The most effective way I've found to optimize my sleep

Yo!

This week I wanted to share 3 of the best ways to optimize your sleep that I’ve found after testing so many different products and routines. If you’re subscribed to this newsletter then you probably care a lot about taking care of yourself and optimizing your routine, so hopefully I can save you some time and money from this!

I don’t need to go into the reasons why you should bother to optimize your sleep, you probably already know that.

For each sleep optimization tip, I’ll also share one product that has genuinely helped me with that. (The first 2 products are affiliate links but not the third)

1. Optimize your temperature. 

By far the biggest needle mover for me in optimizing my sleep was optimizing my temperature. The temperature of your room, your bed, and your body will affect how fast you fall asleep and how well you stay asleep.

I like to keep the room cool, take a hot shower before bed, and I keep my bed cool in the summers and warm in the winters. There is a mattress topper from a company called Eight Sleep that allows you to make your bed hot or cold. I love it and have been using mine for almost 4 years now. I reached out to them a long time ago and got a discount code for you guys on YouTube. It’s definitely pricey but has been one of the best investments I’ve made.

You can get up to $200 off with code REYSU here.

2. Regulate your sleep & wake time. 

The second most important thing is to regulate your sleep and wake times. I would argue that your sleep time is more important than your wake time, but you really have to optimize both to feel optimal. The way I optimize my sleep time is by locking myself out of my computer and phone (see videos here)

As for wake times, one fun way I’ve been regulating my wake time recently is with this unique alarm clock called alarmy. It wakes you up by jumping off your counter and running around, and you have to catch it to turn it off. Since using this, I’ve been able to wake up before sunrise for the past 3 weeks straight. Love it.

3. Track your sleep 

The last biggest needle mover for me was to consistently track my sleep. I think there are a bunch of different ways you can do it for free including writing it in a journal, but the most frictionless way I’ve found is with the Oura Ring. It has a simple layout that gives you a score every morning and you can easily see how different habits can correlate to your sleep quality.

You’ll quickly cut down on late night alcohol, caffeine, or blue light. Or maybe you’ll see that your body actually processes all those super quickly and it’s something else. That’s the beauty of sleep tracking.

Those are the 3 things that pretty much ensure that I get amazing sleep and wake up feeling motivated, refreshed, and ready to take on the day.

📖 What I’m Reading

I just read through Indistractable by Nir Eyal and it’s all about how you can build habits to become “indistractable”. I think it fits so nicely with the habits I’ve implemented and shared with you guys, stuff like dumbing down your smartphone, optimizing your computer, etc.

I would highly recommend it because it goes into how to get rid of not just external distractions, but inner distractions too.

🍿 Update of the week

If you find yourself often not having enough time to do the things that you like, I made a video sharing a few uncommon habits that I do that save me up to 50+ hours a week.

Note: For me, saving 50+ hours a week is not so I can work an extra 50+ hours. It’s so that I have more time to spend time with family, friends, and pursue hobbies, which I think are the things that will bring the most fulfillment over the long run 🙂 

Happy Tuesday,
Eric