Relax Like A Pro: 5 Steps to Hacking Your Sleep 215 Comments

Written by Tim Ferriss Topics: Physical Performance


Photo: Rickydavid

I once went almost five days without sleep in 1996 just to see 1) if I could make a week (I couldn’t), and 2) what the side-effects would be.

I was a new neuroscience major at Princeton at the time and hoped to do research with famed serotonin pioneer, Barry Jacobs.

Hallucinations cut my sleep deprivation trial short, but I’ve continued to experiment with sleep optimization and variation as a means of improving performance.

Here are a few effective techniques and hacks I’ve picked up over the last five years from sources ranging from biochemistry PhDs to biologists at Stanford University…

1. Consume 150-250 calories of low-glycemic index foods in small quantities (low glycemic load) prior to bed.

Morning fatigue and headache isn’t just from sleep debt or poor sleep. Low blood sugar following overnight fasting is often a contributing factor. Just prior to bed, have a small snack such as: a few sticks of celery with almond butter, a mandarin orange and 5-8 almonds, or plain low-fat (not fat-free) yoghurt and an apple. Ever wonder how you can sleep 8-10 hours and feel tired? This is part of the explanation. Make a pre-bed snack part of your nutritional program.

1-2 tablespoons of flaxseed oil (120-240 calories) can be used in combination with the above to further increase cell repair during sleep and thus decrease fatigue. It tastes like a mixture of cat urine and asparagus, so I recommend pinching your nose while consuming it — thanks Seth Roberts, PhD. for this tip — or using capsules.

2. Use ice baths to provoke sleep.

Japanese have longer lifespans that do most other ethnicities. One theory has been that regular ofuro or hot baths at bedtime increase melatonin release, which extends lifespan. Paradoxically, according to the Stanford professors who taught Bio 50, cold is actually a more effective signaller for sleep onset, but it could have no relation to melatonin production.

I decided to test the effect of combining 10-minute ice baths, timed with a countdown kitchen timer, one hour prior to bed (closer to bed and the adrenergic response of noradrenalin, etc. won’t allow you to sleep) with low-dose melatonin (1.5 – 3 mg) on regulating both sleep regularity and speed to sleep. The icebath is simple: 2-3 bags of ice from a convenience store ($3-6 USD) put into a half-full bath until the ice is about 80% melted. Beginners should start with immersing the lower body only and progress to spending the second five minutes with the upper torso submerged (fold your legs Indian-style at the end of the tub if you don’t have room). I’ll talk about the fat-loss and sperm-count benefits of this in future post.

The result: it’s like getting hit with an elephant tranquilizer. Don’t expect it to be pleasant at first.

3. Eating your meals at set times can be as important as sleeping on a schedule.

People talk a lot about circadian (circa dia = approximately one day) rhythms and establishing a regular sleep schedule, but bedtime timing is just one “zeitgeber” (lit: time giver), or stimulus that synchronizes this biorhythm (like pheromones and menstrual cycle). Eating meals at set times helps regulate melatonin, ghrelin, leptin, and other hormones that affect sleep cycles. Other “zeitgebers” for sleep include melatonin, light, and temperature. Parting suggestion: Get a sleep mask if you have any degree of light in your bedroom.

4. Embrace 20-minute caffeine naps and ultradian multiples.

Test “caffeine naps” between 1-3 pm. Down an espresso and set your alarm for no more than 20 minutes, which prevents awakening in the middle of a restorative sleep cycle. Interrupting cycles often leaves you feeling worse than no sleep (though some researchers assert your performance will still improve in comparison with deprivation).

For longer naps, test multiples of 90 minutes, which is called an “ultradian” rhythm in some papers, though the proper term should be “infradian” since it’s less than 24 hours. Thomas Edison, despite his vocal disdain for sleep and claim to sleep only four hours per night, is reported to have taken two three-hour naps daily.

Don’t forget to factor in your time-to-sleep. It often takes me up to an hour to fall asleep, so I’ll set my alarm for seven hours ((4 x 90 minutes) + 60-minute time-to-sleep).

5. Turn off preoccupation with afternoon closure and present-state training.

I have — as do most males in my family — what is called “onset insomnia.” I don’t have trouble staying asleep, but I have a difficult time falling asleep, sometime laying awake in bed for 1-2 hours. There are two approaches that I’ve used with good effect without medications to address this: 1) Determine and set a top priorities to-do list that afternoon for the following day to avoid late-night planning, 2) Do not read non-fiction prior to bed, which encourages projection into the future and preoccupation/planning. Read fiction that engages the imagination and demands present-state attention. Recommendations for compulsive non-fiction readers include Motherless Brooklyn and Stranger in a Strange Land.

—

From fat-loss (leptin release decreases with sleep debt) to memory consolidation, sleep is the currency of high-performance living.

Have you taken time to master it like a skill?

Here are a few questions for the researchers among you:

-What is the fastest way to pay off sleep debt?
-Can you eat more food — or protein specfically — to compensate for sleep deprivation? To what degree?
-How do side-effects of ongoing melatonin use compare to drugs like Ambien?
-What is the interplay of the hypothalamus and RAS (reticular activating system)?
-Does insulin sensitivity change between waking and sleep cycles? How?
-Can coffee and its effects on adenosine affect sleep depth or length?

Sweet dreams.

###

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Posted on January 27th, 2008

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215 Responses to “Relax Like A Pro: 5 Steps to Hacking Your Sleep”

  • Jim
    January 27th, 2008
    10:24 pm

    ICE BATH? I would be awake spending the rest of the night trying to figure how to get myself down from the ceiling !

  • Doug Bertram
    January 27th, 2008
    10:27 pm

    I have played around with sleep cycle manipulation, to varying degrees of success.

    I have tried several 30 day trials (based on the poly-phasic sleep study conducted by Steve Pavlina at his site) and have settled on a bi-phasic approach of roughly 4.5 hours of core sleep and 90 minutes of afternoon “siesta”.

    This cycle has left me more energetic than ever before and fits perfectly in with my family life and online work schedule (I have a great night shift without interruption from my wife or 3 kids and I am recharged from my power nap for when the kids get home from school).

    To everyone, do some research and consider a 30 day “lifestyle design” trial with your sleep/awake cycles, you may be very surprised (positively) with the results.

    DB

  • Joseph Javier Perla
    January 27th, 2008
    10:50 pm

    I’m surprised that you don’t also add Seth’s recommendation of more standing throughout the day: http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/405/ . In peer-reviewed research, it reduced early awakenings for him, and he speculates that we evolved to live, optimally, on our feet for much of the day.

  • Jeremy
    January 27th, 2008
    11:24 pm

    Tim,

    I’m interested in seeing the results of the questions at the end of the post when they are available.

    It’s kind of strange that this post popped up in my RSS reader right now — I was just contemplating why I was waking up in the morning with headaches for the past few days. I’m convinced that it is from not eating a meal prior to bed now. I thought it could have been from over sleep, but the fact that I cannot get 7 hours of sleep right now without an alarm clock and my diet has also changed (not eating before bed) I think you are right. Food!

    On a side note, I have found melatonin to be very effective at helping resetting my “clock” subsequent to a trip with a time zone change.

    I’m up for experimenting with some of those questions at the end, though. Especially the “eating more protein to compensate for sleep deprivation”.

    Thanks, Jeremy

  • Erik Cox
    January 27th, 2008
    11:41 pm

    Hey Tim,
    What is the thinking behind taking caffeine right before a nap, is it restorative? Seems counter-intuitive to down coffee when you are trying to rest.

    great post though, it would certainly be interesting to figure out how to sleep better!

    Erik

  • Ben
    January 27th, 2008
    11:54 pm

    the idea is that the caffeine doesn’t kick in until when you’re about done with your 20 minute nap, so you’re refreshed, plus caffeinated…

  • Teresa
    January 28th, 2008
    12:03 am

    The “caffeine nap” is an interesting idea. I’m aware of the 90 minute sleep cycle, but I read somewhere that if you can’t sleep for 90 minutes, always sleep for less than an hour. Not sure what this is based on though.

    Tim, do you have any sources you can recommend that led you to these tips? Or was it primarily personal experimentation?

    ###

    Hi Teresa,

    It’s a combination of personal experimentation, conversations with a few sports specialists, and Q&A with the professors who taught Bio 50 at Stanford a year or two ago. If you search “PubMed” on Google, you can find a great index of recent research as well.

    Tim

  • Warren from Zen Problog
    January 28th, 2008
    12:27 am

    I may not have understood have the words in this article but I am damn sure going to look them up. Very interesting read. Hope it will work for me. I am of the sleep deprived majority of America.

  • Mike
    January 28th, 2008
    12:35 am

    For a time in my early 20’s I owned a new business that took about 70 hrs/week out of me. To pay the bills I worked at Domino’s Pizza 4 nights a week in another city 30 minutes away so my customers wouldn’t know I had to moonlight.

    I would drive up there at 7pm dog tired. Finally I bought an alarm clock and took 10 minute naps in the seat of my Nissan pickup at a rest stop midway between jobs. It was uncomfortable but I woke up completely refreshed each time.

    One day I left my alarm clock out of the truck but knew I had to have the nap. I looked at my watch and laid down. My eyes popped open and my watch read exactly 10 minutes later. After that I could always take a nap and sleep exactly 10 minutes without a clock, except for one variable.

    I decided to sleep at home one time. My brain recognized the different location and I slept for 90 minutes.

    The most incredible thing is that before this, it would take me an hour or so to fall asleep each night. Since then I fall asleep within 30 seconds of laying down 95% of the time and rarely lay in bed for more than 5 minutes before falling asleep.

    One last thing about the sleeping brain. I have been able to consistently ignore noises such as other’s alarm clock. I will wake up to mine but no one else’s. I even traded alarm clocks with my girlfriend and now wake up to the one for me but not hers. Nothing I did on purpose, just lucky.

  • Adam
    January 28th, 2008
    12:37 am

    The caffeine nap works for me–I discovered it quite by accident in college–but for the life of me I don’t know why. Anyone have a clue?

    Meanwhile, I too would love to see the answers to some of those questions Time posed at the end…

  • blogrdoc
    January 28th, 2008
    1:11 am

    Getting to sleep (something I need to do in a few minutes) is key to getting up early, which is key to everything else. So… here’s my latest hacks which I just discovered:

    1. Count backwards starting at 100 or say the alphabet backwards. This takes the mind off worrisome things just enough for it to turn off.

    2. Listen to relaxing music. There’s a great CD that I just discoved called: “Bedtime Beats”. It a bunch of classical music that just makes me feel instantly sleepy as soon as I hear it.

  • Dr. Michael Breus
    January 28th, 2008
    1:12 am

    Tim,

    Interesting post, as a sleep specialist I would like to add a few comments:

    1) The Glycemic Index is always a topic of discussion, the data is quite interesting. If you go for High GI foods do it about 4 hours before bed, anything after that should be low GI foods. It basically falls around the idea of a sugar high and then crash. It is, as is everything, all in the timing.

    2) In fact I have not heard of this one before, but rather that HOT baths will raise core body temp then causing a drop, which is a signal to release Melatonin. But thinking about it, if you can be a polar bear, and get your body cold quickly it may work. However, be careful data has shown that sleeping in areas below 65 degrees can be disruptive to sleep.

    3) Great advice, I could not agree more!

    4) What I have been calling the “Caff-Nap” in my book (shameless plug here) Beauty Sleep is exactly what you are discussing. However I would add that espresso is not the drink of choice here but regular drip coffee (much higher caff content) and it should be luke warm (trying to fall asleep with burns on the roof of your mouth, just ain’t easy).

    5) This too is great advice, remember to also mention to people that the light source that they are reading with can in fact effect sleep. I ask patients to change the bedside table lamp to a 40 Watt bulb, or use a book light (check out the lightwedge, very cool).

    A while back I was asked to comment on Uberman and his sleep schedule in a blog called Health Hacks, it was an interesting discussion.

    Great post, keep them comming.

    The Sleep Doctor

  • Another Tim
    January 28th, 2008
    1:23 am

    I take a 20 minute nap at the end of my lunch break every day mon – fri … after drinking a skinny mocha ( two shots espresso , 1tbsp hersheys cocoa, 1tbsp hersheys dark cocoa, 2 tbsp sugar , 1/4 cup fat free land o lakes half/half —

    I go to sleep just fine … and wake up like I have slept for 39 years!!! … ok , well for about two hours ( seriously! )

    In other words, .. something is working. That ‘lunch espresso nap’ gives me some serious recharge.

    I challenge everyone to try it and compare the results .. it is more than a little unusual… very interesting isn’t it??

  • Seth Roberts
    January 28th, 2008
    1:41 am

    I’ve found the single best thing to do is get outside light for 1-2 hrs early in the morning. At least one hour, optimally two hours. If you can’t actually be outside, sitting by a window seems to help. I’m outside on my porch (in the shade) every morning, working on my laptop. Sometimes I stand.

  • Laedelas
    January 28th, 2008
    1:41 am

    My sleep cycles are incredibly unpredictable due to severe insomnia, but on week nights I get an average of 4 or 5 hours of sleep. It’s important for me to have one sleep-in day a week, otherwise I’ll burn out in about 10 days. That “day of rest” is a Biblical principle, and really helps.

    In response to Mike (above)… Sometimes I can wake up to an internal alarm clock, but often it’s the other way around. I can predict when I’ll fall asleep and how much sleep I won’t get in any particular night.

  • Jolene
    January 28th, 2008
    2:33 am

    I have sleep-onset insomnia and just wanted to add – light yoga and meditation helps me a lot more than reading or else I’ll stay up all night thinking about Martians and Heinlein. I’m glad it works for you, though.

  • kuri
    January 28th, 2008
    3:21 am

    By experience,I don’t believe the cafeine effect per itself. I read recently that now researchers consider sensitivity to cafeine disappear when one becomes a regular user. That makes sense.

    My opinion is adults are like toddlers that will sleep if you give them their teddy bear, and will wake up fully after drinking cocoa. We are just more complex because we have different sorts of bears and morning drinks. I let you play with the ice bath teddy bear.

    I control pretty well my sleep, and don’t need more than 4 hours a night. Unfortunately, I’m not Edison.
    How do I do ? I can’t tell. I got used to it when I was a busy student and had to get up at 5, while I couldn’t sleep until midnight at best. Like Mike, after a while I saw I could do it on demand.

