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Modern life has disconnected us from our sleep — here are some ways to fix it.

After studying sleep for 10 years as a PhD in Cognitive Psychology, I’ve seen this disconnect first hand. People should understand and talk about their sleep like we talk about our diet and exercise.

But we live in a society that admires the sleep-deprived workaholic and disregards the fully rested and more thoughtful among us. It can be hard to focus on our sleep health, so I’ve compiled 10 main takeaways from my decade in the sleep world. Hopefully these tips will help you improve the quality of your sleep, your health, and your overall well-being.

1) Don’t underestimate the Circadian Component. People generally have an idea about how much sleep they need (called the homeostatic component of sleep). For example, I know I need about 8 hours. But people often know little about their individual internal 24-hour clock, aka the circadian rhythm. Here’s what you need to know. Everyone has a 24-hour cycle that is impacted by this weird German word called zeitgebers. Zeitgebers are environmental cues that impact our human physiology. The most relevant zeitgeber to sleep is natural sunlight. Sunlight penetrates photoreceptors in the eye, even when the eye is closed. This sends a signal to a place in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (my favorite word in the English language by the way). The suprachiasmatic nucleus impacts the release of melatonin and a whole slew of other neurotransmitters. This system, known as the circadian rhythm, impacts everything from your fatigue level throughout the day to your immune system. It explains that feeling of being wide awake at a certain time in the morning, sleepy after that afternoon lunch, and really tired at 3 in the morning. Everyone has their own unique circadian component, which can be shifted forward or backward.

2) The main problem is that we aren’t getting enough sleep. Differences between people aside, the main societal problem when it comes to sleep is that people are just not getting enough of it. I don’t need to read off the stats, everyone knows those people in your lives that skate by on 5–6 hours of sleep, or sometimes even less. (Or, that person might be you!) Getting such little sleep is pretty unhealthy: It negatively impacts literally every organ in the body, and chronic sleep deprivation can decrease your life expectancy by as much as 5 years.

3) There are 2 major causes for trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. After interviewing people with sleep problems I’ve noticed that they generally fall into two categories: 1) People who can’t sleep due to external environmental factors and 2) People who can’t sleep due to internal factors. Ways to address external sleep disturbances can be things that are as simple as: getting a more comfortable bed, closing your blinds at night to prevent light exposure, and wearing earplugs so your neighbor’s snoring isn’t so bothersome. Internal sleep disturbances relate to repetitive or anxious thoughts close to bedtime. This can be more effectively addressed by following good sleep hygiene, associating your bed with sleeping, and following relaxation or meditation techniques.

4) Don’t make too big of a deal about sleep cycles (ditch the alarm if you can). A lot of apps out there claim to impact your sleep cycle by doing things like waking you up in a lighter sleep stage. But as someone who has made apps like this, it’s not actually the best approach to getting more energy throughout the day. Even light sleep is regenerative. So instead of trying to “beat” your sleep by waking up in a lighter phase, you should probably just get more sleep. Plus, deep sleep decreases as the night progresses. If you are getting a healthy amount of sleep, it won’t make much difference if you wake up 15 minutes before or after your alarm clock. Getting more sleep isn’t possible for a lot of people, but it’s better to sleep more than to rely on sleep cycle-based alarm clocks.

5) People are different, but not that different. Each individual has their own unique Circadian Component and optimum sleep lengths. That being said, about 90% of us need between 7–8 hours of sleep. Circadian differences can be more dramatic because they are entrenched by your habits and impacted by your external environment. You probably have a sense of whether you are a morning person or a night person. By exposing yourself to light earlier in the day and expending more energy in the morning than in the evening, you can theoretically shift your circadian cycle to be earlier — meaning that you will have more energy in the beginning of the day and less energy later in the day. If you always wanted to be a early bird, don’t lose hope! With a few easy tweaks, you can wake up earlier naturally and with way more energy than you’re used to.

6) Not sleeping enough is unhealthier than you think. Every animal on the planet sleeps for a reason. Sleep deprivation causes increased blood pressure, insulin resistance, decreases in cognitive functions, weakened immune system, and more snacking on fatty foods. In the long-term, it’s linked with decreased life span, increased obesity, cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, and increases in the common cold and neurological disorders. We should view sleeping like we see eating well and exercising: vital parts of a healthy lifestyle.

7) It’s not just light in the night, it’s light during the day, too. Let’s go back to the Circadian Cycle again. Remember that it is impacted by light? That’s why everyone is always telling you about how you shouldn’t be around screens close to bedtime. Screen exposure before bed is a source of sleep disruption. But there is also something else that you ought to think about that is related to this process. Light exposure during the day also helps entrench your circadian rhythm. Sitting in an office all day disrupts our Circadian Cycle. The artificial office light tricks our brains into thinking that it isn’t actually daytime. By getting outside into natural light as much as possible during the daytime, we can help reorganize our body’s response to light.

