How I Increased My Sleep Score from 75 to 100%

I'm getting on average 2 to 3 hours of deep sleep every night and I've also increased my sleep scores from mid 70s and 80s to 100 with seven simple things you can also do increasing your sleep score comes down to these components making sure you sleep enough which is 7 to 8 hours up to 9 hours increase your RM and deep sleep reduce the time it takes you to fall asleep and reduce the amount of times you wake up per night in this video I'm going to go through all of these components so you can sleep like a rock star or more like a Sleeping Beauty number one blockout blue light I remember distinctly back in 2018 when I first started using blue blocking glasses that it increased my deep sleep by 15% immediately now that's not massive but it's still significant and it plays a role in getting a score of 100 in your sleep score the reason for my deep sleep increasing was that artificial blue light inhibits melatonin production melatonin is important for falling asleep and especially deep sleep the bright light exposure during the morning is great for starting your circadian rhythm and increasing alertness but in the evening it disrupts your aan Rhythm and decreases steep quality as shown by several human studies blue as well as Green Light Between the wave lengths of 460 and 550 nanom inhibits melatonin production it's short in wavelength and very intense which is why it's energizing Amber and red lights on the other hand at wavelengths of 600 and above have the opposite effect they support melatonin production because of mimicking a sunset the reason blue light before bed has a massive negative effect on your deep sleep is because of sleep architecture you see the vast majority of Deep Sleep occurs in the first half of the night the first four hours you're getting a lot more deep sleep because during deep sleep your body goes through physical repair which is a priority the second half of the night you experience less deep sleep and more RM sleep which is when dreaming occurs if your deep sleep is low you need to optimize what you do shortly before getting into bed because most of the Deep Sleep happens when you go to bed and the 4 hours after that blocking out blue light and dimming Down the Lights is a central component to that this brings me to the second point which is creating a sleep friendly environment in your home whenever I'm doing podcasts or online meetings in front of these blue lights a few hours before bed then I notice immediately that it takes me a lot longer to fall asleep and my Sleep Quality is usually much worse to counteract that you want to have light options that aren't so bright and don't suppress melatonin that much regular LED lights are the worst because they're very bright and blue incandescent light bulbs are much better because they're smoother and more dim which means they inhibit melatonin less the biggest difference between LED and incandescent light bulbs are the price and lifespan LED light bulbs cost around $5 to $10 and last 50,000 hours incandescent light bulbs cost $1 to $3 but last only about 1,000 hours LEDs are obviously more cost effective they cost a little bit more but they last significantly longer but they're horrible for your sleep and circadian rhythms ex's blue light can also have other negative effects such as they can damage your eyes they can damage your mitochondria they can damage your skin so I definitely recommend using in Andes light bulbs I just wish they had incandescent ring lights pink Himalayan salt lamps are also an option that you can use on your nightstand or in the living room another option is something like this red light that you can attach to your wall or keep on the nightstand and another option is to have red light bulbs that you use in the evening before bed just a regular red light bulb costs around $30 but it's not going to inhibit melatonin production and it's even better than incandesent light bulbs now the red light light bulbs are a bit more costly but they're significantly better than LED lights and all Al better than incandescent light bulbs I don't know specifically how long they will last but I've been using this lamp in front of my computer every night for one to two hours before bed for the last 6 months and it's still working so it can last pretty much up to a year if you do have Bright Lights you can still reduce the light pollution for example if the light is an open Dome then it's going to spray it the furthest and shine blue light the furthest this is the worst option if the light Dome is halfway covered then it's a bit better but because it's at your height you'll still get most of the blue light into your eyes that disrupts melatonin production the best option is to have a dome that Shields most of the bulb and directs the light to the ground this way the bulk of the light is shined on the ground under the lamp and it doesn't illuminate the entire room the way I do it is I dim down the lights around 2 hours before bed I use my red light bulb in front of the computer for 1 to two hours before I go to bed then in the living room and bedroom I have a pink chalayan salt lamp with all the other lights turned off if I am using my phone or laptop then I'm using blue blocking glasses like these ones different lenses these are less strong these are the strongest version that filter out almost all light and these are slightly easier that you can wear like even when working in front of a computer now there's some skepticism about blue blocking glasses do they actually work yes a 2021 systematic review of 24 Publications found that blue blocking glasses did reduce the time it took people to fall asleep especially in patients with Sleep Disorders or jet lag I noticed that myself if I'm not wearing blue blocking glasses and I'm looking at my phone or I'm getting exposed bright lights then takes me at least 20 minutes to fall asleep whereas when I'm filtering out the blue light using the blue blocking glasses and dimming down the lights then it usually takes me less than 5 minutes to fall asleep and because most of the Deep Sleep happens the first few hours after you've fallen asleep getting exposed to bright lights before bed is going to significantly reduce your deep sleep it's not going to affect your Rim sleep that much because you're going to get Rim sleep the 4 hours after that but getting a lot of bright light in the evening will reduce