Screts to better sleep

Translate was the transcriptionist, and Ivana Korom was the TED Reviewer. It's perfectly normal for everyone to have a bad night's sleep. But how can we try to improve both the quantity and quality of our sleep? [Sleeping with Science] (Music) Here are six scientifically grounded tips for better sleep. Regularity is the first suggestion. Make sure you go to bed and wake up at the same time. No matter what day of the week or weekend it is—even if you had a bad night's sleep—regularity will actually anchor your sleep and improve both quantity and quality. And this is because you actually have a master 24-hour clock deep within your brain. It expects regularity and works best under conditions of regularity, including the control of your sleep-wake schedule. While most of us use an alarm to wake up, very few of us use a to-bed alarm, which can be beneficial. Temperature is the next point. Keep it cool. It turns out that in order to fall asleep and stay asleep, both your brain and body need to lower their core temperatures by about two to three degrees Fahrenheit. And this is the reason that you will always find it easier to fall asleep in a room that's too cold than too hot. So, the current recommendation is to aim for a bedroom temperature of around about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, or a little over 18 degrees Celsius. It sounds cold but cold it must be. The next tip is darkness. We are a dark-deprived society and, in fact, we need darkness specifically in the evening to trigger the release of a hormone called melatonin. And melatonin helps regulate the healthy timing of our sleep. In the last hour before bed, try to stay away from all of those computer screens and tablets and phones. Dim down half the lights in your house. You wouldn't believe how sleepy that can make you, in fact. If you'd like, you can wear an eye mask or you can have blackout shades and that will help best regulate that critical sleep hormone of melatonin. Walk it out is the next tip. Avoid staying awake for an extended period of time in bed. And the general rule of thumb is if you've been trying to fall asleep and it's been 25 minutes or so, or you've woken up and you can't get back to sleep after 25 minutes, the recommendation is to get out of bed and go and do something different. And the reason is because your brain is an incredibly associative device. The brain has learned the association that the bed is this trigger of wakefulness, and we need to break that association. And by getting out of bed, you can go and do something else. Only return to bed when you're sleepy. As a result, your brain will gradually reestablish the connection that your bed is a place where you sleep soundly and consistently. The fifth tip is something that we've actually already spoken about in detail in this series, which is the impact of alcohol and caffeine. So, a good rule of thumb here is to try to stay away from caffeine in the afternoon and in the evening and certainly try not to go to bed too tipsy. The final tip: have a wind-down routine. I think many of us in the modern world, we expect to be able to dive into bed at night, switch off the light, and we think that sleep is also just like a light switch, that we should immediately be able to fall asleep. Well, unfortunately, sleep isn't quite like that for most of us. Sleep, as a physiological process, is much more similar to landing a plane. It takes time for your brain to gradually descend down onto the firm bedrock of good sleep. In the last 20 minutes before bed or the last half an hour, even the last hour, disengage from your computer and your phone and try to do something relaxing. Find out whatever works for you and when you have found it, stick to that routine. The last thing I should note is that if you are suffering from a sleep disorder, for example, from insomnia or sleep apnea, then these tips aren't necessarily going to help you. If I were your sports coach, I could give you all of these suggestions to boost your performance, but if you have a broken ankle, it won't matter. We have to treat the broken ankle first before we can get back to improving the quality of your performance. And it's the same way with sleep. So, if you think you have a sleep disorder, just go and speak with your doctor. That's the best piece of advice. Where do we stand, then, in all of this conversation about sleep? Well, I think the evidence is clear. We can think of sleep almost like a life-support system. In fact, some may even call sleep a super power.