A No-Bullshit Guide to Actually Sleeping Well
THE CARDINAL RULE: You must master each level before moving to the next. If you're sleeping less than 6 hours a night and nothing is actually stopping you from sleeping more — no newborn, no medical condition, no shift work — and you're spending money on apigenin, you are an idiot. Supplements are the last 5%. The fundamentals are the other 95%. No amount of magnesium threonate will fix going to bed at 2am and waking up at 6am. Do not skip levels. There are no shortcuts.
# Level 0: Rule It Out First
Before you optimize anything, make sure you aren't slowly killing yourself in your sleep.
Sleep should be silent. Snoring means you are not getting enough oxygen while you sleep. This is not a quirk or an annoyance — it is a medical problem. Sleep apnea is a silent killer. It is associated with significantly higher risks of all-cause mortality, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's. Every hour of sleep you get is degraded. None of the advice in this document matters if your airway is collapsing dozens of times per night.
If you or your partner knows you snore, get a sleep study. Your primary care provider can refer you to a sleep specialist who can order one. Polysomnography is the gold standard, but home sleep tests are also available. Do this before anything else.
You should be breathing through your nose, not your mouth. Mouth breathing during sleep is not normal. It means something is obstructing your nasal airway — a deviated septum, chronic congestion, enlarged turbinates, nasal polyps, or allergies. Mouth breathing bypasses your nose's filtration, humidification, and nitric oxide production, leading to worse oxygen exchange, dry mouth, increased infection risk, and fragmented sleep. Over years, this compounds into real damage. If you consistently breathe through your mouth at night, see an ENT. This is fixable — but only if you actually address it.
# Level 1: The Non-Negotiables
If you're not doing all of these, nothing else matters.
1. Sleep 8+ hours — Not 6. Not 7. Eight minimum. Women have been shown to benefit from 9+. This is the single highest-impact thing you can do for your health, cognition, and mood. Everything else on this list is a rounding error compared to this.
2. Wake up at the same time every day — no exceptions — Same alarm, 7 days a week. Weekends included. Even when you're underslept. Got 5 hours? Get up anyway, do your morning routine, and nap later or go to bed earlier that night. You never sleep in. The moment you make exceptions your circadian rhythm loses its anchor.
3. Never snooze your alarm — Every snooze trains your brain to fall back asleep at alarm time. Your body gets terrifyingly good at this and waking up becomes impossible. You're also entering a sleep cycle you'll never finish, making you groggier. Get an alarm that forces you out of bed to turn it off. Alarm goes off, feet hit the floor.
4. No caffeine within 90 minutes of waking or 12 hours of bedtime — In the morning, your body naturally clears adenosine (the chemical that makes you sleepy). Caffeine too early interferes with this process and makes you dependent on it to feel awake. Wait at least 90 minutes after waking. On the other end, caffeine's half-life is 5–6 hours — a quarter of your 2pm coffee is still in your system at midnight. Bed at 10pm means last coffee at 10am. Important: being able to fall asleep after caffeine does not mean it isn't destroying your sleep quality. Caffeine reduces deep sleep and REM sleep even when you feel like you slept fine. You won't notice the damage — you'll just wake up less restored and blame it on something else. One of the biggest sleep killers people refuse to acknowledge.
5. Minimize alcohol — Even one beer meaningfully degrades your sleep quality. It suppresses REM, fragments sleep architecture, and the effects last hours after your last drink. I'd recommend cutting it out entirely, but I get that for some people it's part of a good life. If that's you, at least be intentional about it — save it for one special night every once in a while instead of that casual Wednesday beer you didn't even need. The insight is simple: most of the alcohol people drink is habitual, barely adds to their happiness, and quietly ruins their sleep. Minimize the number of days you drink, period.
6. Wear a sleep mask — Even tiny lights from chargers and standby LEDs have been shown to measurably decrease sleep quality. You will never notice this happening, but you'll feel like shit even after 8 hours. Total darkness is non-negotiable. A sleep mask is the cheapest, most effective fix — better than blackout curtains because it works everywhere.
7. Earplugs or a white noise machine — Sounds you never consciously hear still pull you from deep sleep into lighter sleep stages throughout the night. This wrecks your sleep quality invisibly — you'll sleep 8 hours and wake up feeling unrested with no idea why. White noise or earplugs raise the threshold of noise required to disturb you. Pick one and use it every night.
Free option — built-in brown noise on your iPhone: Go to Settings → Accessibility → Audio & Visual → Background Sounds. Turn it on. Select "Dark Noise" (Apple's name for brown noise). Set volume to taste. For quick access: go to Settings → Control Center and add "Hearing." Now you can swipe into Control Center and tap the ear icon to toggle it on/off. You can also set it as an Accessibility Shortcut (Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut → Background Sounds) to triple-click your side button to toggle it. Turn off "Stop Sounds When Locked" so it plays all night.
# Level 2: Circadian Rhythm Enforcement
Train your body's internal clock. Only once Level 1 is locked in.
