The take-away are likely to be different for different people (a lot of mechanisms and techniques are covered), but for me they were: 1. cold showers in the morning—those really wake me up and flush away the grogginess that normally persists for a long time 2. step outside and get sunlight in your eyes in the morning, which helps maintain your waking time and/or shift it earlier (I’m naturally prone to go to bed later and later) 3. it’s better to have a consistent sleep duration than to make up for short sleep by sleeping long
The third point of advice in particular was something I’d never heard of and that ran counter to the gist of what I’d heard before. But empirically, it seems to be true—I’m always more tired when I suddenly start sleeping more than I did in the previous days.
Implementing mostly these three points, I got to the point where I could get on with 6 hours of sleep per night with what feels like normal productivity, something that would be absolutely unattainable previously (I think 6 hours is too short, and I want to aim for 7:30 of sleep for about 8 hours in bed in the long run).
I also benefitted a lot from using earplugs and a face mask. Something that I started to do one month or two before applying the advice from the podcast, and might have contributed to the good results.
I would highly suggest that anyone interested in sleep check the first few episodes of the Huberman Labs podcast, which are focused on this very issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1TxQj9IsQ&list=PLPNW_gerXa4Pc8S2qoUQc5e8Ir97RLuVW&index=28
(Confusingly, the playlist is in reverse order.)
The take-away are likely to be different for different people (a lot of mechanisms and techniques are covered), but for me they were:
1. cold showers in the morning—those really wake me up and flush away the grogginess that normally persists for a long time
2. step outside and get sunlight in your eyes in the morning, which helps maintain your waking time and/or shift it earlier (I’m naturally prone to go to bed later and later)
3. it’s better to have a consistent sleep duration than to make up for short sleep by sleeping long
The third point of advice in particular was something I’d never heard of and that ran counter to the gist of what I’d heard before. But empirically, it seems to be true—I’m always more tired when I suddenly start sleeping more than I did in the previous days.
Implementing mostly these three points, I got to the point where I could get on with 6 hours of sleep per night with what feels like normal productivity, something that would be absolutely unattainable previously (I think 6 hours is too short, and I want to aim for 7:30 of sleep for about 8 hours in bed in the long run).
I also benefitted a lot from using earplugs and a face mask. Something that I started to do one month or two before applying the advice from the podcast, and might have contributed to the good results.