How to Wake Up and Feel Alert
Have you defeated the fearsome sleep beast that plagues so many of your countrymen?
You might think you have – after all, you installed blackout curtains in the bedroom, disconnected every LED-light before hitting the sack, peer through slitted eyes at a F.lux-altered computer screen, get seven to nine hours a night, and make getting to bed early a priority – but if you’re still waking up groggy, foggy-headed, and in desperate, immediate need of a caffeine infusion… is the beast really slain or has it merely assumed another form? You could even be displaying zero outward signs of sleep deprivation, like insulin resistance, fat gain, or a zombie-like disposition at midday, instead continuing to lean out and enjoy steady energy throughout the workday (once you snap out of the morning doldrums), but that waking grogginess cannot be ignored. It’s annoying and it’s ruining what should be a serene moment of quiet energy before the madness of the day descends. You don’t want to be stumbling through the kitchen for the coffee maker; you want to spring out of bed and greet the morning like the dear old friend it should be.
Okay, so how do you do it? How do you really defeat the sleep beast once and for all?
Self-experiment. Shift some things around, do something differently, and note the effects. I’ll give you some leads, but first, try some Seth Roberts sleep hacks.
Seth is great. I’ve discussed him before, he’ll be speaking at the upcoming Ancestral Health Symposium, and he’s connected with many of your favorite paleo and Primal bloggers. Seth is also big into self-experimentation. And I don’t mean trying things and subjectively assessing their impact. Seth goes all in and quantitatively tracks the impact of a change. Stats, graphs, logs, the whole nine. Years ago, Seth had sleep quality issues. Wasn’t getting enough and the sleep he was getting wasn’t great. He noticed that different variables seemed to improve and/or worsen his sleep, so he got to figuring out exactly how each worked.
Intermittently standing on one leg to exhaustion.
In 1996, Seth noticed that standing up while working, reading, writing, or studying worked well and improved his sleep, but it wasn’t practical. He couldn’t stand for eight hours a day comfortably and still get all his work done. Then, in 2008, he wondered if standing on one leg instead of two would condense the effect and require less time to enact it. It did. Standing on a leg to exhaustion once or twice a day led to more restfulness upon waking the next day. Three times a day was better than one or two, and four was better than three. He eventually settled on three daily sets of two – each leg to exhaustion three times per day with four hours in between sets. When his legs got too strong to reach exhaustion, he upped the ante by slightly bending his knee and “bobbing” up and down. Doing this improved his “sleep efficiency”; he didn’t necessarily sleep any longer or earlier, but he always awoke refreshed, indicating that he was sleeping better in the same amount of time.
Try standing on one leg to exhaustion several times each day. It’s goofy looking, sure, but so are those Vibrams. Who cares?
Skipping breakfast.
Seth also found that he was waking up earlier than he preferred, leading to groggy mornings and less wakefulness during the day. On a friend’s recommendation, he added fruit to his breakfast, which made the problem worse. He removed the fruit and added protein, which was better than fruit but not good enough. Finally, to go back to square one and systematically isolate variables, he stopped eating breakfast altogether. This was the “control.” His goal was to add things in and note their effect without outside noise, but the control setting solved his problem. He began waking up at a normal time feeling extremely refreshed, probably because he was no longer entraining anticipatory behavior in himself. When he ate an early breakfast, he was training himself to wake up in anticipation of feeding. Stopping breakfast solved this. Now, you may not think you’re waking up early, but you may be waking up earlier than is optimum for your body because of anticipated feeding.
Try intermittent fasting instead of eating a daily breakfast. Maybe skip breakfast altogether, or, if you love bacon and eggs as much as I do, push breakfast back to 11:00 (which is when Seth broke his fast).
Eating more animal fat.
Now, I don’t think this one will be a hard sell with the PB crowd, but I’m always happy to tell you to eat more animal fat. After Seth started working his way through a pork belly (which is uncured bacon, essentially, and mostly pork fat) that’d been sitting in his freezer, he immediately slept better. As in, the day after his first pork belly meal, he slept better. This effect persisted.
If you’re still scared of animal fat, don’t be. Don’t shy away from the fattier cuts of meat.
Those are one man’s experiments with sleep, albeit one man with a fair number of readers, many of whom have corroborated his findings. But still – they may not work for you. They certainly won’t hurt, however, so give ‘em a shot.
What about some other potential ideas that you may be missing? Well, a few months back I gave you 17 concrete tips to improve your sleep. Go over those, make sure you’ve got them dialed in, and then proceed:
Daytime light.
Don’t just avoid or limit nighttime light exposure, which you’re probably a master at; maximize daytime light exposure as well. It’s easy enough to lower the lights, put on some candles, and install light dampening apps on your laptop, but it’s not always easy to actually get outside during the day and get natural light exposure when you need it. Because it’s true: you need it – at the right times – to maintain proper circadian rhythm.
