense of community are known to help a person do better in the face of many different diagnoses, from cancer.) to heart disease. Fast food consumption “clusters” into groups – a science-y way of saying that if some people in a community have a particular behavior, it’s more likely that others will. Health behaviors seem to be contagious. This is supported in the research for sleep! One study from Communications Biology showed that “an individual’s sleep may impact that of their partner, promoting opportunities for sleep interventions at the family-level.”This is not a hack, it’s a long-term solution!
This was one of the most frequently asked questions, because nothing feels better than going to sleep and not waking up until your alarm goes off, or the sun comes up!
The first thing to know is that everything is connected - which means our diet, exercise and stress management all impact our ability to get quality sleep.
Below are 5 Good Energy habits to consider here that can help with sleep:
For me, the biggest game changers in my sleep quality have been using my Eight Sleep mattress cover for tracking and temperature control, having a consistent bedtime and wake time, avoiding artificial light at night, and turning my phone to minimal brightness and red tint in the hours before bedtime. I take magnesium L-threonate every night before bed (I take Momentous or Now brand), and when I need an extra sleep aid, I take valerian root, L-theanine (from Mary Ruth’s or Momentous), and GABA (from Thorne).
Deep sleep is a stage of sleep marked by slow brain waves (delta waves) and is characterized by minimal responsiveness to external stimuli. This is a critical sleep stage - it is when the body is thought to increase repair of tissues, consolidate memories, and regulate hormones effectively. When people get more deep sleep, they have better memory recall - this is huge!
The thing about sleep - is that sleep quality, quantity and consistency are all connected. So the strategies listed above, will also help with getting deep, quality sleep. It’s important to remember that sleep is closely tied to metabolic health - in both cause and effect. If you start taking care of metabolic health and generating Good Energy (i.e., eating real food and avoiding processed foods, sugars seed oils, consistently moving throughout the day, lifting weights, managing stress, etc.), it isn’t going to be difficult to get good, consistent, quality sleep. By doing all these things, you’ll start to notice that you’re naturally sleeping longer, getting better quality sleep, and doing it consistently.
Evidence suggests that we can improve our deep sleep amount through the following factors:
Regular exercise
Consistent sleep schedules
Going to bed earlier (because we get more deep sleep earlier in the night)
Stress management techniques
Avoiding caffeine later in the day
Avoiding alcohol
Avoiding hot bedroom environment
Interestingly, women may require more sleep than men, and it may be because of unique differences in how women and men use their brains during the day. Sleep researcher Jim Horne, the former director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, says that “during deep sleep, the cortex — the part of the brain responsible for thought memory, language and so on – disengages from the senses and goes into recovery mode."
Additional research says that sleep disturbances may impact women uniquely worse than men. One study of subjective sleep quality showed that women with poorer sleep had greater psychosocial distress, worse metabolic health, and more inflammation than as compared to men with poor sleep. Astonishingly, women are 40% more at risk to develop insomnia. Women’s hormones and sleep are intimately tied, as well. It’s been shown that fluctuations in women’s hormones, like those that occur during the menstrual cycle (especially late luteal phase just before menstruation), perimenopause, and pregnancy all represent increased challenges for sleep.
Women need to prioritize sleep aggressively for mental and physical health. This might mean asking for more support from people around you, setting more boundaries, and doing less. We do the most for the world when we are energetic and resourced! This means investing in sleep.
My favorite thing about Eight Sleep is that I can get my sleep data passively if I’m not feeling like wearing a wearable. While I love wrist and ring based wearables (like Oura, Fitbit, and Whoop), sometimes I like to just be free of things on my body. In this situation, having the Pod still give me sleep data just by me laying there is magical!
The second thing I love about 8 sleep is the temperature control and how easy it is to use. It is one of my most favorite moments of the day to slip into a warm bed on a cold day, or a cool bed on a hot day. I also love being able to set the temperature to change throughout the night, because I tend to feel hotter as the night goes on, so I have the temperature get cooler throughout the night. Currently it’s winter, so I tend to have my bed at +3 at bedtime, +2 and +1 later in the evening, and I wake up at 0. It’s perfect! (And also saves money on the heating bill, since I turn our heat off at night and let 8 sleep do the temp control).
I think something that will surprise people who first read the book is a concept I share called “social jet lag”, which is the measure of sleep consistency looking at the difference in bedtime and wake time between work days and days off as measured by the “midpoint” of sleep. To understand “midpoint” of sleep, here is an example: if you sleep from 12am to 8am, the midpoint is 4am. We often have to sleep earlier to wake up earlier during our workdays, and sleep later since we may have the luxury to wake up later during our days off. If, for example, there is a three-hour difference between the “midpoints'' of your different sleep schedules, you have three hours worth of social jet lag. Anything more than 2 hours of social jetlag doubles your risk of metabolic disease. Unfortunately, almost half of U.S. adults report at least one hour of social jet lag! This motivated me to keep my sleep schedule on track, and keep it consistent!
For more sleep and health tips from Dr. Casey Means, order her book, Good Energy, and subscribe to her newsletter, Good Energy Living.