    **What is the fastest way to pay off sleep debt?

    Probably pranayama or similar energetic breathing practice.
    You may also need to drink water as deshydratation is common in modern life, do strectching, close your eyes, take a micro-nap, massage to stimulate muscles or skin. Eating ? I’m not so sure, you certainly feel more hungry for junk food when tired, but you probably shouldn’t eat more.

    About your number 1. Isn’t your flaxseed oil stale ? Be careful it can become toxic if kept too long and not stored properly in the fridge. Maybe that’s just a question of quality. Mine is sold a crazy price, but it tastes like oil, not good but not bad nor smelly. It’s tasty on a salad.

  • John Roberts
    January 28th, 2008
    4:02 am

    Tim,

    From what I’ve read, the key is both getting to the right core temperature and having a declining temperature gradient as one goes down to the feet. The reason people take hot baths an hour before bed is to stimulate peripheral circulation. Then, once down, that helps to cool things off more rapidly. Ditto the use of foot warmers in the winter. They’d warm your feet, get the circ. going and then the feet would cool more quickly and you’d get the gradient vs. your already cold core.

    A few references are listed below.

    I’m still experimenting with my own sleep patterns out of desire for more productivity. Meanwhile, I wish you luck with your insomnia.

    -JR
    Tigard, Oregon

    Physiology & Behavior
    Volume 90, Issue 4, 16 March 2007, Pages 643-647
    doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.11.018

    International Journal of Nursing Studies
    Volume 42, Issue 7, September 2005, Pages 717-722
    doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2004.11.011

    Neuropsychopharmacology
    Volume 25, Issue 5, Supplement 1, November 2001, Pages S92-S96
    doi:10.1016/S0893-133X(01)00315-3

  • NapSounds
    January 28th, 2008
    4:14 am

    Hi,

    I have never tried the ice bath, but that’s now on my must try list! What I do however is take a colder than usual shower before going to sleep. This gently cools you down and sends the right signals to your body.

    Also check out NapSounds (link above) if you want help with power napping. Voice guidance and binaural beats are quite helpful to bring you in and out of sleep in a very short time.

    Sebastien – NapSounds

  • Attila
    January 28th, 2008
    4:25 am

    This is a brilliant post. I’ve been thinking about the subject a lot in the past months, trying to figure out the post-waking headache and nausea. Been struggling with the onset-insomnia all my life as well.

    What I’ve recently started doing, (and it works really well) is to drink 1-2 cups of Lemon balm tea one hour before sleep – it induces a pleasant relaxed feeling that gets me ready. Turning off all audiovisual stimuli – no music, no movies – during this time is a must as well. I had the extremely bad habit of listening to high-energy music and turning it off just moments before going to bed – no wonder I couldn’t fall asleep for 3-4 hours at minimum. Nowadays, I just read fiction – if, for any reason, sleep won’t come, at least there’s a good feeling of doing something constructive.

    Do you think that the caff-nap works with yerba mate/green/black tea as well? Is there any difference between coffee or tea that’s relevant?

  • Hans Holter Solhjell
    January 28th, 2008
    5:31 am

    Thank you for this interessting article.

    One website that might interest you is http://www.soundersleep.com, and the sleep inducing excercises created by Michael Krugman.

    Also, the book, the 20 minute break, is a great book on how to get the most out of those daytime naps, for relaxation, creativity, problemsolving and more.

    http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Minute-Break-Performance-Well-Being/dp/087477585X

  • Björgvin
    January 28th, 2008
    6:27 am

    Thanks for the great post, this is something that´s been on my mind for a while because I never seem to be able to cram all my stuff into the normal day.
    Although I won´t stop sleeping for five days I think I´ll give the 4.5 hour sleep plus nap schedule a try.

    Always great to read your posts.

  • Adam M
    January 28th, 2008
    6:30 am

    Hi Tim,

    Interesting stuff. Since everyone spends on average around 20 years asleep you might also want to look into lucid dreaming. Basically it’s the practice of keeping the conscious part of your brain awake whilst you’re asleep so you can control your dreams. Some people use it to live out their fantasies whilst other people use it for more practical reasons such as creating music, rehearsing scenarios or overcoming nightmares and fears. It’s been scientifically proven that people can do it. Have a look:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming

    Adam M

  • Andi
    January 28th, 2008
    6:59 am

    Hey Tim,

    great post. For your falling-asleep problem there’s something called “Schlaftraining” (lit: sleep training). However it’s not easy: You give yourself only 5 and a half hours of sleep per night. No naps, no siesta. Do this for 3 Months (no exceptions). This is hard, but after those 3 months you’ll fall asleep like a baby.
    If you do it as therapy rather than experiment, there’s more to it like keeping notes concerning your sleep and awak periods. The general idea is to match your time in bed with the time you actually need to sleep. See: http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/psych/diagnostik/schlafambulanz/page2.html (german)

  • LoveandSalt
    January 28th, 2008
    7:16 am

    Great post. Re: waking up with a headache–this is the time of year, if you’re in the north, that heated indoor air is desert dry. Waking up dehydrated can also cause a nasty, dull and/or pounding headache. Water all day, water beside the bed (if you wake up during the night, drink some water when you do) and water first thing in the morning. A humidifier will also help. I keep a cast iron kettle full of water on top of my woodstove and it’s often completely evaporated by dawn. Another good slow humidifier is an old crock pot set on low, with the lid off.

  • John
    January 28th, 2008
    7:27 am

    Tim, you never cease to amaze me! First of all you knock out these posts like a seasoned journalist and second they seem to really hit GREAT topics.

    I was just talking to my wife yesterday about her problems sleeping. Headaches and fatigue when she wakes up, with problems sleeping through the night on occasion.

    I’m going to recommend a few things to her that you mentioned above.

    Great post!

    Ciao

  • aaron
    January 28th, 2008
    7:28 am

    No thanks on the ice bath!
    Where did you get a picture of Julia Roberts sleeping?

    Great points, maybe i’ll sleep better tonight!

    ###

    LOL… it’s not Julia Roberts! Cute girl, though, I’ll admit. From Flickr under the Creative Commons. The link below it will take you to the photographer’s page.

    Cheers,

    Tim

  • barbara
    January 28th, 2008
    7:55 am

    I hadn’t heard of Motherless Brooklyn so I will page it as soon as I get to work, but why Stranger in a Strange Land? I don’t get it.

    (It’s a great book but it doesn’t put me to sleep)

    ###

    Hi Barb,

    Good question. The books aren’t so much to put you to sleep, as reading has never done this for me, but rather for requiring visual imagination so you are focused on the present vs. what you need to do the next day. Natural fatigue and circadian rhythm would then initiate sleep.

    Hope that helps,

    Tim

  • Mary McK.
    January 28th, 2008
    8:16 am

    Along with blogrdoc, I find that a meditative exercise does wonders to bring on sleep. I practise karate several times per week and discovered a couple of months ago that doing kata in my head at night puts me out like a light. I know 15 katas, but I never even get through the first one before I’m asleep. Falling asleep used to be a real problem for me as well.

    The suggestions for experimentation with different sleep cycles to maximise energy are very intriguing and I plan to try them.

  • karl Staib - Your Happiness Matters
    January 28th, 2008
    8:55 am

    My favorite sleep hack is to treat the relaxing in bed before sleep as a meditation. I put the focus on feeling what’s going on instead of letting my thoughts run rampant. This helps me let go of whatever my mind is stuck on and enjoy the quiet time that I have. There is no forcing or rushing to go to sleep because that only makes me have more trouble settling down.

  • Marvin
    January 28th, 2008
    9:59 am

    One thing to consider if you wake up feeling dog-tired and with a headache is sleep apnea; that is, the body actually stops breathing for a few moments and then rouses itself to get a good snort of air. This causes a very disruptive sleep pattern and can even lead to heart disease and other nasty ailments (see http://www.healthyresources.com/sleep/apnea/articles/protect.html).

    Fortunately, it can be treated.

    So if you’re consistently getting elbowed by your partner in the middle of the night because you’re snoring, you might want to get checked for apnea.

  • William Tapscott
    January 28th, 2008
    10:10 am

    I find that a simple self-hypnosis routine is an easy and pleasant way to fall asleep.

    As soon as you lie down in bed, vividly imagine that you are relaxing on a beach (or other stress-free location). Tell yourself that your muscles are becoming relaxed, one-by-one, head-to-toe (i.e., my forehead is relaxing, my face is relaxing, my neck is relaxing, etc.) and really visualize it.

    I’m usually out before I get to my toes.

  • Allen
    January 28th, 2008
    10:18 am

    A couple suggestions:

    Casein (a milk protien) is ideally suited for your evening snack. It’s slower digesting than most other protiens so you’re covered for a longer period during a sleep fast and you’ll get less of an insulin spike. Cottage cheese is the easiest way to get it, but many companies are now putting out protien shakes largely composed of Casein for body building.

    Fish oil (cod liver oil) may also be a better choice over flax seed, though you’ll have to take it in capsules (get the enteric coated, non-fish burp kind). The Omega 3’s in Flax seed oil (ALA) are not easily converted to the beneficial EPA and DHA that fight cancer, reduce inflamation, etc. Fish oil already contains EPA and DHA.

    Oh by the way I’m loving grand central. No more giving clients my cell number!

  • Jennifer Grammer
    January 28th, 2008
    10:32 am

    This article hits home as I tend to be a night owl and sleep in “shifts.” I read a book recently called “The Raw Secrets” http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/rawsecrets.html
    about mistakes made regarding food, sleep deprivation, lack of energy. It is all connected to health via the mind, body, and soul.

  • John
    January 28th, 2008
    11:00 am

    Good post, Tim.

    I rarely take naps, but I have this routine where, when I’m tired, I can lay down for maybe 10 minutes and close my eyes. It never seems like I’m falling asleep because I’m aware of my surroundings and if someone is next to me or near by, they don’t perceive me as sleeping. But after a few minutes of this, I open my eyes and feel refreshed, as if I’ve had a proper nap (proper naps have never worked well for me.) I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager. I don’t know why it works, but it seems to. Anybody else “nap” like this? Just curious.

  • Cliff
    January 28th, 2008
    12:02 pm

    Tim:

    Great tips! I wonder if you have heard about benefits of sleeping with earplugs. I have discovered completely by accident that sleeping with earplugs I fall asleep immediately, and sleep deep in precise 90 minute cycles — I never had that regular sleep cycle before. I used to feel that I needed 9 hours to function, now after 3 cycles (usually about 6 hours) I’m ready to go. Also, as a side benefit, my wife says it stopped my snoring (I really can’t explain that one).

    I love the “commando nap” (coffee before 20 minute catnap). It works especially great with Pzizz.

    ###

    Hi Cliff,

    Dang — you’re right! I forgot to mention this and always travel with earplugs. Excellent recommendation, though I usually sleep at home without them because I chose a quiet neighborhood in which to live.

    Thanks!

    Tim

  • Max
    January 28th, 2008
    12:09 pm

    Another way to help sleep is exercise. I have no idea of the science behind it, but even a 20 minute brisk walk every day helps me sleep much better.

  • Phil McThomas
    January 28th, 2008
    12:11 pm

    I used to have the same problem with dropping off to sleep. I found that listening to spoken-word audio really helps. Podcasts are great for this as there’s a number that have no commercials or music that can jolt you awake – plus they end after 30-60 minutes.

    My current crop are:

    Hometown Tales
    BBC’s In Our Time
    Make It So (Star Trek)
    Anything Ghost
    Table Rappers (audio book)

  • VH
    January 28th, 2008
    12:21 pm

    Tim,
    Once again fascinating stuff..you have one of the best blogs out there. It reminded me of a great book “Never Cry Wolf” by the biolgist Farley Mowat. He lived amongst wolf packs for months in the Canadian tundra and eventually adopted their sleep patterns. They usually nap throughout the day and night in 15 to 20 minutes blocks. He claims it’s most refreshing and even improved his health even though he never allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep. On an evolutionary scale it makes sense. The majority of our history as modern humans (about 85,000 years) centered around a hunter-gatherer society; agrarian, industrial, and the information age arrived only during the most recent few thousand years. New research shows that violence was more prevalent amongst hunter-gatherer tribes than previously thought. This would explain the advantage of never going beyond Stage 1 sleep in that one could be ready for action at any time. Some anthropologists argue that the extreme violence forced physically weaker humans into becoming farmers, being able to isolate and sustain themselves apart from the packs and incessant danger. I plan to test out this theory in my cubicle George Castanza style!!
    -vh

  • Karl
    January 28th, 2008
    12:30 pm

    It’s not a physiological trick, but still useful – if worries are keeping you awake (’oh crap, I have to take the cat to the vet… did I remember to give the emu his flea bath?… I think I left my keys on the steps’) just get up and write down a complete list of EVERYTHING that’s worrying you.

    Having that list off-loaded out of your brain gets you free of the ‘trying to remember what to stress about’ mode, and you can actually relax/sleep. Kind of like GTD applied to Insomnia.

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  • Twist
    January 28th, 2008
    1:10 pm

    This is what I do. I put the image of a fish or some animal in my mind and then I animate it. It starts on a white background, things start filling in and I fall asleep before it gets much further than that.

    This has to be activating some part of my mind or shutting down another part.

    Cheers

  • Rhodes Davis
    January 28th, 2008
    1:16 pm

    Great ideas. The suggestion to eat a snack before bed seems reasonable; however, I thought that if you ate before going to bed you increased the chances of having acid reflux problems. Is there a timeframe to eat before bed that will gain the sleep benefit and reduce the probability of developing reflux problems?

  • Naomi
    January 28th, 2008
    1:31 pm

    Hmmm. I’ve mainly tried to cut down on sleep time. (Less time sleeping, more time to do fun stuff.)

    I’ve found the about 5 hours a night I can cope with fine, only it takes time to get to that amount.

    Like eating, I’ve found that I sleep usually more than I actually need to.

    Afternoon naps of 20 mins to 30 mins are great. (I learnt this in Spain – very civilised.)

  • Alex Berger
    January 28th, 2008
    2:02 pm

    Tim,

    Great post – I noticed that you mentioned it takes you over an hour to zonk out. As a serial napper I regularly amaze my friends with my ability to go from hyper-awake to out-cold in 5-10 minutes max. My trick revolves around visualizations. I refer to it as lucid dreaming, but it’s not. So, let’s just call it lucid-pre-dreaming.

