10 tips for better sleep, better performance and a happier life

Introduction

This article is all about sleeping better, performing better in everyday life as a result, and living a happier life overall. We’d like to share some practical tips and tricks to help you feel alert, focused, happy and productive on 6 to 8 hours of sleep a day.

At GUYA, we’ve spent several years exploring personal development and, in that context, how to make our lives more effective, more relaxed and more fulfilling. After all, biohacking is about more than practising a healthy diet!

Contents

1. Optimising to sleep better?
   1. Can shorter sleep be better sleep?
   2. Does sleeping less also mean having more time?
2. 10 tips for sleeping better
   
   1. Polyphasic sleep
   2. Sleep among Indigenous peoples
   3. Sleeping better despite caffeine
3. Sleep better and live a happier life
   
   1. The brain during sleep
4. Conclusion

1. Optimising to sleep better

We tend to want to optimise everything from A to Z, including our sleep. Often the aim is to sleep less but maintain the same quality, leaving us with more hours in the day to learn, work and exercise.

There are certainly ways to optimise your sleep, but simply reducing the time you spend sleeping is very unlikely to help you sleep better or perform better during the day. As a result, you will not necessarily feel happier in life either.

Adults generally need 7 hours or more per night; teenagers need between 8 and 10 hours; primary and middle school pupils need between 9 and 12 hours. Preschoolers, by contrast, may need as many as 13 hours.

1.1. Can shorter sleep be better sleep?

Shorter sleep does not necessarily mean poorer sleep. Optimising your sleep begins before that. Once you have found the adjustments that work for you, a shorter time in bed can be just as good.

However, it is very unlikely that you could keep up a significantly reduced sleep schedule—for example, just 4 hours a night—for more than a few days without sleep catching up with you. It is not advisable for your health either. A study of 10,000 participants found that regularly reducing sleep from 8 to 4 hours aged the brain by up to 8 years.

Sleeping significantly less than 7 hours over a long period can increase the likelihood of the following conditions:

• Depression
• Anxiety disorders
• Diabetes
• Stroke
• High blood pressure
• Psychosis

Only a few people can consistently get by on less than 6.5 hours of sleep a night and still feel rested. Scientists have identified a mutated gene that may explain this.

Even without a mutated gene, you can still shorten your nights by improving the quality of your sleep. Read on to find out how.

1.2. Does sleeping less also mean having more time?

When you do your research, you will come across many different sleep techniques that are supposed to help you sleep less without affecting sleep quality. Each technique may have its merits, but not every technique suits everyone.

Ultimately, you have to find out what works best for you. Every sleep technique works. But remember: having more time is only useful if you also have more—or at least as much—energy as before. Spending half your time exhausted, with unclear and muddled thoughts, does you no good; you will perform worse, not better.

When you sleep for more than 8 hours, more of the sleep hormone melatonin is still present in your body during the day, resulting in slight tiredness throughout the day. The same applies to sleep periods of less than 6 hours. For most people, around 7 hours is optimal.

2. 10 tips for sleeping better

1. A little workout: Exercise promotes circulation and can make you feel more alert; it also helps your body switch into rest mode more quickly.
2. Reduce screen time: Avoid using your smartphone and laptop for 30 to 60 minutes before bed. Blue light disrupts your melatonin balance and circadian rhythm.
3. No screens in the bedroom: Avoid keeping your phone next to your bed. Push notifications may cause the screen to light up in the middle of the night. Power strips with indicator lights, TVs and other electrical devices also worsen sleep.
4. Make it as dark as possible: The darker your bedroom, the better you will sleep. Streetlights and other lights can make your sleep less deep.
5. Less caffeine: Reduce your caffeine intake from 12 noon onwards. You can find more about the benefits of caffeine, its side effects and a comprehensive overview of the compound caffeine in the linked articles.
6. Eat healthily: A healthy diet helps your body absorb energy from food quickly. Avoid particularly heavy meals and do not go to bed straight after your last meal; allow 1 to 3 hours for digestion.
7. Avoid alcohol: Alcohol has a negative effect on your central nervous system and does not help you sleep better.
8. Do not drink too much before bed. This helps you avoid a possible trip to the toilet during the night.
9. Go for a walk: Sunlight and oxygen are good for our bodies and help us sleep better and more healthily.
10. Power nap: If you often feel tired during the day, try a 20-minute power nap.

2.1. Polyphasic sleep

One frequently discussed sleep technique is polyphasic sleep. It involves spreading six 20-minute naps across a 24-hour period.

There are no studies showing that this technique has no negative consequences, but it has many advocates.

