In response to a ton of questions about sleep, here’s some more thoughts:
A key factor for my sleep is consistency in as many variables as possible. especially when I travel. I’ll share some of my tools below.
4 years ago my book took off internationally in the same period that my daughter was born. She had mad sleep issues, I had mad jet-lags from touring the globe. It resulted in a few years of misregulated sleep.
I’m very conscious of the effect of breathing on sleep. And there’s 2 important things to take into account.
1: Sympathetic over activation.
This means your body is stuck in go-mode or stress-mode. On a nervous system level, this constant neuroception of unsafety makes us “sleep with one eye open” and never feel rested because we’re mainly getting light sleep and not much deep nor REM, despite hitting 8 hours. This can be helped with breathing practice before bed. One simple way is to follow the breathing video in the link in my bio.
2: Airflow.
Just breathe through your nose!
I didn’t become “The #BreathworkBiohacker” because I’m such a perfect breather. I got into this game to fix some serious issues. I’m painfully aware of my own suboptimal breathing quality during the night. The thing on my nose is the @intakebreathing nose opener. The thing on my mouth is just plain old 3M micropore surgical tape. This combo seriously decreases my snoring and apnea and improves my breathing all night long.
Also, in the picture is the @blackroll recovery pillow for proper head position. On my head is the @mantasleep mask to make sure every night is pitch dark. And here I’m wearing the @barkleyeyewear blue blockers that I wear after sundown.
Not featured in the pic but ABSOLUTELY instrumental to getting my sleep quality back is the @ouraring to track sleep quality. also helpful: @alpha.dynamics Reishi spore oil to help me downregulate.
Btw I’m not officially affiliated with most of these products. It’s just stuff I use every day and is worth sharing.