    Basically, when ready to go to sleep. Kill the lights, relax, close your eyes and begin to visualize a scene w/ activity (think of a mental movie). For propriety’s sake, let’s use a visual of flyfishing in the Colorado Rockies. Visualize the picture, and then play out the action/activity in your head. For me, the sensation is as though i am watching a movie on my eyelids. Allow your subconscious to play the movie out, while tweaking it with your conscious mind. As it unfolds, try and visualize as much as you can.

    The result is, even if it’s a daydream i’m really caught up in, i’ll be out cold in a flash. I think it’s largely tied to allowing my mind to clear, and focusing on something that doesn’t agitate my physiological state (such as whatever im excited about from the day, or worried about). If the dream is drifting in a direction I don’t care for I simply change body positions and face a different direction.

    I’m a spatial person, so the technique may vary based on visualization type – but give it a go.

    A second technique i use is learning naps. In college we learned that memory is transferred from short to long term memory in sleep. My solution to studying was to study hard for 15-30 minutes then to take a 20-40 minute power nap (on par with the caffeine naps you’ve mentioned). I would wake up, spend 10 minutes centering myself then rinse and repeat. After 2 or 5 sessions like this (depending on the material) I was golden.

  • Joel Mueller
    January 28th, 2008
    2:37 pm

    Have you ever tried those heart monitor watches that are supposed to wake you up at the appropriate time to maximize your energy for the next day? They cost around $150 – where mentioned by the 37signals.com/svn guys a while back.

  • Martin Russell
    January 28th, 2008
    3:48 pm

    Thanks Tim for sharing these.

    For people who are currently taking tablets of any kind they first need to get off them safely, so here’s some videos with helpful info:

    http://www.SelfHelpSleepingPills.com

    It’s a 3-step hack for taking sleeping pills safely for the minimum time.

    So then you can get on with the ice-baths :-)

  • Matt Lovell
    January 28th, 2008
    3:49 pm

    I like this post, some interesting stuff here. We’re really into promoting proper sleep with our athletes.
    A couple of things though, ice baths before bed! I thought that activated the sympathetic system.
    We use epsom salt baths, the relaxing effects of the magnesium make you sleep like a baby.
    We’d use soem tryptophan rich foods as well and maybe 5HTP or melatonin.
    Some of the players do well on growth hormone amino acids, like arginine.
    Keep me posted though like I siad there’s some great stuff in your site.
    Matt Lovell England RFU Nutritionist

  • Nate
    January 28th, 2008
    4:05 pm

    Interesting.

    For me sleep is the result of 2 aspects: Regular exercise and peace of mind (the absence of anxiety/stress)

    20-30 minutes of Meditation helps to quiet the mind and induce peace of mind (probably much like your fiction) Exercise causes the body to want to slow down and get some R&R.

    6-7 hours is all it takes for me.

    Tim, I love reading your blog, but I have to say that I am a bit worried that I might find a flashing circuit board behind your ears should we ever meet. From email filtering ninjas to 34 lbs in 28 days, and now this! Seriously, are you really an android? Or is all this super-human systematization just the extra-ordinary core of who you are?!

    Kudos once again,

    Nate

  • corkhead32
    January 28th, 2008
    4:14 pm

    Tim,

    It takes me a while to fall asleep too, although I never have trouble staying asleep. How do you factor this in with your caffeine naps? I would imagine laying down, and after not having fallen asleep before 20-30 minutes the caffeine would already come into affect, making it even harder to get to sleep.

  • Richard
    January 28th, 2008
    5:05 pm

    After the first day’s experiment, here are my results!

    Bed time: 10.15
    Wake time: 6.23
    Total time in bed. 8hrs 7mins
    Estimated sleep cycles: 5*90=450mins=7hrs 30mins
    Estimated time to sleep: 37mins
    Pre bed snack: Half an apple, 5 spoonfuls of low fat yoghurt
    Pre bed activity: 4hrs before – dinner. 3hrs before – exercise. 2hrs before – hot bath. 1 hr before – relaxing music (and internet).
    Overall morning feeling: Great! It was nice to wake up with out an alarm and then hitting snooze 12 times.

    I think I woke up at 4:30 something as well but that doesn’t seem to fit into the 90 minute sleep cycles. Plus I haven’t designed a day that starts at 4.30 yet!

  • Anjani
    January 28th, 2008
    5:25 pm

    Hi Tim –

    Thanks for the post. Regarding your question on how to counter sleep deprivation, here is my take (gotten from some source in the past that I can’t quite recall….never used to index my notes back in the day so it’s just categorized under useless info in my head! :-) )

    Sleep deprivation causes the body stress, and when the body is stressed it creates a lot of acid. Acid in the system wears the body down and makes you feel tierd, fatigued and sucks the energy out of your cells. The only real way to counter acidity is alkalinity. Green drinks (as disgusting as flax seed oil, I’m sure…or Cod Liver oil…even worst) are one of the quickest way to fire up your cells with alkalinity and restore the ph balance in your body. This has worked for me with lots of events – sleep deprivation being one, hangovers being another (miraculously cures hangovers instantly), and poor diet mixed with lots of stress being another. Now, I will say that I don’t think anything other than actual sleep – maybe induced REM can cure long term sleep deprivation – but the whole alkalinity bit is worth a try for a short term fix.

    For more of a long term fix, I mentioned induced REM. Meditation works WONDERS. They (again, I’m not sure who) say that people who meditate regularly don’t need as much sleep as people who don’t meditate. I fully believe this. In true meditation, your brain exponentially simulates a sleep cycle. I am not sure if it simulates REM….but 30 minutes of meditation can replace many hours of sleep.

    Hope that helps.

    Anjani

  • Anjani
    January 28th, 2008
    5:32 pm

    One more comment….

    I’d like to add a ponderable to your current list….

    Ever have those sleep cycles that you just can’t wake up from? Ones where your dreams are so vivid and the interplay between the dream world and the real world is very very fuzzy because you are half awake and arn’t dreaming in REM. I guess it’s kind of like conscious dreaming. Then you finally wake up for the next 15 minutes you are not sure what is actual reality and what is not reality. What is this type of sleep cycle called and how do you get ridof it? For me, this is worst than sleep deprivation….it reverses the rest gained from sleep. Any scientific ideas?

  • Skyler Tanner
    January 28th, 2008
    7:59 pm

    Tim,

    I’ve found that using ALCAR and Theanine before bed reduces the total need for sleep, at least in the short term. Take 700 mg ALCAR 600~800 mg l-theanine 2 -4 hours before bed; I found I would subjectively feel the same as if I was getting 8 hours in spite of the fact that I was getting 6 or less. Those who have followed this protocol longer indicated that your need trends back upward, but never quite reaches your baseline.

    I use melatonin and lunesta as smart bombs for sleep i.e. adjusting to new time zones.

    Best,
    Skyler

  • Karl
    January 28th, 2008
    8:09 pm

    I found this reference from the Smithsonian Magazine interesting – apparently, pre-electric sleep patterns were VERY different than the ‘one-big block of sleep’ habit we’re used to now. Fragmented / interrupted sleep was the norm.

    Excerpt here: http://www.sleepnet.com/apnea48/messages/447.html

    - Karl

  • Raina Gustafson
    January 28th, 2008
    8:11 pm

    This is probably my all-time favorite post on the 4HWW blog.

    Couple things to throw in the mix (none of which are particularly scientific):

    1. Ayurveda recommends massaging warm sesame oil onto the soles of the feet as a relaxation trigger before bed. Nice to do to oneself, even better if someone else is willing to pamper you. It puts me out like a light every time. Adding a little lavender or other essential oil might enhance the effect.

    2. Reiki – again on oneself or with a volunteer – highly effective for me at inducing warm fuzzies and sleep.

    3. Yoga Nidra – if you’ve ever been taught to systematically tense and then relax individual muscles before bed (my mom taught me this as a young child) – it likely came from Yoga Nidra. For Yoga Nidra you’re actually supposed to stay awake, but it could be effective for either “power napping” or falling asleep depending on your intention. Lot’s of resources out there – just do a search.

  • Big Riggs
    January 28th, 2008
    10:29 pm

    Thanks for the good ideas.

    One thing that I’ve come to rely upon is Transcendental Meditation. It’s not a religion and it’s got nothing to do with any belief system. It’s a terrific techique for completely relaxing both the body and mind. I find that after a twenty minute sesion in the afternoon I feel as though I’ve had several hours of relaxing sleep. The trainers of TM recomend two sessions a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon but I find that I wasn’t getting anything out of my morning meditation so I cut it out.

    If you go through the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi website you’ll end up paying about $2,000 do learn TM, but if you go to a local Natural Foods market you can usualy find a local trainer that will charge about $500 for the same training. It’s money well spent and there are a ton of other health benefits that don’t belong in this conversation. However, as “sleep replacement” or a “power nap”, nothing that I’ve ever tried comes close to the energized feel after a good meditation using TM.

    Thanks for the post and all the great ideas.

  • Sangrail
    January 29th, 2008
    2:04 am

    I heard that it was the drop in body temperature that caused the release of melatonin, so if you had a hot bath, the subsequent drop in temperature in a normal room would cause the sleepiness – basically, don’t have your bed coverings too thick and you should be good, since your body wants to be a little cooler than normal during sleep.

    The icebath might do the same thing, kinda, but I’d've thought you’d want it quite soon before bed. And also, it sounds like it might be partially the body trying to shut down to cope with the energy loss caused by the cold bath. It may have hit you like elephant tranquilizer, but did you feel as good the next day?

  • Jessica
    January 29th, 2008
    8:44 am

    “Can coffee and its effects on adenosine affect sleep depth or length?”

    Nobody’s tackling this, so I’ll try my best. >_> The whole “how caffeine works” to promote wake in the brain is still a bit iffy, and people are still arguing over some things. Hell, I’m studying adenosine receptors right now and I still don’t have a full grasp of it.

    There are two adenosine receptors that caffeine blocks with more-or-less equal affinity: A1 and A2A receptors. Give a mouse caffeine at bedtime and it’ll be awake for a few extra hours. Give an A1 knockout mouse caffeine and it’ll also stay up. But if you take an A2A knockout mouse and give it caffeine, it won’t stay up any later… it just goes to sleep as usual. This suggests that caffeine inhibits sleep through blockade of A2A receptors. These receptors are actually present in a cluster of neurons in the brain that induce non-REM sleep by inhibition of wake neurons – meaning that caffeine acts by preventing non-REM sleep neurons from inhibiting wake neurons and thereby conking you out.

    Those same A2A knockout mice also will not show recovery sleep if you sleep deprive them for a few hours at bedtime (if they sleep from 9am to 9pm, keeping them awake until 1 will not make them sleep in to compensate for sleep loss).

    From this I’m getting the impression that adenosine, by action on A2A receptors, is responsible for inducing sleep by being a homeostatic marker of sleep debt. Whether or not it’s necessary for controlling sleep depth is something I don’t know about. But blockade or elimination of A2A receptors fools the body into thinking “nope, I don’t have that much sleep debt” or “Hey, I paid it all off already even though I stayed up until 4″ and would probably then end up affecting sleep length at the very least.

    Half of that is pure speculation on my part, and the story as I told it is nowhere near that simple, but I tried. I think I need to read more. :D

    ###

    Jessica, this is fantastic! I’m fascinated by adenosine, and this is the first potential explanation I’ve heard of the receptor-specific action of caffeine. Thank you!

    Here’s to clinical reading :)

    Tim

  • Ishta
    January 29th, 2008
    12:47 pm

    Some say eating high carb will cause you to need more sleep, and low carb will cause you to need less sleep. What do you think?

  • Jessica
    January 29th, 2008
    8:57 pm

    No problem Tim. :D I’m doing research involving knockouts of those A2A receptors that should wrap up by the end of this year – I’ll be glad to tell you how it goes.

    By the way, very recent lurker -and- first time commenter. I have to say I nearly crapped myself when I read your About page; I didn’t know it was possible to do that much stuff by thirty! Now I have all this catching up to do! D:

    Love the blog and kudos to you.

  • Kelly
    January 29th, 2008
    10:46 pm

    Gotta say, while I can get by on less sleep than a solid 8 hours a day, I find that I’m just plain miserable (grumpy, irritable, bitchy) if I do. I’ve made the choice that the quality of my awake time is more important than the quantity.

    Tim–to fall asleep: when I (rarely) have trouble with this, I find that closing my eyes and rolling my eyes up and back into my head somehow triggers a “relax” and “sleep” vibe. If I do this repeatedly it tends to knock me right out.

  • Winter Ross Charlton
    January 30th, 2008
    1:55 pm

    Finally… Maybe I’m not so crazy After all! I’ve been doing 30 minute “caffeine naps” for quite a while now, with good results. This is the first time i’ve seen someone else talk about it. cool post… thanks tim.

  • Heinz Grünwald
    January 30th, 2008
    2:46 pm

    Wow, very useful tipps. Thanks.

    There is one gadget which helps you to get up at the right time: http://www.axbo.com
    I am not associated with the comany ;) – just read some reviews, and they where all very positive, so maybe worth to try.

  • seb
    January 30th, 2008
    5:10 pm

    hi,

    It took me forever to fall asleep too. Then i bought myself the pzizz.com software. listening to this sort of meditation thing i usually fall asleep in 30mins.
    it’s sort of relaxing soothing voice talking over binaural beats. it also features a power nap mode.
    I was skeptical first. but i can highly recommend it!

    cheers

  • Charlie Ellis
    January 31st, 2008
    12:33 am

    “it tastes like a mixture of cat urine and asparagus”

    …priceless. Sorry Tim…just can’t do the flax seed oil…whole foods gets enough of my money as it is.

    Love the tips…i’ll give it a go!

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  • Michael Wong
    January 31st, 2008
    10:45 am

    Hi Tim. When I read your headline off popurls, I was kind of disappointed at first. I became a fan after learning a new language in an hour and this time around, I thought you were going to “reheat leftovers” instead of cooking us a tasty blog meal.

    I was so wrong. All of what you’re saying about sleep is profoundly insightful and completely new to me, and that says a lot because I’m pretty addicted to social media.

    Oh here’s my 2 cents on sleeping since I’m here:

    For the longest time I used to listen to pink noise. That was hit and miss. Just like listening to rain, thunder, or ocean mp3s. Then I bought a pzizz license and while it was very effective at first, it’s become too familiar now and has ceased to help.

    My secret for falling asleep now that I’m basically retired is that I just work/digg/red/stumb/clip/youtube until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

    Oh and Mile Davis’s (for all the punctuation cops out there, yes I know s’s is usually reserved for JC, that’s why I’m using it) Kind of Blue will help me fall asleep too because it’s so stilling.

