Everything I know about improving sleep quantity and quality (that took me nearly four decades to learn)

I used to be a vampire. In college I was basically nocturnal. I ate late-night pizza, stayed up til 4 AM on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger for all you non-Millennials), drank stupid amounts of alcohol, and had no concept of circadian rhythm. The wild part is that I still slept fine back then. I would fall asleep and wake up eight hours later without much interruption. I did not understand that youth can mask bad habits, and that you can get away with things in your twenties that will cripple you later.

After college I repeated a classic 9-5 job mistake that looks harmless because everyone does it. On weekends I stayed up several hours later and slept in to match, then snapped back to an early schedule on Monday. This phenomenon, known as social jet lag, has the same effect as real jet lag and I was doing it every week. I also stayed up past midnight on my laptop many weeknights. I thought this was normal and had no idea I was building a lifestyle that quietly trained my body to expect inconsistency.

In my late thirties and early forties after having a kid, my sleep stopped being automatic, as it does for many people. Falling asleep was never an issue, but staying asleep became harder. When I woke up to pee, my mind would start racing like the dude from Limitless and I would lie there awake for hours. That transition forced me to treat sleep like a skill. I started building a full circadian protocol and testing it relentlessly instead of hoping one magnesium gummy would fix everything.

In 2019 I started tracking sleep with an Oura Ring. That was a turning point because it taught me sleep is multidimensional. Being in bed for eight hours is not the same as sleeping eight hours. It introduced me to the idea that sleep has components, not just a total. Deep sleep and REM sleep are essential parts of how you recover and consolidate memory. Sleep quality also impacts recovery metrics like resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate variability (HRV) that correlate with overall health and longevity. This is really what made me start caring.

The biggest aha was viewing sleep as a 24-hour problem. After working with Zaid K. Dahhaj, a soccer player turned circadian biology expert, I began paying attention to sunrise and sunset, outdoor light exposure, meal timing, exercise timing, and artificial light at night. Over time my sleep quality and consistency improved because I became more circadian aligned. That fundamental change was more important than any one sleep intervention.

Guiding principles of sleep and circadian health

• Sleep is the biggest lever in your health journey (and most people treat it like an afterthought). Instead of its own standalone pillar, sleep is more like the foundation that everything else sits on. This took me a long time to learn, but it should have been obvious. When you sleep well, your diet is easier, your training feels better, your mood is steadier, and your energy is more consistent. When you sleep poorly, you can still grind, but you pay for it in cravings, irritability, and lower resilience to stress.
• A bedtime routine alone will not fix your sleep. Sleep and circadian biology are inherently intertwined. A pre-bed wind down matters, but it is the final stretch of a race you have been running since morning. Skipping morning sunlight is like showing up late to the starting line. Your circadian system responds to light exposure, movement, and meal timing during all hours. If you want your body to power down at night, you need to give it strong cues throughout the entire day.
• Sleep consistency beats intensity. Going to bed and waking up at the same time, including weekends and holidays, is one of the most impactful health habits that everyone ignores. People call it boring, but your biology loves boring. Research has linked irregular sleep schedules with worse metabolic health and higher body mass index. You do not need to be rigid like a monk, but you should stop pretending staying up late and sleeping in on weekends are free of consequences.
• Caffeine discipline is a form of self respect. Caffeine has a half life that is often around five to six hours, and in some people, longer. That means a 2 PM coffee can still leave a meaningful amount in your system at bedtime. I am not anti-caffeine (I still have a bit of a Diet Coke problem), but I am mindful of my timing and total intake throughout the day. If you struggle with falling asleep or staying asleep, you should assume caffeine is part of the problem until you prove otherwise.
• Phones at night are potential sleep killers (unless you engineer them to be boring). Willpower is unreliable late at night. If you wake up at 2 AM and your brain is searching for stimulation, you will reach for easy entertainment. For me, it’s always YouTube shorts. That is why I prefer barriers. Notifications silenced, app blockers overnight, and a default activity like reading make it more likely you return to sleep. You are not weak, you are human, so build a system that helps you.

