3 Things That Actually Control Your Sleep (Most People Fix the Wrong One)

Last night you went to bed an hour early to catch up on sleep, and then you lay there for an hour wide awake. That's not just bad luck, that's one of the most common sleep mistakes I see. And the reason it backfires is the reason that most sleep advice probably doesn't work well for you. You see, there are 3 main levers that control whether you fall asleep, and a lot of people pour all their effort into the first 2 and tend to forget the third one, usually because it seems to be the hardest one to fix and a lot of people don't talk about it. But we're gonna get to all 3 of those levers in this video and how to adjust them so that you can fall asleep faster stay asleep longer. And thank you to Dawn for sponsoring today's video. So quick overview of what those 3 levers are before we dive into each one more meticulously. The first one is sleep pressure, or sometimes referred to as physiological sleep drive. This is all curated by a molecule called adenosine, which slowly builds up throughout the day in your body. The longer you've been awake, the more adenosine that builds up. That's what creates that drive or pressure. Second lever is your circadian rhythm, which we all know is your internal clock, and it is set by light. It essentially decides when your body expects to fall asleep. And the third lever that is important is arousal. No, not that kind of arousal. More so how activated your nervous system is the moment your head hits the pillow. Think of the whole process of falling asleep as like landing a plane. Sleep pressure is your altitude, circadian rhythm is your arrival time, and arousal is your speed. You can land at the right altitude and at the right time, but if you're coming in at 400 knots, you are probably not going to be landing, which is why that third one is really important. All right, so let's talk more about lever 1, that sleep pressure. So remember how you tell yourself, oh, I'm gonna go to bed earlier, try to get to bed earlier than I normally would because I'm trying to catch up on sleep? And the reason why that doesn't typically work is because you've been awake for an hour less than you normally would have been, meaning you've built up less adenosine. Therefore, you have less sleep pressure or less of a physiological drive to go to sleep. So what do you do? You lie there, and then you get anxious about lying there, and then you activate lever 3, which is more heightened nervous system arousal. So you don't want to chase getting more sleep by trying to immediately extend the amount of time you're in bed. If you're not sleepy, you're not going to bed. And it can actually train you to be more anxious in bed the more you learn that you are laying awake in bed for a longer amount of time. So what you're going to want to do is anchor your wake time, not your bedtime. Your wake time is a lever that you actually can control. You can't necessarily decide when your body is ready to fall asleep, but you can decide when your body is waking up. So pick a consistent wake time and stick to it consistently for 7 days of the week, meaning weekends as well. And then naturally your bedtime starts to align on its own. That will help to set your adenosine buildup at a certain start starting point in the day by waking up at a consistent point. Next, if you're going to be napping, make sure that you do any naps before 3 PM and keep them to under 30 minutes. Any longer or later than that, then you're getting rid of some of that adenosine buildup that's going to help you be able to fall asleep at night. And lastly, something that interacts a lot with your natural adenosine buildup is caffeine. Caffeine is actually a competitive antagonist for the adenosine receptors in your brain, meaning it binds to those receptors that adenosine is supposed to be binding to, preventing that adenosine buildup that's going to make you drowsy. This can have an effect on those receptors for So the golden rule is to cut off caffeine about 8 to 10 hours prior to your bedtime. All right, so moving on to lever 2, and that is your circadian rhythm. Morning light is the strongest signal that you have to help set your circadian rhythm. If you can get outside within an hour of waking up or just be close to a window where there is sun coming through or some sort of morning light coming through, that is great. Sometimes in the wintertime, you'll want to have something like a happy light. So what makes that important? Well, that morning signal is basically what sets the timer for your internal melatonin release, like 14 to 16 hours later. Something else you can do to help align your circadian rhythm for better sleep would be to dim the lights down in the evening. Not telling you you have to black out your entire room and just use candles only, but if you can eliminate overhead lights and maybe have a few lamps on instead, or just have lights that are dimmable, that is super helpful. And obviously when we're talking about the lighting, we're talking about eliminating as much screen exposure in the evenings as you can. Believe it or not, temperature is also a very important thing when it comes to our circadian rhythm. Your core body temperature has to drop in order for your body to initiate sleep. So a cool sleeping environment around 65 degrees Fahrenheit is great. Or another favorite hack of mine is a warm shower or bath about 2 hours prior to your bedtime. It sounds kind of backwards because why would you take a warm shower if you're trying to cool your body temperature? But warming your skin actually pulls blood to the surface, allowing your body to effectively dump heat, which then allows your core body temperature to fall afterwards. And finally, the third lever to really control is your arousal. Arousal in the evening tends to show up in 2 separate ways, and they need different fixes. The first is mental arousal, meaning your body feels tired and fatigued maybe and is ready for sleep, but your brain will not stop moving. Your head is running a conversation that you need to have tomorrow on loop, or thinking about the things that you didn't get done today that you need to push over to tomorrow's to-do list. The second is physical arousal. Maybe your brain is just feeling ready to shut down and you're