    Thanks for keeping it real bro.

  • Elf M. Sternberg
    January 31st, 2008
    10:47 am

    There’s one group that won’t get any benefit from the advice to read fiction before bedtime: those who write fiction. Reading our peers’ work is like priming the pump, and if I read someone else’s book before bed I’ll be upm for an hour trying to figure out what parts, what stylistic and narrative skills were used, that I can incorporate into my own work.

  • Ellen
    January 31st, 2008
    7:27 pm

    Eating just before reclining to sleep may help with energy demands the next day, but also highly increases your propensity to develop acid reflux. Just a point to keep in mind. Also, your ice bath is along the lines of hydrotherapy. Prior to sleep, alternate with hot-cold-hot-cold, always ending in cold. The alternations between temperature acts to shunt your blood to and from your viscera and extremities (e.g. flushing your system), thereby promoting healing and sleep.

  • Erin
    February 1st, 2008
    8:35 pm

    Tim,

    I too have had onset insomnia for years. The brain can keep me up for hours thinking, planning and worrying.

    My solution? Fiction books-on-tape (mp3). Light-hearted (and usually kid oriented) books on tape are pleasant and not too thought-provoking. Keep the volume on so low that in order to hear it you can’t move to prevent tossing and turning.

    My favorites include Harry Potter, anything by Terry Pratchett (lite comedy fiction), Ender’s Game, etc. Since using this method (5 years now) I find I usually fall asleep in 15-20 mins.

    My father’s solution? Meditation. He started meditating 5 mins at a time and now does 45 mins every day. It’s cut down on heart palpitations and stress and has visibly improved his relaxation and mood. He recommends Body Scan Meditation (from a mindfulness meditation cd) if you’re interested.

  • Rod
    February 2nd, 2008
    8:21 am

    Hi Tim!

    Very good tips (even the strange point 2 :P).

    To sleep and to have a good sleep, I’ve found very useful to drink a glass of water, before I go to bed and when I wake up (better if you drink water many times during the day).

    I think it is good for your body to have water for his operations during the sleep.

    The foods also are important to the sleep (thank for the tip 1): in the digestion phase you could be very tired, but I’ve seen it could give you a bad and poor sleep. I don’t know the explanation of it.

    Could you suggest some website about nutrition?

    [quote Kelly]…I find that closing my eyes and rolling my eyes up and back into my head somehow triggers a “relax” and “sleep” vibe. If I do this repeatedly it tends to knock me right out…[quote]

    When I was a child, I used this kind of eyes-technique to fall asleep and start a story I wished to dream while sleeping. Now it become harder to do it, I don’t know why

    Last question: how can I calculate the time that I need to fall asleep? When I lay to sleep, my time perception change and I know I don’t have a perfect 90min cycle

    Bye!

    Rod

  • blogrdoc
    February 3rd, 2008
    1:23 am

    Did anyone mention the obvious for going to be easily?
    Here it is:
    1. Wake up early.
    Here’s the recipe:
    Get up at 5 am. Do something obnoxious to yourself if you have to. (e.g. set alarm very loud and far from the bed).

    Don’t take any naps.
    Don’t do anything to rev up your mind after 8pm.
    Listen to soft, classical, piano music.
    If necessary – drink Nyquil.

    Do this once – and you’ll be set for the next day and the day after that… etc, etc.

  • D
    February 3rd, 2008
    5:08 pm

    I’m a current Stanford student taking a class with one of the experts on sleep from the med school. In class yesterday, he specifically addressed the issue in #1 about still feeling tired even after you’ve gotten a lot of sleep–it’s because you’re still behind in your sleep debt, not what you ate or anything else.

    If there’s any other Stanford kids out there…drowsiness is red alert!

    ###

    LOL… drowsiness is red alert! Your Stanford folks told me about this professor challenge. FYI, I got a world-champion in benchpress to do this on camera for a Stanford friend. To your expert, though, I would suggest there are multiple factors that can contribute to post-sleep fatigue, not just unaddressed remaining sleep debt. Glucometer tests can shed some light on what I’m suggesting, but it’s just part of an explanation, certainly, not the whole explanation.

    Tim

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  • Don Johnson
    February 3rd, 2008
    5:23 pm

    While in grad school I found napping with earplugs gave a deeper, seemingly longer sleep. I used my phones vibrate feature to wake me up, and in twenty minutes I felt like a slept for a few hours.

  • Anton
    February 3rd, 2008
    6:04 pm

    Those ice baths probably trigger early-stage hypothermia. That’s why you feel like sleeping. People become groggy fall asleep before they freeze to death.

  • hanmeng
    February 3rd, 2008
    7:32 pm

    I used to have onset insomnia. I don’t know what I did, but now I’ve got the opposite: (Early Morning Waking?), often getting about six hours, which is not enough for me, and I can’t nap unless I’ve got a bed in a quiet place.

  • Decio
    February 3rd, 2008
    7:47 pm

    Hi Tim, thanks for the hints.

    Circadian is a latin word, where ‘circa’ is to be translated as ‘around’ rather than as ‘roughly’. And *dia* is incorrect: the correct form is *die*, yes, as in ’sine die’.

    Thus ‘circa die’ is not ‘roughly a day’, but ‘throughout a day’, althought both meanings fit well.

    Besides, it’s 1:47 AM here in Italy. It’s time to catch my 4 hours of deep (and almost dreamless) sleep.

  • Hayley
    February 3rd, 2008
    8:03 pm

    I’m a military aviator, which means by definition that I’m obsessed with my own sleep cycles, and techniques to optimize my performance on little or irregular sleep. :)

    During the beginning of the Afghanistan air campaign, we were all authorized pretty much unlimited use of what were jokingly called “go pills” and “no-go pills.” The go pills were some sort of stimulant. Honestly, I never took them, because I saw enough fighter pilots with the thousand yard stare and the shakes in the chow line that I feared them. But the no-go pills were Ambien. To be “prescribed” the drug, all you need to was present yourself at the flight doc’s tent and ask for them. Typically, you never even saw a doc, but were just given your baggie of little blue pills. “Crew Candy”, we called it. :) I’m sorry to say I kicked back far more of those things that I probably needed to accomplish my mission, but I learned some interesting things.

    During the Tora Bora campaign, I was using them pretty heavily, because our schedules rotated constantly. You might fly a 11-hour mission (that doesn’t sound bad, I know, but include the pre- and post-flight and a poorly pressurized cabin, and it’s killer), and land at 6pm, only to find out that you were scheduled to take off at 4pm the next day for a 9-hour mission. Ouch. Ambien got us all through it by forcing our bodies to sleep when normally we wouldn’t wanted to have rested at all.

    I think for maybe three or four weeks I never had any sort of schedule. I remember once going to chow and being excited about pancakes, and when I opened the door, I was shocked that it was roast beef that was being served. :)

    Not surprisingly, the effectiveness of the Ambien declined, and my ability to sleep without also started to go downhill. When I realize done day I was using them for regular sleep, I quit.

    What’s funny is I was forced to find alternatives, and the first time I tried melatonin, it was like getting hit with elephant tranquilizer!! I was still “acclimated” to the Ambien, so I expected the melatonin to not be that big of a deal, but it laid me out!! Strange, I thought… and I quit with all chemical sleep aids. I decided being tired was better than being disoriented with super-weird dreams.

    Fast forward a few years and it’s Iraq, and I’m back in the air. During the Fallujah campaign, it was all the same insanity again. This time, I steered clear of the Ambien and tried a little melatonin. Very little effect. It was like nothing… one day I was driven to try some Ambien, and it didn’t work so well either; as if I’d never quit it. But when I went back to the melatonin again the next day, BAAM!! Elephant tranquilizer.

    I suppose that’s a rambling story… but I’m convinced there’s a link that should be studied. Since then, I stuck with Nyquil, the Aircrewman’s Friend. :)

    Thanks, Tim, for the interesting post… Hayley

    ###

    Dear Hayley,

    Thank you so much for this amazingly interesting comment! This is really fascinating — it’s as if Ambien sensitizes receptors to melatonin or otherwise upregulates receptors that are then hammered by the melatonin (something in the RAS?) when you make the switch. Fascinating stuff…

    Be safe and thanks for contributing!

    Tim

  • chandler in lasvegas
    February 4th, 2008
    1:03 am

    I like plenty of assistance with falling asleep like a rock. This is my Friday night catch up: 2 cups of skim milk warmed up with a tablespoon of sugar and a splash of vanilla used to down one 5-HTP cap, 6mg of melatonin and a 500mg tryptophan cap. Ten hous of the most refreshing deep sleep EVER! And I wake up feeling good and positive. Happy, almost.

  • Sparxx
    February 4th, 2008
    3:49 am

    I loved that melatonin knocked me out. I’ve always had trouble with delayed sleep phase (my body, left to its own devices, wants to sleep from about 3:30 am to 11:30 am, and my most restorative sleep seems to be mid to late morning). That said, the melatonin also had one side effect: Violent, vivid nightmares that left me almost scared to go to sleep. This is on the lowest dose they sold, as well. I considered cutting one of those tablets in half… but in the end, I just stopped taking it and went back to being up all night. :-/ I’ll be trying out some of the other suggestions.

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    [...] Sleep hacks? "Morning fatigue and headache isn’t just from sleep debt or poor sleep. Low blood sugar following overnight fasting is often a contributing factor. Just prior to bed, have a small snack such as: a few sticks of celery with almond butter, a mandarin orange and 5-8 almonds, or plain low-fat (not fat-free) yoghurt and an apple." (via tim ferriss blog) [...]

  • K. Blocksdorf » To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
    February 4th, 2008
    7:08 am

    [...] I read right before lights-out the night before. Tim Ferris, author of the 4 Hour Work Week has great tips for falling asleep. I won’t be trying the ice bath idea any time soon. I spend enough of my life feeling frozen. [...]

  • andhapp
    February 4th, 2008
    7:29 am

    Come on… flax seed oil is not that bad…if you think flax seed oil is bad…please try Greens Plus(http://greensplus.com/product_info.php/cPath/84_21_23/products_id/34)

    I am sure you will change your opinion.

  • Manage Your Sleep
    February 4th, 2008
    10:16 am

    Good tips, Tim. One should note, these tips are definitely not recommended, more as a last resort – I believe long term usage would seriously screw with your health…

  • Ben
    February 4th, 2008
    12:49 pm

    Great post. I have had trouble sleeping for years. Much like the “onset insomnia” you describe. I also hate getting out of bed. One thing that I have begun recently that has really helped is taking valerian root an hour before bed. I saw it mentioned very briefly in a Men’s Health article and I tried it out. Works really well. The best part is that you awake feeling very refreshed and just hop out of bed. Used to take Unisom, etc. and that was certainly not the case. The only downside is that the pills smell and taste pretty awful. Just have to swallow them quickly. The benefits are worth it. Thanks for all of the helpful advice.

  • blogrdoc
    February 4th, 2008
    2:58 pm

    okay… I know we’re beating a dead horse now… but I just tried something last night and got fantastic results:

    1. First of all – I did get up at 5am the morning of, which helps
    2. When time to go to sleep (10:30pm), I grabbed my wallet and took a mental snapshot of my credit cart number.
    3. I lied down and just envisioned the credit card number over and over again. I imagined it being 10x bigger than reality and I was feeling the shapes of the numbers. I dabbled with the mathematical tricks of how to remember the numbers.

    Next thing I new – it was 4:50am, 10 mins before my cell phone alarm went off. A total of about 6.5 hours is all I need. I might take a 20min nap, which will supercharge me late in the day.

    In addition to getting a good nights sleep quickly, I’ve got my credit card number memorized.

    Tonight: my library card number!

  • Hack Your Way to Better Sleep [Sleep]
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  • Doc G
    February 5th, 2008
    12:40 pm

    Great stuff Tim. I also commend all those who have commented and also given some great advice.

    Re. consuming low-GI foods and or protein before bed…. That’s great advice. This is especially great advice for people at risk of hypoglycemia. Re. a slowly digesting protein source…the more complete proteins such as the total milk solids and micellar casein are digested the slowest with aminoacids still trickly out into the blood stream up to 8 hours post meal (1). This is why perhaps the yohurt seems to be a good suggetion. Additionally the flax seed oil, being a fat, will slow down the digestive process as well.

    Re. using meditation to help you sleep…..I would necessarily recommend this to someone who hasn’t meditated before. Meditation (not guided meditation), in most, tends to turn up the flow of thoughts going through the mind. The awareness moves from the outer to the inner. Someone who is not accustomed to meditation may become even more fixated on their thoughts. Perhaps becoming acclimatized to meditation first by practicing it during the day until you learn how to maintain the focus on a simple object such as the breath, would be best before diving head first into meditation straight before bed.

    Contemplative single point meditation such as focusing on the breath has a profound effect on one’s neurochemistry.

    A review paper back in 2003 (2) discussed the complex mental process(es) involving changes in cognition, sensory perception, affect, hormones, and autonomic activity. The process starts with the willful intent to focus on the breath. The willful intent to focus on the breath is what starts the process by activating the prefrontal cortex.
    Here’s a snippet from the paper about just one part in the chain of events, the Thalamus. (see paper for references)

    “Several animal studies have shown that the PreFrontal Cortex (PFC), when activated, innervates the reticular nucleus of the thalamus, particularly as part of a more global attentional network. Such activation may be accomplished by the PFC’s production and distribution of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, which the PFC neurons use to communicate among themselves and to innervate other brain structures. The thalamus itself governs the flow of sensory information to cortical processing areas via its interactions with the lateral geniculate and lateral posterior nuclei and also likely uses the glutamate system in order to activate neurons in other structures. The lateral geniculate nucleus receives raw visual data from the optic tract and routes it to the striate cortex for processing. The lateral posterior nucleus of the thalamus provides the posterior superior parietal lobule (PSPL) with the sensory information it needs to determine the body’s spatial orientation.