Morning — tell your body the day has started:
8. Get outside and face the sun within 30 minutes of waking — Natural light on your retinas is the strongest circadian signal that exists. 10–15 minutes minimum. Overcast counts, just go longer.
9. Eat something and move — Both are secondary circadian cues. A short walk and a small meal are enough. You want to feel warm and alert early.
Evening — tell your body the day is ending:
10. Dim your environment 2 hours before bed — Bright overhead lights suppress melatonin. Switch to lamps. Make all screens red/warm — Night Shift, f.lux, whatever. Crank warmth all the way up.
11. Wind down — Last 1–2 hours before bed: no stressful conversations, no intense work, no doomscrolling. If you read, watch, or listen to anything, it needs to be calming — nothing that arouses, excites, or angers you. A thriller novel or rage-bait Twitter thread defeats the entire purpose. Read something boring, talk, stretch.
12. Cool down — Core body temperature must drop for sleep onset. A warm shower helps paradoxically — vasodilation drops your core temp after you get out.
13. No food within 4–6 hours of sleep — Eating is a circadian signal — it tells your body it's daytime. A late meal shifts your peripheral clocks out of sync with your central clock, undermining everything else in this section. Beyond the circadian disruption, food in your stomach means active digestion that raises core body temperature, increases heart rate, and can cause acid reflux, gas, and discomfort — all of which degrade sleep quality even if you don't consciously notice. Front-load your calories: heavier meals earlier, lighter later. Start at 4 hours before bed and push toward 6.
# Level 3: Meaningful Optimizations
Real improvements, but only if Levels 1–2 are solid.
14. No weed before bed — Weed suppresses REM sleep. You may fall asleep faster but the quality is garbage. If you're going to use it, do it early enough that it's worn off by bedtime.
15. Bedroom below 68°F / 20°C — 65–68°F is the sweet spot. Cool air supports the core temperature drop you need for deep sleep. If you wake up sweating, this is probably why.
16. Don't work out in the evening — Exercise raises core temp and stimulates your nervous system. At least 3–4 hours between intense exercise and bedtime.
17. Don't cuddle during sleep — Cuddling is great. Cuddling while sleeping is a disaster. Another person's body heat raises your temperature, their movements wake you up, and you end up in awkward positions that prevent deep sleep. Cuddle before sleep, then separate.
18. Blue-light-blocking glasses 2 hours before bed — The real ones with red/amber lenses, not clear "computer glasses." Significant upgrade over software alone.
19. Track your sleep with a wearable or smart mattress — At this level you should be measuring, not guessing. A wearable (Oura, Whoop, Apple Watch, Garmin) or a sleep-tracking mattress/topper (Eight Sleep, Withings) gives you actual data on your deep sleep, REM, heart rate, HRV, and respiratory rate. This lets you run real experiments — you can see exactly how alcohol, late meals, room temperature, or supplements affect your architecture. It also lets you track sleep debt and surplus so you can make practical decisions: if you're 3 hours in debt, you know tonight isn't the night to stay up. The numbers don't lie, even when you feel fine.
# Level 4: Diminishing Returns
Fine-tuning. You earn the right to care about this after everything above is dialed in.
20. Supplements: Magnesium L-Threonate, Apigenin, L-Theanine — 30–60 minutes before bed. They help, but they are polish on an already-clean surface.
21. No screens within 1 hour of bedtime — Even with filters and glasses, screens keep your brain alert. Read a physical book.
22. Meditation or breathwork before bed — 5–10 minutes of NSDR, yoga nidra, or box breathing. Shifts your nervous system into rest mode.
Someone who sleeps 8 hours with zero optimization will always outperform someone who sleeps 6 hours with every supplement and gadget on the market.
Nail the basics. Then optimize.