Benefits of optimal sleep and circadian health

• When you improve your sleep, your life feels better in subtle ways you don’t appreciate until you experience them. You wake up with more stable energy instead of relying on a constant drip of stimulation. You are more patient with your family. Your attention span improves, and you stop feeling like you are pushing a heavy cart through the day. Even your workouts feel different because you recover instead of just surviving them. My favorite benefit is I actually enjoy the mornings and look forward to them.
• Better sleep improves decision making. Have you ever heard the saying, “If you don’t want to do something stupid, just go to sleep?” Maybe I made that up. But there is evidence that even partial sleep deprivation increases impulsivity and reduces prefrontal control. This shows up for most people as DoorDash, TikTok, porn, etc. When you sleep well, you make better choices without needing to white knuckle discipline. You start acting like the person you want to be because your brain is not running on fumes.
• Sleep is a cheat code for fat loss and weight management. Studies have shown that sleep restriction can increase hunger hormones and reduce satiety signals, including changes in ghrelin and leptin. In practical terms, poor sleep makes you hungrier and less satisfied. Everyone has experienced this. The only time I ever crave McDonald’s breakfast is when I only get four hours of sleep. When your sleep is consistent and high quality, dieting becomes less miserable because you are not battling amplified cravings all day.
• Good sleep improves emotional stability. When I sleep poorly, small problems feel bigger and my mind spins faster. When I’m running low on sleep, I’m noticeably more irritable, not just to others, but to myself. I can literally feel when I’m about to snap at my daughter before it happens (and I hate this feeling). Sleep loss increases amygdala reactivity and weakens the brain circuits that help regulate emotion. If you want to be more pleasant to be around, you should protect your sleep.
• Sleep upgrades your long term health risk profile. Large population studies consistently associate short sleep duration and poor sleep quality with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and obesity. You do not need to be perfect to benefit. Even moving toward seven to eight hours of real sleep and reducing night disturbances can be a meaningful step toward better metabolic and mental health over the long run. This is a big reason why I am so into sleep tracking.

My sleep and circadian health protocols

• Start your day with early morning sunlight exposure. I try to wake within about fifteen minutes of sunrise, or slightly before, then go outside and let natural light hit my eyes and skin. I aim to stay out for at least fifteen minutes and ideally thirty to forty five minutes. I often stack this early morning sun exposure with a walk, light stretching, voice journaling, and sometimes barefoot grounding on grass. This is the circadian anchor that makes it easier to feel naturally sleepy later.
• Treat outdoor daytime light like medicine. If I can, I work near an open window so I am not trapped under indoor lighting all day. Around solar noon, often near 1 PM, I try to get additional outdoor exposure and sometimes a short sunbathing session when Vitamin D is most readily available (don’t burn, this defeats the purpose). I also try to add outdoor walk breaks throughout the work day. Even a few minutes between meetings matters. The goal is to keep my body clock tuned to what time it is.
• Be mindful of cumulative caffeine intake. I don’t avoid caffeine entirely, but I am mindful of my cumulative intake throughout the day. My default morning brew is Four Sigmatic decaf mushroom coffee (because I enjoy decaf just as much as regular), which I prepare in my ceramic coffee dripper, then sometimes green tea earlier in the afternoon. I’m also aware of caffeine in diet soda, especially at night. I tend to order it at restaurants and hidden caffeine can sabotage sleep even when you think you are being careful.
• Protect sleep in the evening with meal timing and a sunset downshift. I try to finish eating at least three hours before bed, around 6 or 6:30 PM if I plan to sleep at 9 or 9:30 PM, or even earlier. Sometimes after a heavy brunch or late lunch, I’ll skip dinner entirely and sleep like a baby. After my last meal, I take a relaxed walk around sunset. This supports digestion and gives my body another circadian signal that the day is ending. Late heavy meals are one of the most reliable ways for me to worsen my sleep.
• Create a low stimulation environment after dark. I minimize blue light from devices by turning my screens red starting at sunset using automation. I also dim my home lighting and wear red lens blue light blocker clip-ons over my prescription glasses. (Yes, I know this sounds weird to most people). Before bed, I emphasize calming inputs like quiet conversation, reading, or relaxing TV while wearing a soothing haptic vibration wearable called Apollo Neuro on my ankle. I also avoid work emails like the plague.
• Have a middle-of-the-night wake-up plan. This is my biggest problem area, so I take it seriously. The good news is when you follow all the circadian alignment principles I’ve mentioned, this is less likely to occur. But still, every night won’t be perfect, so it’s good to have a plan I have in place. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I do not scroll. I use an app blocker that makes entertainment inaccessible, and I practice slow, deep breathing so I can get back to sleep more easily.

