Weekend Challenge: Get Better Sleep

Happy Friday, Challengers of the Primal sort!

This weekend, the Challenge is to get better sleep.

Why? A night of quality sleep will increase your memory’s performance, enhance your problem solving skills, put you in a better mood, boost your immune system, help with muscle building and athletic performance, aid in weight loss, and help you stay stress-free. Furthermore, sleep depravation mimics the aging process and dramatically impacts insulin sensitivity. One “all-nighter” can make you as insulin resistant as a type-2 diabetic.

To quote Robb Wolf in 30 Day Total Transformation:

If you get a handle on your sleep, you’ll recover faster from exercise, have better memory, have fewer allergies, and have significantly less inflammation. If you’re overweight, this is a non-negotiable directive: Go to sleep. In a dark room. For 8 hours per night, minimum.

How? Follow some of these tips and read the follow-up material.

• Go to bed earlier. Shoot for 8-9 hours of sleep this weekend. If you can, go to bed with the sun and wake up with the sun.
• If you use caffeine, make sure to use it no later than 3pm.
• Cut out blue light at least an hour before bed. No computers, cell phones, TVs, or other electronics late at night.
• Install F.Lux on your computer.
• Make your bedroom as dark as possible before bed and during the night. Cover up all of the electronics with little lights on them and close your shades and curtains.
• If you have trouble falling asleep, read by candlelight or warm light resembling candlelight before bed.
• If you want to do this long-term, start tracking your sleep. Use this data to stay on a consistent sleep schedule.

Follow-up material:
Lights Out! Sleep, Sugar and Survival
Robb Wolf’s post on sleep
MDA’s 17 ways to improve your sleep
How to Become a Sleep Viking