your Deep Sleep Quality the third thing that played a role in improving my sleep quality and getting to 100 was having an earlier dinner I've been having dinner as late as 8:00 p.m. in the past I've had it at 7:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. as well as 4 p.m. based on my experience for me stopping food intake at least four to 5 hours before bed significantly improves my Sleep Quality I just sleep a lot better when I'm feeling slightly hungry or with an emptier stomach the reasons for that are multifold too much food in your stomach makes it harder to fall asleep and your body has to spend more energy on digesting food rather than repairing itself secondly your gut affects the the circadian rhythms almost equally as much as bright lights do in fact theyve found that there's 10 to 100 times more melatonin in the intestinal tract than in the blood and 400 times more than in the pineal gland in the brain so your gut produces a lot more melatonin than the pineal gland if you can't fall asleep on an empty stomach then just have something light with protein or fruit another thing that affects melatonin production is temperature your body cools down during sleep because of decreased metabolism and the drop in body temperature is one of the signals to follow sleep a 2023 study saw that the optimal nighttime ambient temperature for sleep was somewhere between 17 to 25° C sleep efficiency was seen to decrease by 5 to 10% at temperatures above 25° but it also decreased below 15 degrees so both high as well as low temperature can reduce your steep quality there's a lot of individual differences in here some people just like it to be very cold other people like it to be very hot you just need to find your sweet spot but probably the complete extremes super cold super hot both of the extremes are probably harmful for your sleep quality for me sleeping in slightly cooler temperatures like around 20° C is better all right so far I've covered how to improve deep sleep but what about RM sleep if we go back to sleep architecture then RM sleep happens mostly at the second half of the night which is when you're dreaming if your RM sleep is low then it might mean that you're not sleeping long enough if you sleep 4 hours you'll get plenty of deep sleep and very little RM sleep because RM sleep happens predominantly after 4 hours if you sleep 8 to 9 hours you'll get enough deep sleep and you'll have enough time for RM sleep that's why it's important to not sleep restrict yourself and deliberately sleep in you're not being lazy or procrastinating sleeping 8 hours is healthy for your body now if you're getting plenty of RM sleep but not enough deep sleep then it means that you're not optimizing what you do before bed to get enough RM sleep you need to stay asleep and sleep long enough up to 8 hours use black out curtains use ear plugs if needed and set the alarm later if you need it or go to bed earlier to make sure you get 7 to eight hours of sleep in the summer the biggest thing that wakes me up is the sunrise here in Estonia the sunrise is around 5:00 a.m. in the summer so I don't want to wake up at like 5:00 a.m. that's why I'm going to use blockout curtains or like a sleep mask what about supplements are there any supplements that you can use to improve sleep glycine 3 gam in the evening it lowers body temperature and increases Gaba the relaxation neurotransmitter magnesium 400 Mig a day reduces stress and promotes relaxation melatonin 0.3 to 3 mg in the evening increases melatonin levels at 2024 meta analysis of clinical studies saw that the optimal weight to take melatonin was 3 hours before bed at 4 milligrams of dose however this was compared to 2 Mig 30 minutes before B I think you have to experiment with melatonin to see what's the optimal dose for you for me I always feel better if I take smaller amounts of melatonin like 0.3 Mig rather than 3 Mig I have also experimented with 4 Mig 4 hours before bed like the sludy suggested and what I noticed was that it did make me quite sleepy 1 hour before bed that makes sense you don't want to start producing melatonin when you're in the bed you already want to have high levels of melatonin before you go to bed let's now talk about waking up too often what is the reason for that to be honest waking up once is perfectly normal you just go to the bathroom or something and then you go back to sleep however if you wake up two three or four to five times per night then it'll definitely reduce your Sleep Quality the reasons for that are usually stress related if you're working all day in of screens and your mental is stressed out then your brain will wake you up frequently take some magnesium go to sauna relax eat a little bit of more food reduce your exercise load reduce your workload whatever it is all of those things can reduce your stress hypoglycemia or low blood sugar can be another common reason for waking up at night when your brain goes low blood sugar it increases stress and wakes you up if you're eating very few calories or you're eating low carb or you're not keto adapted then you might get hypoglycemia during the night if that's you then you can have some like a protein snack or some small fruit or Berry snack in the evening drinking too much liquids can also make you go to the bathroom at night water is essential but you don't need to drink so much water that you go to pee every hour dial down the water and liquids about 5 hours before bed I do drink one cup of herbal tea in the evening after my dinner it's actually quite good and relaxing and it's also a diuretic which means that you can go to the bathroom before you fall asleep but if you drink 2 three four cups of tea then you're just going to have to go to the bathroom at night all right let's bring it all to together to increase your Sleep Quality you need to make sure you sleep 7 to 8 hours to get enough both deep and rim sleep for deep sleep optimize what you're doing before bed such as getting enough sunlight exposure during the day exercising blocking out blue light in the evening and having an earlier dinner for RM sleep you have to sleep enough and sleep in if you want to know about my full evidence-based sleep optimization protocol then check out this video next other than that thanks for watching this video make sure to click a like And subscribe for future videos about living longer and staying healthier my name is seam say optimize the import