# Appendix: Scientific Sources
1. Sleep 8+ hours
- -Cappuccio FP et al. "Sleep Duration and All-Cause Mortality." Sleep, 2010. Meta-analysis of 16 prospective studies (1.3M participants): short sleep (under 6h) associated with 12% increased mortality risk. Link
- -Chaput JP et al. "Sleep duration and health in adults." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 2020. 11 systematic reviews, 4.4M participants from 30 countries. 7–8h most favorably associated with health outcomes. Link
- -Gao C et al. "Sleep Duration/Quality With Health Outcomes." Frontiers in Medicine, 2022. Umbrella review of 78 meta-analyses. Link
- -Yin J et al. "Relationship of Sleep Duration With All-Cause Mortality." JAHA, 2017. U-shaped relationship; lowest risk at ~7 hours. Link
Women may benefit from more sleep
- -Chellappa SL et al. University of Southampton / Stanford / Harvard, 2024. Women spend ~8 min longer in NREM sleep; 2x activation in cognitive networks after sleep deprivation. Link
- -Mallampalli MP & Carter CL. Current Sleep Medicine Reports, 2020. Women sleep longer and report needing more sleep than men. Link
- -Horne J. Loughborough University, 2015. Women's greater brain multi-tasking correlates with slightly higher sleep need. Link
2. Consistent wake time / Social jet lag
- -Chaput JP et al. "Sleep timing, sleep consistency, and health." APNM, 2020. 41 articles, 92,340 participants. Greater sleep variability associated with adverse outcomes. Link
- -Wittmann M et al. "Social jetlag" concept. Misalignment between biological and social time linked to chronic sleep restriction and obesity. 69% of adults experience 1+ hour of social jet lag. Link
3. Never snooze your alarm
- -Ogawa K et al. Journal of Physiological Anthropology, 2022. Snooze alarms prolong sleep inertia via repeated forced awakenings. 70.5% of respondents used snooze regularly. Link
- -Sundelin T et al. Journal of Sleep Research, 2024. n=1,732 survey + n=31 lab study. Snoozing results in ~6 min lost sleep. Link
4. No caffeine within 90 min of waking or 12h of bedtime
- -Huberman A. "Using Caffeine to Optimize Mental & Physical Performance." Huberman Lab, Episode 101, 2022. Adenosine clearance mechanism; caffeine half-life 5–6 hours, quarter-life ~12 hours. Link
5. Minimize alcohol
- -Gardiner C et al. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2025. 27 studies. Even ≤2 drinks delay REM onset by 18 minutes and reduce REM duration. Link
- -Ebrahim IO et al. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2013. REM onset delay is the most recognizable effect at all doses. Link
- -Colrain IM et al. Handbook of Clinical Neurology, 2014. Alcohol acts as sedative initially, then disrupts second-half sleep. Link
6. Wear a sleep mask
- -Greco V et al. SLEEP, 2023. n=94 + n=35 replication. Eye masks improved alertness and novel information encoding. Link
- -Hu RF et al. Critical Care, 2010. Eye masks + earplugs: increased REM sleep, elevated nocturnal melatonin (p=0.002). Link
- -Mason IC et al. PNAS, 2022. Even dim light (100 lux) during sleep increases insulin resistance and sympathetic activation. Link
7. Earplugs or white noise
- -Hu RF et al. (same as #6). Simulated ICU noise disrupted sleep architecture; earplugs restored REM parameters. Link
- -Huang D et al. Systematic review, 2023. Eye masks and earplugs are the most effective non-pharmacological interventions. Link
Level 0: Snoring, OSA, and mouth breathing
- -Benjafield AV et al. Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 2019. Nearly 1 billion people worldwide affected by OSA. Link
- -Marin JM et al. Lancet, 2005. Untreated severe OSA: significantly increased cardiovascular mortality over 10 years. Link
- -Leng Y et al. OSA associated with accelerated cognitive decline and increased Alzheimer's risk. Link
- -Lundberg JO. Thorax, 1999. Nasal breathing produces nitric oxide, enhancing oxygen uptake by 10–15%. Link
- -Lee YC et al. Chronic mouth breathing associated with upper airway resistance and sleep fragmentation. Link
8. Morning sunlight
- -Crowley SJ & Eastman CI. Sleep Medicine, 2015. A single 30-min bright light exposure upon waking produces 75% of the circadian phase advance of 2 hours. Link
- -Santos Neto CM et al. BMC Public Health, 2025. Morning sunlight before 10am associated with earlier sleep onset. Link
- -Blume C et al. Somnologie, 2019. Light is the primary zeitgeber for the SCN. Link
9–13. Circadian cues, dimming, wind-down, cooling, meal timing
- -Zerón-Rugerio MF et al. Feeding-fasting cycles as non-photic zeitgebers. Link
- -Harding EC et al. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2019. Core body temperature drop required for sleep onset; warm baths accelerate heat loss. Link
- -Haghayegh S et al. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2019. Warm water 1–2h before bed improves sleep onset latency by 36%. Link
14. No weed before bed
- -Gardiner C et al. eClinicalMedicine, 2026. Meta-analysis of 43 studies. Cannabis: early abstinence linked to increased REM sleep (rebound), suggesting chronic use suppresses REM. Link
15. Bedroom temperature
- -Baniassadi A et al. Science of the Total Environment, 2023. 11,000 person-nights; 5–10% sleep efficiency drop above 77°F. Link
- -Sleep Foundation / Cleveland Clinic: optimal 60–67°F. Link
19. Sleep tracking
- -de Zambotti M et al. Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, 2024. Consumer wearables show reasonable correlation with polysomnography. Link
- -Chinoy ED et al. SLEEP, 2021. Most wearables performed well for sleep/wake detection. Link
20. Supplements
- -Abbasi B et al. Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 2012. Magnesium improved insomnia measures. Link
- -Huberman A. Sleep Toolkit. Recommends Mag L-Threonate 145mg, Apigenin 50mg, L-Theanine 100–400mg. Link
18, 21. Blue light and screens
- -Blume C et al. (same as #8). Short-wavelength light is most potent at suppressing melatonin via ipRGCs. Link
22. Meditation / breathwork
- -Black DS et al. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015. Mindfulness meditation improved sleep quality in older adults (n=49). Box breathing and progressive relaxation reduce sympathetic arousal.