I'm A Neuroscience Expert: This Is How I Prep My Body & Brain For Bed

When we don't get enough high-quality sleep, the waste starts to pile up—and we experience the symptoms of this neurological trash fire.

For better or worse (mostly worse), we are a hustle-and-grind culture. Nearly all of us have heard or used the saying "I'll sleep when I'm dead." However, a study from the journal Sleep has stated that "too little sleep and too much sleep are associated with adverse health outcomes." In reality, sleep is the best productivity tool we have at our disposal.

We don't know how to turn off anymore. Thanks to social media, technology, and infinite novelty, some say our average attention span is now lower than that of a goldfish. Technology can be our greatest tool or a weapon used against our well-being. If you don't intentionally use it, it will use you.

Wait, aren't we supposed to have work-life balance? Yes, but balance is achieved through boundaries. If you're plugged into emails 24/7/365 without boundaries, it only fuels the "one more email" culture—and makes sleep that much harder to come by. In my role as a change management consultant, one of the first things I do with my employees is ensure that they work a 9-5 job.

I'm going to give you what I do as a single parent running a few companies whose main priority is waking up refreshed enough to make unicorn yogurt bowls for my daughter before school as we dance to the Frozen 2 soundtrack (because don't deny that it's way better than the first):

To support this drop in body temperature, we can turn our bedroom thermostat down or take a shower before sleep. My system is even lazier than that: I have a facial roller that I keep in my freezer and use to roll my face before bed. The face is covered in temperature-sensitive neurons that are strongly connected to circadian biology. Based on my own biofeedback trends, this temperature hack has measurably changed my quality of sleep.

To further use light (or lack of light) to your advantage, you can make your technology screens as dim as functionally possible in the evening. Some also find benefits from blue-light-blocking glasses. However, I personally never do anything productive on technology at nighttime anyway, so I try not to use it very often.

There is no such thing as a silver bullet that can magically fix your sleep. However, starting to take sleep supplements is one change I've implemented that has had a noticeable impact on my quality of sleep.

As always with supplementation, consult with your primary care doctor to see if they believe it can be supportive in your health journey.

When we don't get enough sleep, we do our brains a disservice. Implementing these three simple sleep strategies in my own life has allowed me to be a more creative writer and a more present and patient father. I hope they help you, too.