    When excited, the reticular nucleus secretes the inhibitory neurotransmitter ?-aminobutyric acid (GABA) onto the lateral posterior and geniculate nuclei, cutting off input to the PSPL and visual centers in proportion to the reticular activation. During meditation, due to the increased activity in the PFC, particularly in the right hemisphere, there should be a concomitant increase in the activity in the reticular nucleus of the thalamus. While brain imaging studies of meditation have not yet had the resolution to distinguish the reticular nuclei, our recent SPECT study did demonstrate a general increase in thalamic activity that was proportional to the activity levels in the PFC. This finding is consistent with, but does not confirm, the specific interaction between the PFC and the reticular nuclei. If the activation of the right PFC causes activity to increase in the reticular nucleus during meditation, the result may be a decrease in sensory input entering into the PSPL. Several studies have demonstrated an increase in serum GABA during meditation, possibly reflecting increased central GABA activity. This functional deafferentation related to increased GABA would mean that fewer distracting outside stimuli would arrive at the visual cortex and PSPL enhancing the sense of focus.”

    WOW! When I first read that review paper I was blown away. It’s well worth the read.

    Finally, re. the caffeine nap…..man that’s a hard one to explain. Someone had a go at it before and I think they are on the right track. It’s thought that caffeine increases the clearance of adensoine from the system. Considering I think that it’s a little more complicated than that. Adenosine (mainly through the A1 receptor) is thought to promote sleep by targeting arousal networks in the brain stem such as the cholinergic system (3) however caffeine is a non-selective adenosine receptor antagonist. Research looking into deep brain stimulation and tremor (4) suggest that nonsynaptic mechanisms involving the activation of A1 receptors suppress tremor supporting the clinical notion that caffeine, a nonselective adenosine receptor antagonist, can trigger or exacerbate essential tremor. Back to square one hey!?

    I did find something recent and perhaps promising recsearch that might shed some light on the situation (5). It involves Adenosine A1-A2A receptor heteromers. It is thought that the A1-A2a heteromer forms (in rats) during chonic use of caffeine producing an opposite effect (sedative??) than expected perhaps explaining the well-known phenomenon of tolerance to the psychostimulant effects of caffeine. If that’s the case it would be interesting to try and find out if the caffeine nap is more effective with people who use caffeine daily compared to someone who doesn’t drink caffeine.

    Anyhow….congrats if you got through all that I just wrote. I didn’t. I’m devastated. :)

    References:
    1. Lacroix M, et. al.
    Compared with casein or total milk protein, digestion of milk soluble proteins is too rapid to sustain the anabolic postprandial amino acid requirement.
    Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Nov;84(5):1070-9.

    2. Newberg AB and Iversen J
    The neural basis of the complex mental task of meditation: neurotransmitter and neurochemical considerations.
    Med Hypotheses. 2003 Aug;61(2):282-91

    3. Society for Neuroscience
    http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=brainBriefings_adenosineAndSleep

    4. Bekar L et. al.
    Adenosine is crucial for deep brain stimulation-mediated attenuation of tremor.
    Nat Med. 2008 Jan;14(1):75-80. Epub 2007 Dec 23.

    5. Ferre S et. al.
    Adenosine A1-A2A receptor heteromers: new targets for caffeine in the brain.
    Front Biosci. 2008 Jan 1;13:2391-9.

    ###

    Doc, what an awesome review and contribution — thank you so much for the comment!

    Rock on with the clinical support and exploration :)

    Tim

  • Julia
    February 5th, 2008
    5:59 pm

    I fall asleep to the same audiobook every night (Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods”, read by George Guidall). The spoken word narrative gives my mind something to focus on (music is too easy to ignore), and the familiarity of the story means I don’t stay up wondering what happens next. I set my computer/ipod’s sleep timer for 45-60 min, but it usually doesn’t take that long. I think part of its success comes from childhood memories of being read to sleep :)

  • Mel T
    February 5th, 2008
    8:45 pm

    Hi Tim – It’s my understanding that the only way to pay off a sleep debt is simply to sleep more than normal (until you begin feeling alert throughout the day), but not though eating more protein etc. Am I correct in saying that?

    I’d love to hear your answers to the questions you raised, particularly:

    -What is the fastest way to pay off sleep debt?
    -Can you eat more food — or protein specifically — to compensate for sleep deprivation? To what degree?
    -Can coffee and its effects on adenosine affect sleep depth or length?

    Do you plan to cover these questions some time? Excellent post!

  • The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
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  • Amy Miller
    February 9th, 2008
    4:39 pm

    I also have been doing the caffeine nap for many years. I think it makes sense because it takes a good twenty minutes after drinking coffee to really have an effect, even though most of us fool ourselves into thinking we wake up with the first sip ;-)

  • Williams Blog » Sleep help…
    February 11th, 2008
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  • Jose Luis
    February 12th, 2008
    9:47 pm

    Tim, your “onset insomnia” is caused precisely by the coffee. I know, I drank coffee for a million years (being Colombian you are practically raised on the stuff). I suffered forever from laying in bed for 2 hours, sometimes I would just give up and get up for a good 4 hours. Until I read somewhere that caffeine “lingers” in your system for hours and disrupts your sleep at night.

    Over the course of a terrible week I left coffee (I had the suckiest continuous headache), but now I sleep within 5 minutes of going to bed.

    I also have a nice bowl of cereal (but not with milk but a substitute, usually almond milk because regular milk will sometimes give me heartburn and wake me up).

  • Hack Your Way to Better Sleep [Sleep] | K E K U [alpha]
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  • d.a. - all in good health
    February 13th, 2008
    10:04 am

    Melatonin: I don’t have any scientific references, but my own experience is that 6mg of sustained-release melatonin helps me sleep like a baby. No morning “hangover” or other discomfort. I take it 40-60 minutes before going to bed, and then once my head hits the pillow, am usually asleep within 15 minutes.

    I used to have terrible insomnia. It was tough going to sleep at night, and then I’d wake up constantly. All the standard “sleep hygiene” tricks, meditation, yoga, exercise, even light/sound machines didn’t help. Sleeping pills would knock me out, but they weren’t something I wanted to take every day. Thankfully, the melatonin has done the trick. Of course, check with your doctor before doing something like this.

  • Exasperated Calculator » Blog Archive » Nap time
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  • brian tunney
    February 17th, 2008
    5:03 am

    Great information and it is so related to personal trial and error!! I have worked midnights for years and friends ask how I can do it… I just tell them that it’s a personal recipe of sleep and eat schedule … I also do some daytime commitments 3 days a week so I really have to find pockets of sleep. Typically it’s 4 days of 4 hours sleep right after my shift and then top off the evening with a 2 hour nap just before going in at 1030 pm . On my days (nights) off, it’s a free-for-all …. however the mood strikes me.

    brian

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  • tripleX
    February 18th, 2008
    7:57 am

    The best tip I ever got for falling asleep easier:
    It’s very hard to impossible to fall asleep if your feet are cold. And often you don’t even realize they are cold.
    Normally I fall asleep very easy, but every time I had trouble falling asleep it was true: my feet were cold.
    Since then whenever I have cold feet I lay on my back with my feet tucked under my thighs for about 10 minutes. As soon as they are warm I fall asleep easy again.
    It was the best sleep advice I ever got and it works every time.

  • Daniel McBrearty
    February 19th, 2008
    3:51 pm

    Nice post. Lots of stuff to think about.

    I have had serious insomnia problems, typically sleepng well for about 4 or 5 hours and then waking up wired and ready to go, problem is it’s 4 am. At 7 I am then tired again, but time to work … stress due to a lot of change in my personal life has contributed to this.

    I have been using a biofeedback device called the emwave (google it) to do a kind of guided heart meditation, it has helped a lot. Also put me in a much more positive state emotionally.

  • Another Tim ( test subject )
    February 19th, 2008
    4:33 pm

    My ‘normal’ bedtime is around 12 am , wake up at 6 … I have no trouble falling asleep or waking up.

    But … about twice a week – I must stay up until around 3am and wake up at 6:30 am …
    And – as you would expect – at 6:30 am I am tired.

    But about twice a month – I wake up on these ‘3.5-hour-nap’ mornings TOTALLY RESTED and refreshed! I even wake up BEFORE my alarm goes off??

    That is correct. When this ‘event’ happens … I am not tired when I get up – my body feels like I have rested for 6 hours or more!

    So, it has happened to me so often that I decided to post it here to see if anyone has had a similar thing happen>?

    Anyone know how I can repeat this more frequently … ??
    I would LOVE to only require 3.5 hours of rest a day.

    So here is some additional information about myself and my diet:

    I follow the bodyrx diet plan as the book with the same name ( Dr Scott Connelly ) and for my body size and weight.
    … 200 grams of protein a day and 60 grams of fiber. In addition I consume very few carbs ( 150-200g ) daily.
    Before bed I have fat free cottage cheese and two tablespoons of flaxseed oil.
    I drink coffee ( a lot … 1.5 pots a day ) … but usually my last cup is several hours before bed.

    I am 6′4″ … workout 4 days in a row, off two , repeat a 4 day cycle ( as per bodyrx ).
    My weight is 190 lbs – .. waist 34.5 –

    Any explanations about the 3 hour POWER REST?? …

  • blogrdoc
    February 20th, 2008
    8:44 am

    @Another Tim,
    I’m no expert, but drinking a pot (and a half!) of coffee does not sound like a sustainable solution. How long have you been doing that?

    I strongly suspect that your unusual sleep cycle is due to such a high intake of caffeine.

    I drink one cup of tar in the morning (I get 6-7hours of sleep) and I good for the whole day.

  • I WANT YOU to Become the Editor of a NY Times Bestseller and Travel the World for Free | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
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  • Jeff Schneider
    February 22nd, 2008
    11:16 am

    Tim (and all those who have trouble falling alseep),

    Take a calcium and magnesium supplement before getting in bed . This combination is great for sleep. Can’t recall the science of it but it encourages the natural sleep process. works great for me — try it out.

  • Endre
    February 24th, 2008
    4:51 pm

    Hey Tim!

    As I’m righting this I’m shivering so much I can barely type. Yes, that’s right, I just tried nr. 2 on your list. You’ve got to get back to us on the whole sperm count-benefit-thing, because right now I’m feeling as though my privates will never again produce anything.

    Loved your book, by the way!

    Much love from Norway. ;)

  • 1conoclast
    February 25th, 2008
    7:14 am

    Hi,

    How does someone with a full-time job fit a siesta into his schedule???

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  • Dave
    February 26th, 2008
    1:05 am

    Hey Tim! Can’t believe you actually have time to read this!!
    Interesting research here. Beer does it for me. Just heard on the radio about a new scientific study that concludes that people who nap are more likely to develop seizures! Anyone else hear about this? Googled it but found nothing.

  • DunCAN
    February 27th, 2008
    12:42 am

    I reckon a cold shower, in the dark, could be effective. Well it works for me.
    And I must add, BUY AN EXCELLENT mattress. I have a Wenatex and it is without doubt sleep inducing, and has about a 50% increase in sleep quality (ie 6hrs is like 9hrs in other beds)

    Sleep Deep!

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  • Adrienne
    March 4th, 2008
    11:42 pm

    Great post with fun suggestions.
    Acupuncture zones me out. I noticed the effects have been heightened since I started a morning meditation practice (sometimes only 5-15 minutes).
    Once the needles are in, I literally bliss out for the length of the session (20-25 minutes). It feels like the back of my skull *drops* into the sea, cradled and calm. It’s that gorgeous mushy state of pre-sleep neverland — and it lasts until the LAc comes back in the room.
    And thanks for the bit about food before bed to avoid morning headaches. I’m looking for my walnuts now…

  • Brad Listi
    March 7th, 2008
    4:26 pm

    I’ve found that running a marathon in the evening, followed by 45 minutes in a steam bath, tends to work wonders.

    In the rare instance that this combination fails, I tend to engage in some full contact origami at around 10:30pm. And then, while lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, I try to masturbate while wearing boxing gloves.

    Six hours later, I wake up feeling incredibly refreshed.

  • Highway
    March 8th, 2008
    12:24 pm

    I have to say I start taking the flax seed oil right after the initial posting: I suffered from a from sciatica nerve numbing in my right thigh, since taking 1-2 tablespoon of flax seed oil AM and PM – no more pain. Thank you
    Not having any sleeping problems in the past ,I do however awake feeling more refreshed.
    I’d like to know how to stop snoring????????????

  • Marie Ennis
    March 10th, 2008
    10:57 pm

    Tim,

    If I had the financing for it, I would love to do a study on the question: What is the interplay of the hypothalamus and RAS (reticular activating system)?

    This would be a fascinating study!

    Marie Ennis, RN, MSN

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  • Jason Clements
    March 13th, 2008
    10:08 am

    Tim,

    Talk about timing – right when I needed to grow in my business, I come across the exact book I need. Thank you, Tim.

    I am going to try the ice bath for at least 7 days and track my results and thoughts. I am hoping for better sleep and then better productivity and energy in the day.

    Click on my name to the left to read more about my personal experiment.

  • telesma
    March 14th, 2008
    1:54 pm

    Hey, Tim…I thought the idea with the hot bath was the cooling off afterward? I.e., you raise your body temp with a hot bath or shower, and then you go to bed in a cool dark room and body temp comes down naturally, triggering that melatonin release.

    Anyway, thanks for this. I’ve dealt with chronic insomnia since I was a kid, so I’m always looking for ways to get to sleep easier without a prescription. I intend to try the flaxseed, too – I have capsules, but I’ve been taking them in the morning, and not with much consistency. Thanks again.

  • Dan
    March 15th, 2008
    3:12 pm

    Tim,

    What’s your take on “polyphasic” sleep, as described here:
    http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep ?

    Since you’re always pushing the envelope, thought it would be good to get a second viewpoint on the subject.

    Dan

  • Michael M
    March 18th, 2008
    8:39 am

    Tim, very interesting.

    Particularly pt 4 – about sleep, and the need for pre-sleep, or factoring in time-to-sleep.

    I have trained myself over the years to be able to sleep. It started when I had this job in a bakery that had me starting at midnight (Sundays), 4:00am (Monday -Thursday), and 11:00am (Fridays). As you can imagine, ones’ sleep pattern was quickly shot to pieces!

    I had to learn to sleep, so remembered what I had learnt years before about deep breathing and meditation, and combined with what I had learnt about relaxion (in a self-hypnosis video I have) – combined it all – and Presto!!

    I usually fall asleep within minutes of going to bed. If I find I am not falling asleep readily, I go back and practise my deep-breathing/relaxation cycle. It always works.

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  • wes
    April 6th, 2008
    2:32 am

    Magnesium supplements are very helpful for inducing relaxation and sleep; they could be taken with the bedtime snack. Magnesium lowers and stabilizes heart rate and blood pressure, helps with asthma, and is generally a relaxant; its agonist, which can elevate all of these, is calcium, so avoid the “cal-mag” combos often sold if you’re taking magnesium at bedtime.