8) Being tired makes you grumpy and insensitive. Did you know that having a sense of humor is actually a higher level cognitive capacity? Since sleep deprivation impacts your cognitive faculties, it actually makes you have a worse sense of humor. Losing your ability to empathize and taking more risks also increases with sleep deprivation. Sadly, it seems that our society today is suffering from these symptoms as a whole. Maybe a lack of sleep is to blame.

9) Drugs are usually not the answer. Drugs, like Ambien, are almost never a good option. A lot of people do report being able to fall asleep with drugs or alcohol, but there is one thing to keep in mind when evaluating your sleep: We are really bad at evaluating our own sleep. While you might perceive that you are falling to sleep faster, these drugs can impact the quality of your sleep. Even though you might get more sleep, your sleep is less rejuvenating. Over-the-counter like Melatonin don’t have these sorts of negative effects, but based on my research, many people don’t find Melatonin very effective. It might have a lot to do with the time of day that you take the Melatonin. If you really want to improve your sleep, start with behavioral solutions, such as sticking to a consistent bedtime and wakeup time, before taking a drug. For insomnia, behavioral solutions have been shown to be more successful than all other solutions, and don’t have the negative consequences of drugs.

10) Sleep is a pathway that connects us with our subconscious. Lucid dreaming, or being able to control your own dreams is a skill that you can develop. I’m not an expert yet, but there are a bunch of techniques that can be used to help people take control of their subconscious. Everyone knows about the concept of “Inception” from the movie, but it actually is possible and science is helping to pave the way. 

When I think about sleep enhancement, I think about creating the perfect sound, light, and temperature environment. When these factors are combined together we can create the smart bedroom of the future and dramatically improve public health. Light has been particularly well established as a tool that impacts sleep, particularly regarding the finding that blue light at night keeps us awake. But light and sleep have an ancient and well studied relationship through the role that light plays in controlling the release of melatonin. After all, every single organism on the planet has some type of circadian rhythm that respond to light.

Recent developments in technology have made it easier for developers and mad scientists like me to answer questions like: can we change light via color, brightness, and hue at the right time to improve every human’s sleep? My friend Dr. Anne-Marie Chang did some of this foundational work around the impact that blue-light emitting technology has on circadian phase shift. So we know that lights can be harmful, but can they also be helpful?

To answer this question, my team at SleepSpace collaborated with my friend Sam Moore, director at LIFX smart bulbs, and the Google Nest team, including one of their collaborator scientists, Dr. Logan Schneider. We set out to discover whether lighting, when controlled by a smart assistant like Google’s, could help people with their sleep. We then integrated the LIFX technology within the SleepSpace app to create healthy wind down and wake up rituals.

There is always a tricky tension when it comes to technology and sleep because often times technology is the very cause of the problem. This is what Anne-Marie found. But perhaps with the right type of computer interaction, we can seamlessly control our lights to optimize our health, without the tech being a distraction or nuisance. Our theory is that lights that gradually fade out when you should go to bed and brighten when you wake up to an alarm over a 30 minute period will help people have better perceived alertness.

The reason a gradual smart light regime might positively impact daytime alertness is that fading out light reduces light exposure during the night-time, which provides signals to photoreceptors in your eyes that you should be awake, when in reality you should be winding down for bed. Light that gradually brightens in the morning could also act on these receptors to make people more alert in the morning and throughout the day. Moreover, this ritual of interacting with lights during your wind down and wake up could help train you to go to bed at more consistent times, which could help with your perceived alertness.

Methodology

In order to be included in the study, participants could not be a shift worker and had to own a nest and at least 2 LIFX smart bulbs. Here is what we did to test out the impact of smart lights on 66 sleepers aged 18–68.

Recruitment

We recruited participants by offering them free devices in exchange for their participation in a 3-week study. We asked participants to fill out a digital sleep diary on the SleepSpace platform every day. Additionally, participants completed weekly surveys that have been validated to measure sleep quality, such as the open source PROMIS survey of sleep quality. Participants were also asked to track their sleep using the SleepSpace nearable sleep sensing technology or with an Apple Watch when the participant chose to wear the watch during sleep.

Protocol

A good sham is needed to avoid a placebo effect in a study like this. In order to accomplish this, we want to compare lights in a condition that we think will be helpful, to a condition where we don’t think the lights will work but that the participant will still think that we are trying to help them using light. Running a study with light is more challenging than with something like a drug study where you can simply give someone a sugar pill in order to measure the difference in effect. In order to accomplish an effective sham we compared different light environments within a participant over a 3-week period that included: 1 week baseline followed by one week of either our Sham Condition or our Treatment Condition. We randomly assigned participants to either the sham or treatment on either week 2 or week 3.

