Hey there !

The sleep tips you signed up for are finally here!

Let’s get right to it.

So look, if you’re waking up feeling groggy and unrested in the morning, it could be for a ton of different reasons.

But before we get into the super gnarly science behind sleep and discuss things like supplements, gadgets, or other products to improve your sleep, it’s important to tackle the low-hanging fruit first.

These first few emails will focus on the most common “Sleep Destroyers” that may be attacking your sleep quality.

Most of them are fairly simple to identify and eliminate.

This first one I’ll share with you today is actually one of the last ones I learned about...and it honestly shocked me because it wasn’t something I expected.

But once I addressed it, my sleep quality improved tremendously, both in how I felt and the data shown on my Oura Ring (not an affiliate link).

It has quite a huge impact on your sleep, so if you’re reading this email in the morning, you can implement the remedy TONIGHT to immediately improve your sleep quality. 

So what is Sleep Destroyer #1?

EATING TOO CLOSE TO BEDTIME.

I know, right?

So even if a big meal helps you feel sleepy (I’ve definitely eaten myself into a food coma one too many times...in the same day😅), it can harm your sleep for several reasons.

First off, it can cause (or worsen) heartburn, acid reflux, or indigestion. The symptoms may be so subtle you don’t even notice them, but it’s still affecting your sleep.

Also, higher amounts of fat and calories crank your digestive system into high gear.

This can cause you to take longer to fall asleep, wake you up throughout the night (even if you don’t remember) and interrupt your REM sleep, and prevent you from getting into the deeper phases of sleep you need for recovery.

Here’s what a study by Brazil's Universidade Federal de São Paulo discovered:

• Men who consumed higher amounts of fat in the evening hours had lower sleep efficiency scores, and spent less time in REM sleep. Sleep efficiency is a calculated number that reflects the amount of time actually sleeping relative to the total amount of time spent in bed. A lower sleep efficiency score indicates a person has spent more time in bed but not asleep than a person with a higher sleep efficiency score.
• Women's sleep patterns experienced disruption linked to both evening fat consumption and overall calorie consumption in the evenings. Higher fat intake during the evening was associated in women with lower sleep efficiency, taking longer to fall asleep and taking longer to reach REM sleep, as well as a greater likelihood of waking after falling asleep. Greater calorie intake was linked in women with taking longer to fall asleep and to lower sleep efficiency.

How close is “too close” to bedtime?

Most studies agree that eating within 3 hours of bedtime will disrupt your sleep.

So if you want to improve your sleep tonight, try two things:

1. Stop eating within 3 hours of your planned bedtime
2. Eat a smaller meal with fewer fats and carbs

I’m not a nutritionist, so I can’t give you any guidance on what to eat at what time, especially if you’re an athlete. 

But what I personally try to do is keep my evening meals / snacks high in protein and light in overall calories. Sometimes I just have a protein shake before bed, and that doesn’t seem to bother me too much.

Because of my schedule, it’s not always practical for me to avoid eating right before bedtime. 

When this happens, I try to keep my evening meals high in protein and light in carbs, fats, and overall calories. 

Sometimes I’ll just have a protein shake.

Eating a protein-rich snack can help to stabilize blood sugar, keep you from waking up starving, and increase metabolism, so if you have to eat close to bedtime, 

If you’re fortunate enough to have a personal trainer or nutritionist, ask them to help you plan your meals with your sleep schedule in mind.

So if you can, avoid eating within 3 hours of your bedtime for a few nights and let me know if you experience any difference!

And if you have any advice on avoiding meals or snacks at night, let me now so I can share it with our community.

That’s it for today. 

I’ll give you a few days to put this into practice and then I'll be back in your inbox with another common Sleep Destroyer and how to defend against it.

Ready...set...sleep 😴 

— Michael, Chief SleepHacker

PS — WHAT you eat also affects your sleep just as much as WHEN you eat. I’m going to get into that in the future after I do more research, but here’s some quick data:

Eating less fiber, more saturated fat, and more sugar throughout the day has been linked to lighter, less restorative sleep. 

Ana Krieger, MD, MPH, Medical Director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, told NBC News, “Eating healthy and allowing your body to absorb proper nutrients provides the brain with the chemical environment that it needs to produce the neurotransmitters that it needs to maintain adequate sleep.”