    Magnesium oxide, the cheapest form, is poorly absorbed. Among the better-absorbed forms, magnesium citrate is the cheapest, but can cause diarrhea if too much is taken; magnesium glycinate, though more expensive, doesn’t cause this problem. You can mix the two forms in order to keep your dose of the citrate form lower: e.g., two 200mg tabs of magnesium citrate and two 200mg tabs of magnesium glycinate is a helpful dosage; you can also then add another one or two tabs if needed.

  • G
    April 9th, 2008
    4:33 am

    I don’t know if these are global things that are directly transferable to other metabolisms, but they work for mine.

    To require less sleep and yet still feel awake, energetic and not sleep deprived in general:

    The single biggest factor for me has been the elimination of all dairy products from my diet. I have experimented with this over 4 years now and it is clear the most benefit is achieved with the most radical approach to this. In other words…removing dairy products completely from my diet has the biggest benefit. Yes this means no chocolate, no products with whey in them, no milk, yoghurt etc etc. it’s also interesting to see how difficult this is to do, but the benefits are so astounding from an energetic lifestyle point of view that I do it for long periods of time at a stretch.

    To recover fast from sleep debt:
    Have a nap before you go to sleep. Let me explain this a bit more:

    I regularly go for weeks with only 4 or 5 hours of sleep and then occassionally do a 2 hours per night evening and so am sleep deprived the next day. The best recovery obviously is to sleep as long as you need on a day off, but afterwards it take about 48 hours to re-normalise, this however is pretty essential I find when you have been sleep-deprived for long periods, that is weeks in a row.

    For periods of sleep deprivation that are not as long (say a week with little sleep) the fastest way to recover I found is to have a good diet beforehand (see above) (and this applies to all sleep deprivation in general) Then when you have to crash because you’re tired, do so naturally (for me it’s usually on the couch, I don’t even get to the bed. And wake up after about 1 or two hours. I don’t set an alarm, this happens naturally to me. Sometimes the nap is only 30 minutes or so. Then re-awake and do whatever you do for at least another hour or two before going to sleep. Again I don’t “force” this it happens naturally. One factor that i think is pivotal is that the nap should be taken in a different location from your regular sleeping place.

    Assuming this is your bed, then nap on the couch, on the floor, or wherever, but not your bed. Go sleep in the spare room if you have one, throw a sleeping bag on the floor of your lounge and lie there or wherever but make it a different place.

    This is becoming a long comment but anyway…the reason for the different location is that I think your body naturally will then just take the rest you need and not transition into a night’s sleep, but rather make you wake up when it’s done what it needs to do.
    Be careful of not then going all night again without sleep because you will feel refreshed after the nap. I sometimes do this and if you do it two or three nights in a row then you will need a big sleep to recover and a couple of days on the other end of that to rebalance.

    Generally I have yet to find another human that can keep up with me when it comes to going for extensive periods of time without sleeping, but I also think the emotional component is huge. The more energy you have, the happier you are (natural energy, not drug induced that is). The happier you are the more things you will try to do, and hence less sleep you will have. Mood is important. Getting a sense of peace and self-love (like hugging yourself you’re so pleased with your life) is also important to get to sleep quicker.

    I generally also suffer from onset-insomnia so had to figure a lot of this out by trial and error.
    Hope it helps.

  • How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
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  • Michael Prince
    April 19th, 2008
    5:40 pm

    I’ve used the light snack with high carbs method before I go to bed. This works great for me and I almost always wake up feeling refreshed.

  • angdis
    April 24th, 2008
    6:37 am

    I recently tried melatonin pills and found them to be extremely effective. I made the mistake of taking 2 tablets. 30 minutes later, I was profoundly drowsy. I then slept like a rock with intense dreams. The next day I was still drowsy and went through the day with heavy eyelids.

    Melatonin seems like it is pretty damn powerful. I found out later that I could take 1/2 a tablet with great effectiveness and no drowsiness the following day.

  • Kris
    May 13th, 2008
    11:03 am

    The ice bath technique works because of tempeture variations which make us sleepy. An easier technique is to take a hot tub and sauna or steam shower, then stand under a cold shower for a minute or so. If you live in a cold part of the world you can just stand outside.

    Works better than any sleep drug including the brand name pricey ones.

    Dont have a hot tub or sauna? Read TF’s book and learn how to make more money, LOL!

  • Renee
    May 14th, 2008
    2:37 pm

    I invariably go to the bathroom about 2 times a night, even when I try to abstain from water before bedtime. What is that doing to my sleep cycle?

  • Ruhvee
    May 25th, 2008
    7:36 am

    Hey Tim,

    the best way to get complete refreshing sleep is to understand your sleep cycle.

    The best resource on it that Ive come across till date and has helped me personally is PowerfulSleep.com. (no, its not a site promo)

    theres an excellent ebook written by the guy who runs the site about how to sleep less and have more energy that I use as a life hack to get the best from my day.

    No need to maintain complicated pre sleep rituals and snacks, just some intelligent bit of information and the best ways to apply them.

    Cheers man

    Ruhvee

  • Hubert F
    June 26th, 2008
    11:12 am

    Here is a great summary of various studies about the benefits of ‘Napping’

    http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/

  • Luke
    June 27th, 2008
    8:51 pm

    I would recommend using actual ground up flax seed and sprinkling 2 table spoons in/on whatever snack you’re going to eat. I’ve read an article recently that said flax seed oil can lose its beneficial properties if its exposed to light and it seems that would happen pretty easily. Also I think the seed itself tastes better (has a nice nutty flavor) :].

  • Tucker
    June 30th, 2008
    12:18 am

    I came to realize that caffeine naps wake me up very nicely. I am the kind of person that takes forever to just to force myself out of bed, so it feels very easy getting up when I wake up, drink a coffee which I left out the previous night(it is worth the cold coffee even), and then let the third ring of my alarm(pressing sleep twice) wake me up. This process does take a half of an hour, but it is just as long as it would for me regularly, and I seem to feel better throughout the day.

  • Tucker
    June 30th, 2008
    12:20 am

    I came to realize that “caffeine napping” wake me up in the morning very nicely. I am the kind of person that takes forever to just to force myself out of bed, so it feels very easy getting up when I wake up, drink a coffee which I left out the previous night(it is worth the cold coffee even), and then fall asleep and let the third ring of my alarm(pressing sleep twice) wake me up. This process does take a half of an hour, but it is just as long as it would for me regularly, and I seem to feel better throughout the day.

  • Ren Jie
    June 30th, 2008
    5:06 pm

    My question falls into the category of how to sleep. On your back or side? Which is best for athletic recovery, in particular? I can’t figure it out. On my back, I wake up with a stiff back. On my side, after a heavy workout, my shoulders can feel tweaked. Hard surface, soft surface- there are different opinions. Anyone know some hard facts either from ancient wisdom or today?

  • Doc G
    June 30th, 2008
    9:50 pm

    The great thing about caffeine naps is that the caffeine takes about 20 minutes to kick in so provided that you can dose off quick you should be able to fit a “productive” 15 minutes of shut eye into your schedule. I also briefly discussed how caffeine might also assist with naps by working on the adensine receptors.

    re. how to sleep…..side or back? well for me because I have severe sleep apnea it’s better for me to sleep on my side because my airways are harder to completely close over. In my opinion the best way to sleep is the easiest way to sleep. Some might say that it’s best to sleep on your side in the fetal position but if that’s painful then how is that the best way to sleep? There are various arguments out there for both sides (pun not intended).

  • Mike Bruny
    July 12th, 2008
    6:09 pm

    Tim:
    Good stuff, I’m interested in learning more on how this can be applied to shift workers. I work a compressed work week where I work from 7p-7a 3-4 times a week then convert(or at least try) to convert to the schedule of the rest of the world when I’m off.

  • A Residual Income Lifestyle
    August 1st, 2008
    12:14 am

    So much great information Tim.

    I am very curious to try out the caff-nap method.

    Never even occurred to me to try reading a fiction book before going to hit the dream machine of my sleep. I’ll have to go find a fiction book.

    I’m finding myself looking forward to reading more and more of your works. Thanks.

    Timothy

  • Mysterious Flame » Blog Archive » Caffeine Naps
    September 12th, 2008
    10:50 pm

    [...] Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Work Week author Tim Ferris talks about the caffeine nap too, taking a bit of a scholarly approach and going a bit further to hack his sleep in his article Relax Like A Pro: 5 Steps to Hacking Your Sleep: [...]

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    September 14th, 2008
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    September 15th, 2008
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  • Ben Spak
    September 18th, 2008
    10:38 am

    Now if you’d have played video games while staying awake you could have beaten my friend Mat White’s world record lol

  • Kieran
    September 19th, 2008
    8:40 pm

    I have severe insomnia. I cannot sleep if I know I have to be up at a specific time. Even if I was going to Disneyland I would be worried about not sleeping and therefore not sleep. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    The only times I can sleep are friday and saturday nights, but even on those nights, these days I am finding it hard to drop off. I find my nights anything but relaxing, and usually have to drink myself to sleep about 2 or 3 in the morning for about four hours (sometimes less) of alchohol induced sleep. I have been walking around this last year in a painful daze. And my spirit is completey depleted.

    I have tried so many things to get to sleep, but nothing has worked. However, I will give your 5 steps a go and get back to you. It is good to know that I am not alone with this insomnia problem. And I can say that there is nothing so soul-destroying as not sleeping.

  • 9 hours? Really? « Bohemian Wellspring
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    7:43 am

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  • Anne Holmes
    September 25th, 2008
    9:28 pm

    Interesting ideas, Tim!

    I’m not sure I like the ice bath concept either, but I did assemble a list of non-pill techniques to help bring on sleep in my post, so if anyone’s still reading these responses, feel free to take a look (in URL in name).

    Thanks!

    Anne

  • David A.
    October 15th, 2008
    12:28 am

    uaaa!

    “2. Use ice baths to provoke sleep.”

    Already the thought of it makes my ‘you know what’ want to withdraw twoards the inside… (c:

    Over here in Europe it’s unfortunately not common that convenience stores sell bags of ice… that makes it a little bit more diffucult to get that much ice…

    but sure worth a try!

  • David A.
    October 15th, 2008
    4:43 am

    oh, and BTW, Tim:

    you’re still owing as an explanation, I think, about the “fat-loss and the sperm count” (c:

    How on earth did you come up with the second one? I mean: is the change in amount just so obvious or is that one of the things the NR do with all their time, after having outsourced their live…? Huahuahu… sorry for the joke, but that was just too tempting (c;

  • Sebastian
    October 29th, 2008
    5:14 am

    I have a sleep problem that’s ruining my life and wonder if anyone out there can help. The insomniacs out there will curse me because the problem is too much sleep!

    Why is that a problem? Well, sleeping 10 (often 12) hours sleep a night is an utter waster of time. Not to mention the fact that i don’t feel refreshed when I wake up and will often feel the overwhelming need to nap. As someone with ambition this is seriously cutting into my ability to get things done.

    I exercise, eat a balanced diet, have a positive outlook, have virtually eliminated alcohol and have tried the snack before sleep idea but continue to oversleep regularly and feel lethargic.

    People (including doctors) tend to take the problem with a pinch of salt, as if to pat you on the head and say “there there, just sent an alarm and stop being so lazy”. Condescending and unhelpful I’m sure you’ll agree.

    I hope someone out there has some good advice… I’m pretty desperate. Cheers.

  • Sebastian
    October 29th, 2008
    5:25 am

    p.s. an addition to my plea above which may be of relevance:

    You know that feeling when you wake up and you can’t clench your fist through sleepy weakness? My entire body feels like that. My brain will be alert but my body is immobile. After 5-10 mins it feels as if my body is being flushed with energy from head to toe and I can jump out of bed.

    Strangely, about once every two months I will have the opposite. I will jump out of bed after 7-8 hours, full of energy and have the most incredibly productive day. I wish i knew the variables which caused this because obviously I’d just repeat them every day! But it seems utterly random and unconnected to my actions the previous night.

  • Anjani
    October 29th, 2008
    11:14 am

    Sebastian – Try meditating before you sleep….sounds like you have a lot of stress that is working it’s toll when you sleep.

  • John Roberts
    October 29th, 2008
    9:12 pm

    Sounds like “sleep paralysis” a common experience and a source of alien abduction tales: http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9806

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    January 13th, 2009
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  • Hacking My Sleep | The Real Tim Jones
    January 14th, 2009
    11:18 am

    [...] The main impetus was several delays on a friend’s flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville. While I waited for his flight to arrive, I read through my highly neglected RSS feeds. While doing so, I stumbled upon some very interesting posts by Tim Ferriss of The Four-Hour Work Week. One of these posts offered 5 Steps to Hacking Your Sleep. [...]

  • dave
    January 16th, 2009
    12:41 am

    I have tried http://www.pzizz.com/ with great success puts me straight to sleep and also has options for 20min power naps.

    Note: I am not related to the company in anyway just a happy customer.

  • Can’t Sleep? How to Sleep Better Tonight [5 Tricks Plus a Bonus Tip] | Dot Connector
    January 17th, 2009
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  • Brian
    January 26th, 2009
    10:38 am

    The ice bath didn’t really work for me. I gave it a couple of days and wasn’t even sleeping as well as I usually do. Besides, sitting in a bathtub full of 50° water wasn’t fun. I think I’ll stick with the bedtime snack suggestion and a few good books!

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  • Gentle Miant
    February 1st, 2009
    2:57 pm

    Hi Tim,

    I couldn’t give you the praise you deserve without appearing to “suck up”, so I’ll just let it go. :-)

    Two things: I have a recorder next to the bed in case I think of something I just HAVE to remember to do. Also, it’s much easier to control wake up time rather than go to sleep time.

    I noticed after my last post in “Things I learned and loved in 2008″ that it got off the list. I hope my sword…errr tongue wasn’t too sharp.

  • Gentle Miant
    February 1st, 2009
    3:01 pm

    Hi Endre,
    I’m sure the effects of the ice bath will pass… or I wouldn’t admit that my son and I laughed until tears rolled down.

  • grahame
    February 26th, 2009
    12:29 am

    Having a glass of red wine with dinner, a couple of hours before bed, sees me waking up two hours after falling asleep. Is red wine known to be disruptive?