Sleep and circadian health recommendations

• Oura Ring: I’ve used an Oura Ring for sleep tracking since 2019. It measures total sleep, sleep stages, disturbances, and overnight recovery metrics like resting heart rate and heart rate variability. The app provides insights via a daily 0-100 scoring system. This feedback helped me internalize patterns, like how alcohol and late meals tank my sleep. Instead of upgrading to a newer model in 2026 when the battery life died, I bought another Gen 2 on eBay so I could retain the API capability without getting locked into their new subscription model.
• 1TapZap: I use this automation to set my phone to shift to a red screen at sunset. This is one of the easiest upgrades you can make to your circadian routine because it is set it and forget it. 1TapZap is better than iOS night shift in my opinion because it removes all the blue light completely (if you use both, you’ll notice the difference). The red screen also reduces the temptation to scroll because bright colors and contrast are part of what makes screens stimulating. It is a little annoying at first, but you get used to it quickly.
• Blue Light Blocking Clip On Glasses: I use these at night because they reduce exposure not only from screens but also from indoor lighting. Even when you are not on your phone, your home can be full of bright artificial light that tells your brain it is daytime. The clip-on style works for me because I wear prescription glasses at night time. If you don’t wear prescription glasses, you can just get a normal pair of blue light blockers (make sure they have red lenses). I also pack them when I travel so I can keep my routine consistent.
• Apollo Neuro: A haptic wearable that helps my body relax and downshift through physical cues. It comes with a strap so you can wear it on your wrist or ankle (I prefer ankle, but it looks like a house arrest monitor so don’t wear it in public). The soothing vibrations are a simple way to shift toward calm in the hour or two before bed. It is not magic, but it is useful when combined with low light, low stimulation habits. They have a paid subscription which detects when you wake up at night and turns it on automatically, but I’ve found the free version to be good enough for me.
• ScreenZen: This app blocker solves my problem of predictable late night screen time behavior when I wake up to pee. You can block any apps on your device during any preset time window. I block YouTube, Spotify, social media, web browsers, and shopping apps like Amazon between 10:45 PM and 5 AM. That way, if I wake up at 2 AM, entertainment is not an option. It leaves me with choices that help me sleep, like reading on Kindle. If you struggle with middle of the night wake ups, this single boundary can train your mind to focus on sleep when it should.
• Four Sigmatic Ground Decaf Coffee: My morning brew of choice. I don’t mind drinking decaf at all because it tastes the same to me as regular coffee and I don’t like the jitters and feeling of dependency I start to develop when drinking a lot of coffee anyway (another lesson from my 20s). This brand also contains functional mushrooms for cognitive and immune support benefits, which is something unique that I would never otherwise consume in my diet. Don’t worry, it does not taste like mushrooms at all.
• Pre-bedtime hot chocolate: I like to sip on a relaxing hot drink about an hour before I go to bed, so I mix about ⅓ pack of LMNT Chocolate Salt flavor and 3g glycine powder with 8 oz. hot water. Glycine is well-researched and benefits sleep by lowering core body temperature and acting as an inhibitory neurotransmitter to calm neural activity. I usually pair this drink with a magnesium gummy (I feel like the placebo helps me with sleep more than the actual gummy, but most of us could also use more magnesium)

Conclusion

Today, I still consider sleep the area where I have the most room to improve. Mostly because you can’t brute force it. So much of it involves quieting the mind. As an ISTJ, my mind is always on, especially when I get obsessed with something like a new AI app or writing project. But I’ve come a long way since my 20s. I no longer feel like sleep is a major liability to my long-term health. This guide is a reminder to myself to practice the fundamentals consistently. If you do this, I guarantee you will be better off than you were before.