mydoghasocd t1_isxrjz8 wrote
Reply to comment by DJSnafu in Older people who get five hours of sleep a night or less may face a far greater risk of developing two or more chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes, compared to people who sleep longer by Wagamaga
First step is identifying there’s an issue !
DJSnafu t1_isydmh8 wrote
For sure. Just very tough, I've struggled with more than 5 hours of sleep since I was around 11 and I'm 41 now. Been awake since 6am today (4.5 hours of sleep at night) and your comment this morning has prevented from my daynap today:D Thank you again for taking the time to reply.
mydoghasocd t1_isyxoa1 wrote
Well, there are some strategies to help with sleeping longer at night. You could read The Circadian Code, which covers a lot of these, although the most important things are 1) not napping during the day, 2) having a set wake up time, 3) don’t eat anything or drink alcohol for 2-3 hours before bed, 4) no caffeine after noon, and 5) increasing your physical activity. I will note that even though everyone consistently finds dramatic effects of sleep on overall health, that actually the most important thing you can possibly do for your health is regular physical activity, the next most important thing is eating a Mediterranean diet (or similar), and then sleep is after that, followed by other general health tweaking behaviors (e.g., fasting, meditation, reducing stress/anxiety). But the most important predictor of health is regular physical activity. So if you just can’t optimize your sleep even after trying everything, instead of stressing about sleep, you should just focus on exercising. And if you exercise enough, it'll probably fix your sleep problem anyway.
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