feeling fatigued here, but your heart rate is still racing, or you feel buzzy and you just feel kind of restless. Like I said, these are 2 completely different types of arousal, and sleep researchers actually measure these separately because they have 2 very separate mechanisms. But of course, there are people who frequently get both of at the same time because they tend to feed each other. A racing mind can push your heart rate up, and having an elevated heart rate and a restless body can make you start overthinking. So as far as how to tweak some of these, if it's mental, then you need to offload. There's a study where people spent 5 minutes before bed just writing out tomorrow's to-do list, and they fell asleep meaningfully faster than those people who wrote about what they've already finished in their day. And the more specific you make that list, the better results you get. You're not necessarily trying to solve anything, you're just putting that entire detailed mental list Elsewhere for the night. Next, if your arousal is physical, then you're going to want to downregulate. Something like focusing on slowing your breathing and specifically making the exhale longer than the inhale. That's one of the most reliable ways to get a handle on your own heart rate. A guided meditation or body scan can work in the same system. It's just a helpful signal to your body that the day is over and it can settle. Now, one action that works for both is if you are finding yourself either mentally or physically aroused in bed and not able to fall asleep, get out of bed. Specifically, if you're lying there for longer than 20 minutes, go outside of the room, go to the couch, dim the lights, read a book, do something calming until you are starting to actually feel sleepy. I know this feels insane when you're exhausted and you're like, why can't I fall asleep? But it has been shown to be the best maneuver to make at that point in time. Otherwise, if you're staying in bed, laying there awake for much longer than 20 minutes, you're starting to teach your brain subconsciously that the bed is a place for anxious thoughts, and a restless body, and you start to unconsciously associate the bed with that. But here's the thing, knowing to do these things and actually doing it are 2 separate things, right? We know often that we need to do something different to fix our sleep, but actually putting into practice is a different beast to tackle. And at 11 PM, nobody's making great decisions anyways. You're not going to sit up and think, oh, let me try journaling for the first time. And you might have decision fatigue around breathing exercises and how long to do it for and what's going to be the appropriate one to help you settle down, which is why today's sponsor Dawn comes in handy. Dawn is an AI mental health support app. You talk to it, it remembers your previous conversations, and its support is grounded in 3 evidence-based frameworks: CBT, DBT, and ACT. I found it to be really, really helpful to use in the evening to help my brain and body settle down. You can even set a wind-down reminder for a certain time where it pings you a message, and then it'll prompt you with some activities that can help you to offload your mind or settle your body instead of relying on yourself to remember that you need to do these things to help settle down. For example, if I'm dealing with a particular amount of like mental arousal in the evening and I'm having trouble just kind of turning off my mind, it prompts me with an end-of-the-day check-in, and then I can just kind of offload any of those to-do lists, any of those random thoughts or those anxieties, and be able to chat with the app who already remembers my history and other things that I'm dealing with throughout the day. If you're feeling physically activated, it can even suggest different guided breathworks, guided meditations, and it'll send it to you directly in the app. It's genuinely helpful to have something to help you wind down versus having to figure it out all on your own. You just say what's going on and it points you to a direction that's going to support you, your sleep, and your mental health. On that you might be thinking, well, I can just use ChatGPT, right? Like, it's the same thing. Definitely not. First off, privacy. OpenAI's CEO even said himself that therapy-style conversations within ChatGPT have no legal confidentiality. Dawn, on the other hand, was built specifically for this use, which means that your data gets to stay between you and Dawn, never sold and never shared. Secondly, a general chatbot tends to treat every sign of distress pretty identically. It either overreacts to a figure of speech, or it might even miss something more serious. Thankfully, Dawn is a clinically governed system built with PhD clinical psychologists that integrates elements of evidence-based practices like CBT, DBT, ACT, using clinical memory that learns what works for you over time. And it includes built-in safety mechanisms to reduce potential crisis situations and even surface appropriate crisis resources when needed. If you're an adult in the US, I highly recommend you try it out. There's even a free trial you can jump on. Link is down below in the description. So to recap some of the important things that you can try to really fine-tune these 3 levers to help you fall asleep and stay asleep, 1, pick your wake time and hold it. Yes, including weekends. 2, try to get morning light as soon as you wake up. And 3, if you're laying awake for longer than 20 minutes, try some different wind-down activities or use an app like Dawn to help you troubleshoot some different things you can get your mind or body to calm down with. Listen, I know there's so many different things when it comes to improving your health, and it can feel really overwhelming to try to work on all these different components. If you need some guidance in bringing the whole picture together, including your sleep, Your recovery, your energy, your fitness, your nutrition—that is exactly what we do at Be Victoria's Coaching. If you have any questions, there's a link down below to book a call. And don't forget to check out Dawn down below in the description as well. And thank you, Dawn, for sponsoring today's video. Happy sleeping, and catch you guys in the next one. Bye.