  • How to Travel the World with 10 Pounds or Less (Plus: How to Negotiate Convertibles and Luxury Treehouses)
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  • Malcolm Kelly
    March 18th, 2009
    3:14 pm

    My top tip regarding sleep quality and energy, is to look at Rhodiola rosea as an herbal adaptogen. Extracted from a root found in high-altitude Arctic areas, it has been used to combat the effects of cold, dark, sleep deprivation, seasonal affective disorder. There’s a huge amount of research been done in Russia and the Scandinavian countries on its benefits – the more areas of health it’s been researched in, the more benefits seem to be found. It’s known as one of the best anti-stress herbs (which seems to equate to increased longevity), & increases physical tolerance to exertion. Not least, it doesn’t taste of cat’s piss, as some herbals for sleep can (Valerian a prime example), in fact it’s a pleasant-tasting rose-scented herb, and inexpensive as a tea, tincture, or supplement. I’ve been using the stuff for the last few years, since working in the nutriceuticals biz a few years back, and use it to manage night shift sleep and energy patterns, along with full-time house-husbandry, and will continue with it’s use for the rest of my (extended?) life.

  • Battling Onset Insomnia :: Fire and Knowledge
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  • diet al
    March 30th, 2009
    6:51 pm

    caffeine nap is a good idea and worth a try

  • jane
    March 31st, 2009
    4:48 am

    How do you know it was the ice bath and not the melatonin that worked?

  • Jacob Flickinger
    April 3rd, 2009
    6:10 pm

    I was just wondering, so do the other countries have the right Idea with the naps in the middle of the day and we as Americans are “too busy”? I have serious trouble falling asleep all the time, even with medicinal or non-medicinal help. I have tried multiple approaches to this and still cannot find anything.
    If the lunch-times naps help, then I am doomed. I am in the military and it’s immoral for us to take a nap in the middle of the work day.
    Thank you,
    Jacob

  • Branden
    April 5th, 2009
    11:13 am

    Years ago I decided to become able to sleep anywhere at any time. I mostly succeeded, and learned a few things.

    Cooling works well for me, but the ice bath is overkill. I just wear fewer clothes than necessary before bed. This time of year, I’ll take off my sweater and socks 10-20 minutes before getting into bed. I’ll be chilly when I enter bed and asleep as soon as I warm up.

    Another important thing is to reserve the bed as a place for sleep. Spending daytime/evening hours typing in bed either puts me to sleep at the wrong time or prevents me from sleeping at sleep times (or at worst, both).

    If I’m ever unable to fall asleep because my mind won’t calm, it really helps to get out of bed. I’ll write down important ideas, then play a simple meditative computer game to clear my thoughts for 15-30 minutes, in low light, while cooling back down. Much quicker than laying in bed.

  • justjenn
    April 11th, 2009
    6:11 pm

    Thanks for the post-

    I don’t know how many of these suggestions I have tried in my life, but I will try some again. My rheumatologist says that my life time of insomnia combined with an over active autonomic nervous system has caused fibromyalgia. His prescription is for sleep. (He secretly wants me to drop out of my last term of school and somehow survive on working part time.) Without restorative sleep your body does not restore dopamine levels that buffer the pain receptors in the brain. I have done the sleep deprived hallucinations before, not on purpose (mine are scary). Chemicals make me “foggy” the next day, melatonin gives me restless legs, no sleep means a painful day. Any stroke of brilliance on that?

  • Reading Like a Pro… - ShawnWeston.com
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  • Ted
    April 23rd, 2009
    4:40 pm

    Hi Tim. Great post.

    Testimonial for the cold bath:

    When my wife and I were stationed in Germany many years ago, we had occasion to vacation in Baden Baden and go the Romisch-Irisch baths. The end of the bath line is a dip in a cool (below 50 degrees F, I think) pool. The result was that Peggy and I barely made it through dinner, and had to go back to the hotel and crash. It was very tranquilizer-like.

  • Celebrate Sunrise: A Guide To Becoming An Early Riser - Primal Stride
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  • And then there was… sleep? « Deergirl
    May 7th, 2009
    12:56 pm

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  • Creating a 4-Hour Workweek | Galel.com ~ Galel Fajardo
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  • JB
    May 31st, 2009
    8:30 pm

    One question I forgot to mention – did you have dark rings under your eyes and subsequently get rid of them? I recall the photo on your old site, it looked that way. Now in your vids you don’t. Should dark eye rings be taken as an indicator of success in eliminating fatigue? One thing I realized is I didn’t know how tired I was, and took for granted a lower state of life. I’m searching for objective measures immune to complacency or simple ignorance about what’s possible to achieve in life.

    • Tim Ferriss
      May 31st, 2009
      9:23 pm

      Hi JB,

      The two things that have helped me: 1) more sleep at regular hours, and 2) doing a sinal rinse (NeilMed) upon waking and before bed.

      Good luck!

      Tim

  • JB
    May 31st, 2009
    8:31 pm

    Hi Tim,

    INTRO
    I was finally able to achieve tremendous high quality sleep at will last night, thanks to carefully following your ice bath + melatonin – light method.

    ADVANTAGES
    One of the great advantages of the system is, I can exercise close to bedtime like I prefer, to burn off my late night energy burst, yet still go to sleep like a normal human being rather than “zoning out” till 3 am on overfocused work and play.

    CRITICAL METHOD RECIPE
    I tried ice baths multiple times previously, with good results, but never cracked the “next level” until last night, when I reread your post and remembered to add 1 pill of melatonin. Since I get little sunlight during the day, I think this made a huge difference.

    ADVANTAGES
    I am very confident that I can take this system on the road with me, to conquer jet lag, strange and stressful environments, etc.
    Sleep really is the currency of high performance living!

    INNOVATION AND QUESTION
    One tip and a question regarding ice baths for those without bathtubs. I have a Chinese style shower with toilet inside, so I sit in there with a T-shirt and belt. I ripped the t-shirt halfway down the front and pour the ice bag into the opening, cinching the belt below to hold it. I put the other bag on my head. I stop feeling cold after 4-5 minutes. How long does it take to stop feeling cold with the full immersion method? Should I go longer than 10 minutes since I’m not icing the whole body? I was thinking 15 minutes, but was wondering what the safe limits are, or if that matters.

    Best Regards,
    JB

    PS Here are additional details and my sleep case history, should it prove of interest to anyone!

    ADDITIONAL MELLY DETAILS
    Facts relevant to melatonin production: I start with a warm shower, shave, and then proceed to the ice phase.
    I also carefully blocked out nearly all the light in my room, including PC, power strip lights, and multiple layers of tape, paper and cloth over my windows.

    TEMP DETAILS
    Temperature – weather temperature changes were interfering with comfort at night and bringing me out of deep sleep. I stabilized by cranking the AC so that room temperature was unaffected by weather, and going to bed fully clothed in sweater, long pants and socks. Problem solved.

    STIM AND DIET
    I completely stopped using all stimulants, including Yerba Mate, because of GI effect on my IBS. I eat continuously during the day by having a loaf of French bread with me at all times. This seems to really calm the digestion and I consequently never “eat to dullness”.
    I did 2 tbspn flax seed oil too for the first time last night, don’t know if that’s related, and also cured my IBS for the first time this weekend. Those are conflating factors.

    FAILED METHODS
    I tried the morning sunshine routine, didn’t work. Still felt lousy and it wasted too much time.
    I tried ambient wave noise at night, which was nice from a relaxation standpoint, but no huge life impact. I used this in tandem with a voice recording system to capture my thoughts – if I’d not socialized that evening there would be many. Superceding the above, the most emotionally relaxing evening expedient I have found involves carrying phone game to its logical conclusion.

    DIDN’T DO
    Here are things I DIDN’T do that you recommend:
    Caffeine naps – I eliminated all stims and pharmaceuticals
    Meals at set times – continuous eating
    Turn off preoccupation – different method: captured thought bubbles into reliable GTD system; phone game evening emotional denouement.

    SLEEPERS AND MELLIES
    Here’s a partial answer to your question about the side effects of melatonin versus Ambien and Imovane, with which I unfortunately have extensive experience over the last two months.
    I was interested to read the airman’s comment on the bizarre effects occurring when mixing melatonin and ambien. It seems that may be an explanation for one or two episodes of weird afternoon sickness, going pale, getting faint, sleeping way too long, nightmares, and other bizarre effects. They seemed to be related to heavy melatonin use with intermittent sleeping pill use. My routine for a while stabilized to 1 melatonin at 9pm, another at 9:30, and an ambien or imovane (I rotated them) at 10pm if still awake. When I first started sleeping pills 2 months ago they worked great for maybe a week but they wanted to ramp up. Then the graduated system described above worked great for a month or so, but ultimately it wasn’t sustainable. Switching pills really helped sustainability, whereas taking the same pill two days in a row hammered me. But eventually I was taking the 6mg melatonins and then a sleeping pill on top nearly every night. I’m glad I’m on the ice+1 melatonin system now, it has none of the non-sustainability warning signals.

  • Wil Zelf
    June 1st, 2009
    11:46 am

    Hi Tim,

    I thing a lot of people with sleeping difficulties – especially singles – should try removing the television from the bedroom. That sure helped me!

  • Anon
    June 8th, 2009
    5:22 pm

    I can really vouch for the power of sleep in building muscle, burning fat, and simply feeling good. I have a 9 month old that interrupts my sleep all the time. I feel worse, my results have not been as good, my knees hurt more than normal, blah, blah, blah. The list goes on and on. And my wife and I are going to have another one. So I need to find a way to get more sleep, work a full time job, run my website, workout, eat healthy, have a few nights of fun each month, and more… Any ideas?

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  • Deanna
    June 19th, 2009
    12:40 pm

    Hi Tim,

    I’ve got another thing you should try that is good generally for sleep but especially for onset insomnia: yellow or amber lights. (Red works, too, but is too dark to read by.) Studies done @ Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia have shown that the pituitary, which sets circadian rhythms, responds only to the blue wave length of light. At dusk, blue wave length goes away, signaling the pituitary to begin to make melatonin. At dawn, blue wave length comes back, telling it to stop producing melatonin.

    “White” electric lights all have a good amount of blue wave length (even normal incandescent bulbs, which look yellowish compared with say, white LEDs, which look bluer). So if you’re reading your 1 hour of fiction at night under a white bulb, you are not priming your body to sleep, but to stay awake. If you read for an hour under yellow or amber light (which blocks blue, but is bright enough to read with), you will be telling your pituitary to get ready for sleep. It takes an hour or more for your body to make the amount of melatonin necessary to make you sleepy. It takes me about 1 1/2 to 2 hours of yellow light to get really sleepy.

    To learn more, look at the info on LowBlueLights.com. You don’t need to spend money on their expensive bulbs. Just go to the hardware or grocery store and buy a yellow bug light. (Bugs are attracted to blue light, so bug lights work by eliminating the blue.) I’ve got a few lights with yellow bulbs that I turn on at 8:30 every night. (They could be on timers, but I’m just in the habit now.)

    This REALLY works wonders for me. And if I’m out later than 8:30 a couple of nights a week, it still seems to work, since my body has gotten into the rhythm. Of course, you can use the yellow sunglass approach described on the website, too, if you don’t mind people’s stares and questions…

    Thanks for you work, especially the 20/80 principle, which has worked wonders for my perfectionistic, slightly ADD tendencies. You don’t know how many times I’ve been paralyzed by overwhelm, wanting to get 100% done, and being easily distracted…nothing gets done. If I just challenge myself to get 20% done in x minutes/hours and then, when I start to get distracted, ask myself, “is this part of the 20%?” I stay on track and get a bunch done. Then I go and have some fun. And then later, having had fun, I tackle more of the project, bit by bit, using the 20/80 principle again and again. It’s easy to get that 20% done! Thanks for freeing me from the bulky burden of 100%

    Deanna

  • JB
    June 22nd, 2009
    8:43 pm

    Hi Tim,

    Thanks for the dark eye rings nasal wash tip. I have an update that’s superseded the ice bath method.

    I completely cured my insomnia and IBS and chronic fatigue by switching to the paleo diet. This only took 2-3 days. My sleep onset insomnia had lasted for over a decade, starting in my early teens. I also began having nightly memorable dreams, instead of rare nightmare clusters.

    After 4 days on the paleo diet, I started taking BodyQuick and immediately received the boost in energy I now use as my benchmark for an abundant life. BQ eliminated my social anxiety. The afterglow lasts all day on just a 4 pill dose – I weigh around 200 lbs. Thanks for taking the learning curve out of herbals and nootropics! I even used a double dose, 8 pills, to get through a peak sugar exhaustion day in decent spirits. My sugar reaction cycle had been triggered by a large quantity of ripe strawberries.

    Dark eye rings are nearly gone. I’ve been a little sleep deprived at only 7 hours this week, so I still have faint ones. I expect they will disappear by this weekend. I also expect it will take 4 weeks for the paleo diet’s full panoply of benefits to kick in, from the anecdotal account of a triathlete.

    Best regards,
    JB

    HOW I CAME TO PALEO DIET
    Using an addition diet, I started with only French bread and gradually added foods. Sugar was the primary irritant, giving me a 3 day insomnia and exhaustion and IBS cycle, including full-blown dark eye rings. Suspicious, I googled others accounts of sugar reactions and eventually stumbled upon the Paleo Diet as a conceptual model. I also confirmed sugar as the source of my adult acne, and was able to discontinue Benzoyle Peroxide use.

    HOW TO SLEEP ON BQ
    I initially wasn’t used to being so alert at bedtime from BQ’s aftereffect. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep because my mind still productively examined whatever problems continually surfaced. However I could also feel BQ’s other effect of an openness to an enfolding in hypnotic sleep, a more lucid transition to unconsciousness than I’d experienced. Perhaps it’s Valerian root. I’ve read accounts of psychoactives on Erowid and felt this was a mild, pleasant one. I explored it by counting to body rhythm, 1-99 then back to 1, simultaneously visualizing the numbers, constantly returning to the picture of the number whenever my mind popped up another worry loop. I’ve fallen asleep at 50 and 350. Usually I don’t need to count. I needed it the first day I tried BQ and the day I took the double dose, I believe.