Sham

Participants were instructed to interact with their Google Assistant 30 minutes before their bedtime and say: “Hey Google, set my all my lights to 50%.” This would turn their smart lights to 50%. Then when the participant indicated that they went to bed by pressing a button in SleepSpace, the lights turned off. In the morning, when the the participant indicated they woke up, we briefly popped the lights on at 1% brightness.

Treatment

Participants were similarly instructed to interact with their Google Assistant 30 minutes before their bedtime, but say, “Hey Google, sleep all my lights.” This would gradually dim all the lights in the participants home over a 30 minute period. Then they were instructed to say, “Hey Google, wake my bedroom light at XX:XX AM.” This would gradually ramp up the light in their bedroom over a 30 minute period at their decided wake up time.

By manipulating the lights in this way, we could see if gradually dimming and brighting the lights at the best time to go to bed and wake up can improve sleep compared to controlling smart lights in a way that should not have an impact on sleep (the sham condition). By giving participants commands in both conditions that control their lights, we are able to compare the impact of the ideal lighting environments while factoring out the impact of making commands to Google at designated times. When the sham week started for participants, they were still under the impression that they were changing lights to improve their sleep, which addresses possible placebo effects.

Results

We measured sleepiness using the PROMIS survey 4 times: onboarding, after baselines week, after sham/treatment week, and after the final sham/treatment week. I like to just plot everything first before we run statistics. In the below graph the dots represent every participant in the study and the lines represent the averages between conditions and over time.

When Dr. Dan Roberts, CSO of SleepSpace showed me this data, I was super excited! PROMIS asks the participant about multiple aspect of the quality of their sleep, with lower scores indicating better perceived sleep quality. Some observations…

• Participants in the sham first condition for some reason were randomly selected to have slightly worse perceived sleep quality.
• There was a bit of a Hawthorne effect, from starting observation in the baseline week where there looks like a slight improvement even when no intervention was being undertaken.
• It looks like we might have gotten the interaction we were looking for. Experimental psychologists (like me) love a good interaction and you can see it in the crossover on the graph.
• During the second week, both sham and treatment showed improvements. This makes sense because even in the sham condition we were instructing participants to change their lights during the right time based on their schedule. The AWESOME THING is that during the third week, for the sham condition participants perceived sleep quality looks like it gets worse, while for the treatment condition it continues to improve. This is exactly what we were hoping to find based on our hypothesis! But let’s dig a bit deeper and make sure that is a real effect we are seeing.

Statistics

We ran a 2X2 within groups ANOVA with week as one variable (week 2 vs week 3) and condition as the other variable (sham vs treatment). We found a significant interaction between week and condition where the treatment condition had better perceived sleep quality than the sham condition (p < 05), driven by improvements in the third week of the study. This provides strong evidence that fading the lights gradually at your designated bedtime and ramping them up gradually at your designated wake up time can improve how you feel about your sleep.

What’s more is that participants in all the conditions improved their perceived sleep quality over the 3-week study. This suggests that the simple act of setting an ideal bedtime and wake up time and being more aware of these times can help anyone improve their sleep quality in as little as 3 weeks.

Next Steps

We plan to extend this finding to a larger population of individuals who suffer from insomnia and determine if changing the hue of the lights can further improve on sleep quality. Based on a combination of your sleep goals and your natural rhythms there is likely an ideal light environment that can help both healthy people and individuals who suffer from poor sleep. While technology often does more harm than good (i.e. the blue light emanating from your phone when you should be winding down for bed), at the end of the day, technology is just a tool. It can be used for good, and it can be used for evil. Maybe a smart home environment that takes the human into the center of the picture can finally create this reality where the tech does more good than harm.

What You Can Do

We often don’t think about our lighting much when it comes to our sleep. Some quick hacks that I’ve personally found helpful around light exposure include:

• Get 30 minutes of sunlight a day and if not sun try a 10000 lux happy lamp.
• Try to get dim lighting after the sunsets, preferably with a red hue.
• Wake up with a simulated sunset.
• Have a consistent ritual around the same time every day to entrench your circadian rhythm.
• Try controlling a smart bulb like LIFX with an assistant like Google’s. It takes a little while to get used to the commands, but its worth it!

Please drop me a note if you have any questions or have any interest in participating in one of our future studies. SleepSpace can help companies and individuals evaluate what works and what does not work when it comes to our sleep health. In todays age, it is often up to each individual to find the sleep environment that works best for them in order to improve their alertness, productivity, and well-being.