If a potentially stressful business schedule leaves no other option, this technique is said to enable peak performance despite severe sleep deprivation.

2.2. Sleep among Indigenous peoples

Researchers have found that Indigenous peoples have much shorter sleep periods than ‘civilised populations’. They also experience no sleep disorders and, despite their shorter sleep periods, feel very alert during the day. They usually go to bed a few hours after sunset and wake up again before sunrise.

Why is that?

Indigenous peoples are directly exposed to the outdoor temperature, so light plays a secondary role when they wake up. The temperature, which reaches its lowest point before sunrise, is decisive.

Here, it is exactly the opposite. In our usually consistently warm homes, waking up is increasingly regulated by sunlight (or the alarm clock). In Germany, we sleep for an average of 8.3 hours a day, and in France for almost 9 hours. Indigenous peoples, by contrast, sleep for just over 6 hours on average.

Why getting up early can be important for having plenty of energy and motivation throughout the day is described in this article, ‘Get Up Early & Have More Energy!’.

So, is the trick to sleeping better, living a happier life and performing better to sleep outdoors? Perhaps! But who is able to do that nowadays—and who would really want to?

2.3. Sleeping better despite caffeine

Consuming caffeine in the afternoon or late evening can make your sleep worse.

Normally, adenosine levels rise throughout the day and make us tired. Caffeine keeps us awake by binding to adenosine receptors in the brain without activating them, unlike adenosine itself. That is why you have greater mental performance after drinking a stimulant.

If you drink coffee too late, for example, you may find it hard to switch off in the evening even though your body is already tired.

It is therefore important to avoid coffee for about 6 hours before going to bed.

Guayusa works a little differently here because it also contains the compound L-theanine, which makes our brains oscillate in the alpha-wave range. Guayusa therefore allows you to fall asleep even if you drank your last cup after 12 noon.

However, drinking large amounts of guayusa before bed is recommended only if you want to lucid dream.

Lucid dreaming 

3. Sleep better and live a happier life

Sleeping better, living a happier life and performing better are essential things everyone wants in life.

One mindset hack that may help you wake up feeling more rested and perform better straight away is to set goals and small to-dos for the following day the night before.

Always think about what you want to get done the next day before going to bed. This approach allows your subconscious mind to switch off at night or start working on the goals you have set.

This means your mind no longer has to grapple with the draining question: ‘What do I have to do tomorrow?’

So, set yourself a few goals or to-dos for the following day the night before.

3.1. The brain during sleep

More brain regions are involved in healthy sleep than you might think.

1. Hypothalamus and suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN): The hypothalamus contains a cluster of nerve cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This area of the brain is essential for healthy sleep. It receives light information directly through the eyes to determine whether it is day or night. If the SCN is damaged, this information cannot be processed and the circadian rhythm is disrupted. People with this condition may also sleep more often during the day.
2. The brainstem communicates with the hypothalamus to control the brain’s sleep–wake rhythm. Both produce a chemical called GABA. GABA reduces activity in both brain regions involved in sleep. The brainstem also plays an important role in relaxing the muscles, so that during REM sleep we do not act out our dreams through movement.
3. The thalamus is the centre for sensory impressions and is mostly inactive during sleep. During the REM phase, however, it sends all kinds of impressions—images, smells, feelings and sounds—to our cerebral cortex, which is responsible for processing long- and short-term memories, bringing our dreams to life.
4. The pineal gland also receives signals about the day–night rhythm from the SCN and then produces the hormone melatonin. People with a disorder in this area can therefore supplement melatonin to control the rhythm manually. This is also a popular biohacking method among healthy people. Scientists are quite certain that the rise and fall of melatonin levels is important for healthy, better sleep.
5. The basal forebrain is responsible for producing adenosine, which builds up in the brain throughout the day and signals the body’s exhaustion by evening, making us tired. Caffeine prevents this process.
6. The amygdala is an area of the brain involved in storing information and processing emotions. It becomes very active during the dreaming phase and helps the brain process the day’s experiences during REM sleep.

4. Conclusion

Sleep contributes greatly to our everyday mental and physical performance and to living a happy life. Anyone with sleep problems knows this all too well. A lack of sleep can have serious health consequences.

We hope our 10 tips, general overview of brain functions during sleep and the available evidence help you sleep better in the future.

If you consume a lot of caffeine in your everyday life, limiting it to the morning hours may help improve your rhythm. Alternatively, instead of coffee or energy drinks, you can drink guayusa. Guayusa boosts your cognitive abilities without any negative side effects.