    EFFECT OF PROTEIN ON SLEEP DEPRIVATION
    This morning due to accumulating sleep deprivation and despite a BQ dose I couldn’t get started on work, although I could focusedly pursue my own interests. I hadn’t had much meat since lunch yesterday. After eating baby carrots and bananas without effect, finally I broke down and ate the fish (Orange Roughy) I’d saved for lunch. As soon as it touched my mouth, my spirits lifted, my energy increased, and I got back to work. The faint edge of nausea and background tiredness disappeared. My brain chemistry seemed to immediately reward me for eating meat. I ate a portion an inch and a half deep and the diameter of a circle formed by thumbs and forefingers. The conclusion I draw is that paleo diet is all about the meat, despite meat’s higher cost and more intensive preparation.

    SLEEP AIDS STILL USED
    I’m far less temperature sensitive but still wear socks. I keep the room dark but not fanatically so. I no longer require ice baths, but would use one to reset my circadian when traveling. No sleeping pills needed. Usually I just go to bed at the right time because I feel sleepy and drift off in seemingly 15 minutes.

  • JB
    June 23rd, 2009
    9:05 pm

    I’ve reconfirmed the necessity of protein in combating sleep debt this morning. Again I got only 7 hours (Monday through Wednesday nights) and again I was a stupified zombie at work until I ate an identical portion of Orange Roughy. Then I immediately perked up and started working. This was at 10:30 AM, I could get nothing done before then, starting at 9:00. Eating apples and bananas didn’t help at all.
    I feel great now, perhaps because last night I ate 200g beef plus 350g scallop. I almost don’t feel sleep deprived at all, nearly the same as being on BQ.

  • JB
    June 24th, 2009
    6:58 pm

    After sleeping from 10 pm to 7:30 am this Thursday morning, all sleep deprivation symptoms are gone. I feel tremendous, like I felt on BQ the first time, but without the “speeding” edge. I had a fish breakfast and then chicken and fruit at work. I do still have very faint dark circles under the eyes. There are a few more things I can improve in my sleep environment, and I had to wake up slowly to an alarm clock. So I’ve still got a bit more sleep debt in me. But it’s not affecting me. This confirms the paleo diet really has removed all of my mailaises (IBS, insomnia, fatigue, social anxiety) in only 1.5 weeks. Most of the learning curve was spent achieving the cooking pipeline and learning the relative balance of ingredients (1st meat, tied for 2nd fruits and veg, far last nuts).

  • JB
    June 30th, 2009
    6:58 am

    As a coda, I have enjoyed great sleep on the paleo diet and will continue it. However I continued to have problems one day per week. Today I diagnosed myself as suffering from fructose malabsorption. I was still triggering fructose overload by eating too much fruit on the paleo diet. The pattern became recognizable because the paleo diet made irritation infrequent rather than constant. I was able to trace fructose as the common cause in bouts triggered by tomato juice, eating several fruits at a sitting, cranberry juice, coconut juice, and 2 glasses sweet wine in a sitting.

  • JB
    July 5th, 2009
    10:23 pm

    I’m having no sleep problems at all now, after eliminating alcohol – the glass or two of wine before bed leads to shallow sleep for me. Plus I find I can happily resist the effects of sleep deprivation without indolence or irritability – great for when I get rolling on researching some topic at night but have to work the next day.

    I need to eat lots of pure meat when sleep deprived – I find shrimp to be most effective, at a dose of 400 grams. St. John’s Wort takes away the stress and irritation of being tired, BodyQuick provides focus and energy, and gingko biloba adds an extra notch of alert activity. The only major difference is a disinclination for exercise. Sleep deprivation previously meant some degree of failure cascade polluting my week; now I can alternate a full night’s rest every other day without trouble.

  • Jaime
    July 13th, 2009
    9:13 pm

    Not too long ago, I read in a book called Healing With Whole Foods, about the concept of eating once a day within a 1 hour period. The book references some Monks in Eastern Asia who employ this practice, and they eat between 11:00 am and noon.

    Apparently, the monks only “sleep” (the book put it in quotation marks like that, so I assume they mean something other than actual sleep, but rather a deep form of meditation) for about three hours per night.
    Since their bodies have taken the daytime to digest their one meal, their bodies can focus more acutely on repairing itself, cleansing, etc. during the night.

    The book suggests, for those of us non-monks who may want to attempt this lifestyle, that we can have much more restful sleep time, and may need much less of it, since our bodies would not be required to digest so much while we sleep.

    Earlier this year, I started to eat like this myself (Which is pretty difficult, considering I run a food blog). I am not perfect at it, but on the days when I am vigilant and don’t eat much after noon, I do tend to sleep better. I have not, however, come to the point where three hours of sleep is enough, but some nights I seem fine with 5 or 6, if I stick to the plan.

    One thing I learned is the insanity which our country embraces. We buy efficient houses, efficient cars (sometimes), etc. However, with our bodies, we try to constantly make them inefficient. Let’s see, how can we pack away another pepperoni pizza, and then raise our metabolism enough to burn it off? Our bodies are programmed to be efficient, and yet Americans are in a constant search to make them go the other way.

    I know you are constantly learning/experimenting. Have you ever tried this lifestyle. If so, what did you find?

  • noel
    July 13th, 2009
    11:27 pm

    Caffeinating myself prior to taking a nap is certainly new information. Maybe I’ll try that someday. Somebody’s explanation about the time interval before the caffeine kicks in and the time you ought to get done with your nap actually makes sense.

    My sleep patterns gets affected actually by the methods and the times I do my meditation exercises. Meditating with digital aids e.g. brainwave entrainment sounds (for 30 minutes), for me, needs to be done in the mornings. Otherwise, it will keep me up until 4 to 5 am. Meditating without the digital aids actually helps me sleep better without specific scheduling.

  • Jen
    July 15th, 2009
    10:32 pm

    -What is the fastest way to pay off sleep debt?

    in my experience, meditation substitutes for sleep at a rate of about 1 for 2 (1 hour of meditation = 2 hours sleep). i have only tested this with TM/mantra-style meditation; it might be different for different forms.

    -Can you eat more food — or protein specfically — to compensate for sleep deprivation? To what degree?

    All I know about this is that it seems to help with the symptoms of sleep deprivation, especially grumpiness, lack of concentration etc. that are related to low blood sugar. I haven’t noticed that it reduces sleep debt per se though.

    -How do side-effects of ongoing melatonin use compare to drugs like Ambien?

    Don’t know about Ambien but have read about and used melatonin extensively. The only side effects I have read about are positive ones! Best book I’ve read is “Melatonin” by Reiter and Robinson; some of the other books read more like propaganda. Many melatonin researchers use it daily, whether they need it (for sleep) or not.

    –As for sleep onset insomnia,
    I read of a technique used in some insomnia clinics based on a retraining protocol. It requires spending a weekend at the lab. Each time you go to sleep, you are woken within a few minutes and this continues for the whole weekend. I guess the idea is that you get so tired that falling asleep becomes easy. Anyway, by the end you are able to get to sleep quickly and easily, almost at will. I know of one person who has experienced this method and had slept well since then–it reduced her sleep onset insomnia as well as helping her get back to sleep if she wakes during the night. Since 2mg of melatonin works for me, and I’m happy taking it, I haven’t tried this more drastic method.

    NB. the desire to sleep less or more efficiently seems to fit in with the “more is good” movement, i.e. create more awake time in order to fit more into each day… I’m not convinced this is the most joyous way to live life :)
    There are studies that show that too little (or too much) sleep reduces life span. However AFAIK, reduced but more “efficient” sleep hasn’t been analysed–if anyone has data or anecotes, I would love to hear about it.

  • Sage
    July 18th, 2009
    1:41 am

    … This will sound awkward, but I (a female) masturbate RIGHT before going to sleep, and it has completely cured the terrible insomnia I used to have.

  • Sleep improvements and Ice Bathing « Paul is Here
    July 30th, 2009
    11:34 am

    [...] I just recently discovered the pleasures (and pains) of ice bathing, after reading about it through Tim Ferriss’s Blog, Relax like a Pro: 5 Steps to Hacking Your Sleep. One of the most interesting points was about the use of bathing in ice. It sure did sound crazy, [...]

  • CH
    July 31st, 2009
    5:38 pm

    Hey Tim,

    I have trouble with the power/ultra naps.

    I want to take naps after studying, between 11am -1pm to consolidate my memory but find it hard to fall asleep. I can sleep at night, but I cannot take a nap. I will lay for 30 or so minutes at a time and not be any closer to sleeping. The problem seems to stem from my mind drifting off and keeping me awake thinking about completely random, unimportant things. My body is also tense. Do you have any suggestions as to how to get into the state of sleep and take naps quickly “on command”?

  • Chris Puckett
    August 10th, 2009
    9:42 am

    Hi Tim, I like your reference to compulsive non-fiction readers. For the last 14 years, I have been a compulsive non-fiction reader. With rare exception, I like to read about business, sports, relationships, health, philosophy, history. I sometimes want to break this, and last year read Godfather 1 and 2 on vacation, and it was the most enthralling experience with a book I have had since voraciously reading Orson Scot Card in high school. I feel like life is full of things to learn, and that a lot of fiction is a waste of time. Maybe I should set a goal of reading the top 100 novels? Dont know.. like that rush of a great read

  • Adrianna
    August 11th, 2009
    1:13 am

    My very active mind would prevent me from sleeping for hours every night, until I began the following routine:
    1- lie in bed, close my eyes and let my mind go in all directions (10 min)
    2- get up for 5 minutes and write down the thoughts that were prominent (great ideas, worries, things to do, etc.)
    3- drink a small glass of water
    4- go back to bed, close my eyes, get the image of a tree in my head, then starting at my toes, imagine my body parts one-by-one becoming that tree…

    I fall asleep EVERY TIME, usually before I finish all of my toes.

    If you think the whole tree thing is a little nuts, I know that just concentrating on completely relaxing each part of your body one-by-one starting at your toes will work too, but by doing this I would get to my upper body before sleep would come.

    I also agree with Sage that a powerful “release” before bedtime certainly assists with relaxation.

    20-min caffeine naps do work!

    My personal sleep-debt repayment program:
    - 20 min naps (1-2 per day)
    - protein shakes (whey), or high-protein diet
    - drink lots of water
    - avoid: toxins, sugars, fast-foods, chemicals and alcohol the day following a night without good sleep (actually doing this every day should make you feel pretty good- great wine in moderation is an exception of course)

    Sweet dreams!

  • Mike
    August 19th, 2009
    9:14 pm

    Tim,

    I’ve been using ice baths for both sleep and recovery from some hard lifting (Charles Staley’s Escalating Density Training).

    I’m am very interested in the fat loss impacts of ice baths you quickly mentioned. Perhaps its time to post on that? Perhaps will it be material for the new book?

    Thanks for everything.

  • Pavel
    August 29th, 2009
    3:21 pm

    Hi Tim,
    Have you tried this body position to fall asleep very quickly: Lie on the stomach, then transfer some body weight to the right leg and bend the left one (so it’s about 10-30 cm higher than the right one). The right hand is also bent and goes under the pillow or under the head.

    During the years, I have noticed that when I go to sleep in such a way it could be less than a minute sometimes till I am asleep.

    Having a nice dinner a few hours before also helps :)

  • Elisabeth Kuhn
    September 12th, 2009
    11:13 am

    Hi Tim,

    couldn’t help but think of the thing that made a HUGE difference in my own “falling asleep” time and thought I’d tell you ;-)

    Have you come across Quantum Touch energy healing?

    The second book is called “Supercharging Quantum Touch” (by Alain Herriott and Richard Gordon).

    I took the live workshop and there’s a Body-Mind-Spirit integration meditation in it, where you essentually visualize yourself surrounded by a sequence of specific colors, one after the other. It’s described well in the book too.

    I had had horrible problems with insomnia prior to taking that workshop.

    On a nightly basis, I would deploy a whole arsenal of stuff, aromatherapy, valerian herb combos, complete dark, earplugs, Steven Halpern sleep-inducing music with subliminal fall asleep messages, melatonin, AND sometimes Sonata, and STILL had trouble falling asleep.

    And then, while we did that meditation in the workshop, I literally fell asleep right there (we were lying on the floor)! So I started doing it every night and often didn’t even get half-way through before I fell asleep, then just picked up where I left off when I woke up.

    Cool stuff. Still use earplugs, but hardly ever any of the other stuff — except for the meditation if I should have trouble sleeping.

    Note about ice baths… There’s the technique of doing a full body cold water wash with a wash cloth that actually helps quite a bit… Can be done immediately before going to sleep, or even after you’ve been lying awake for a while and want to get to sleep faster, etc. (do let it air dry first though, or dry off what’s left over. It’s supposed to cool the body, obviously). It’s a bit less heroic than the ice bath, but then it’s also less jarring ;-)

    Thanks for everything.

  • Heyward
    September 16th, 2009
    1:33 pm

    @ Tim Ferris

    Timmy! Awesome idea! I’m going to try the ice bath tonight! Already set my cell phone alarm for 9:50pm! (sleep time- 11pm)

    Question: Should I take the melatonin when I get into the tub?

    Other question: WHERE did you come from, dude?!? This site is

    AWESOME!

  • RawFood
    September 24th, 2009
    8:56 pm

    Here’s a cool way to nod off if you can’t. Try brain wave entrainment cd’s, they are relaxing and will settle your brainwaves into theta of delta – something like 4 cycles per second or less.. and works every time.. just google “brain entrainment, delta” for example..

  • yifat
    October 12th, 2009
    7:52 am

    Tim

    I just wanted to say i love this web site
    I think I been here all day :-)
    and love the book …

    and I think that you seem like such good guys
    really give hope for single girls :-))
    although you not really from ISRAEL
    anyway love randome!! keep it going

    yifat

  • Oleg Mokhov
    October 23rd, 2009
    11:50 am

    Hey Tim,

    Planning your actions for the next day does wonders to calm your mind and let you fall asleep faster.

    That has been the single most effective method for falling asleep. Well, that and reading/watching something until I can barely keep my eyes open, then turning it off and falling asleep within a few minutes.

    By knowing exactly what you’ll do the next morning and/or afternoon, your mind doesn’t wander around and think about what should be done. It’s satisfied that there will be set actions to get planned goals done, so it relaxes.

    Thanks for the other tips, Tim. I’ve always heard about how certain food and ice water before bed can help us fall asleep faster, but you laid the specifics down here. Awesome resource for improving sleep even more.

    Best,
    Oleg

  • The Utility and Luxury of Sleep « The Gonder Brief
    October 26th, 2009
    6:27 pm

    [...] CAN hack your sleep, and blog-author Tim Ferriss has a great article on this. In the end, however, life is more about what you do during your waking hours than what you [...]

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