Robert Whitfield MD and Alex share the 3-2-1 rule: stop eating 3 hours before bed, drinking 2 hours before, screens 1 hour before. Cool your room, kill the light, and skip late meals. Your body needs uninterrupted sleep to release growth hormone and clear metabolic waste.
The way to hack this, if you will, is use a three, two, one rule. Stop eating three hours before you go to bed. Stop drinking two hours before you go to bed. Get off your screens an hour before bed. And then you get your room cooler. And if you need, like, background noise, there's all sorts of apps and everything. And then you have to cut out ambient light. So if you're in a room that's brighter, there's no chance you're going to sleep right away. So a sleep mask, maybe Alex has one she can recommend. But you have to have these things in order to actually even remotely get a stretch of sleep.
I'm Blackout curtains. No big lights after a certain time, only beeswax candles or red lights. Switching your, like, night table lamps to be red light bulbs too.
These are all just like basic things. And people who have problems with digestion are never going to sleep well. So if you eat late, there's no chance you're going to sleep. It's not going to happen. If you can stay asleep, all the fancy things that help you recover will happen. All of your hormones will get secreted, your growth hormone will get secreted. You'll get this thing that it's like a lymphatic massage for your brain. Your glymphatic system will actually work. And then when you wake up, you'll feel like you rested now. They'll be like, all right, doctor.