Go outside right when you wake up. Even if it’s overcast and gray, you’re still getting exposed to natural light. It’s a great way to wake up in the immediate sense, and it ensures your circadian rhythm is on point for the future.
Keep an eating schedule.
Just like eating an early breakfast entrained Seth Roberts to awaken early, eating your other meals at roughly set times might also entrain stable sleeping patterns. Wild variations in eating schedules could be sending your body a confusing message about when to expect bedtime. While I’m not big on eating schedules in general (eat when you’re hungry and don’t when you’re not), if you are waking up groggy this might help.
I don’t think it’s all that important how your schedule is constructed. Just have one.
Eat an earlier dinner.
Maybe all those grandmas and grandpas who wake up at the crack of dawn and eat dinner at four PM know something we don’t. I’m not saying you should sit down for a roast just after noon, but it might be worth eating a little earlier than usual – especially if you’re having trouble with morning grogginess. Melatonin, the “sleep hormone,” is blunted with feeding.
Eat no later than two hours before bed.
Stop caffeine.
I know, I know, it’s sacrilege. Caffeine comes in many delicious packages. It is king. But maybe it’s also affecting the quality of your sleep. We’ve all heard of the people who can’t have a sip of coffee without it preventing them from getting to sleep later that night. What if caffeine isn’t affecting your ability to knock off, but it is reducing the quality, or efficiency, of the sleep you get? It’s certainly worth a (decaf espresso) shot, right?
If you’re a cup-a-day drinker, avoid coffee for a week altogether. If you’re more of the pot-a-day kinda drinker, reduce your daily intake to a cup (I hear caffeine withdrawal headaches are nasty things). The key is to drastically reduce your caffeine intake from present levels.
Eat gelatin.
Animals have traditionally been consumed nose to tail, including all the gelatinous connective tissue that most modern meat eaters trim and toss. Real bone broths are another lost dietary component, replaced by canned “stock” and bouillon cubes. Both are rich sources of gelatin. To whit, most modern eaters don’t get enough gelatin, and modern PB eaters who focus on muscle meats, veggies, and eggs to the exclusion of bone broths and bone-in cuts might be missing out, too. According to Ray Peat, gelatin helps with sleep (of course, he also insists sugar is a prime energy source…) by supplying certain amino acids, like glycine, which are relatively rare in muscle meat. Even if he’s wrong, broth is worth working into your diet.
Incorporate real bone broth into your cooking on a regular basis. Get into the habit of making stock every week. Freeze in ice cube trays. Stock cubes are easy to add to veggies, soups, sauces, or even just alone in a mug. Powdered gelatin also works; this brand is from pastured cattle.
Reading fiction.
Rather than “limit electronics” before bed, eliminate them and read yourself some fiction to sleep instead. Even with F.lux engaged, I’m unconvinced the late-night blog reader is completely in the clear. The smooth, inert pages of a real life novel you can hold in your hand, though? It’s a potent sleep aid. I’m not exactly sure why it works so well. Maybe fiction is similar enough to dreaming that you get halfway there just by opening the book. Maybe immersing oneself in a fictional world takes more mental exertion than reading and understanding nonfiction, and it just tires you out faster. Whatever the mechanism, it’s worth pursuing.
Read some fiction before bed. Ebook readers that use e-ink should work about as well as regular books.
Nearly everything we do has an effect on some seemingly far-flung physiological process. It might be slight, but it’s there. The key, then, is to try lots of different things one by one (so you can deduce cause and effect), note the response, internalize it, and move on to the next one. It may be that caffeine doesn’t affect you, but a lack of morning light does. It may be that skipping breakfast by itself isn’t enough, but standing on one leg and skipping breakfast are sufficient (that does sound odd, doesn’t it?). The cool thing about all these tips is that they are completely safe. Experimenting with any or all of them is not going to put you in harm’s way. Heck, I bet some of you have already been thinking about drinking more bone broth, standing up to work, getting more sunlight during the day, and giving up caffeine without morning grogginess as the impetus. Overall, these are just healthy, net-beneficial practices to incorporate – all the more worth trying if you’re having trouble getting up in the morning.
Now it’s your turn. Give these a shot if you’re having sleep issues, and let us know what’s worked for you if you’ve already slain the beast. Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you in the comment section!
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Great article. I’ve figured out with myself if I do at least 10 minutes of yoga before bed, I wake up refreshed.
Cold showers and baths have become such a ritual to me that they’re all I take now, and I’ve noticed an immense improvement in my sleep since adopting the practice.
From what I’ve heard, part of the process of falling asleep is that the body cools. I assume there’s a sweet spot temperature, and if I’m right then cold showers/baths can improve sleep by helping you reach that sweet spot by warming up after the session, rather than cooling down.
It always struck me as a mistake to take a cold shower before bedtime given the jolt it gives, but I regularly get tired within minutes of warming up afterwards, so I almost always take a cold one before bed these days.
I read Primal Blueprint when I want to fall asleep…j/k!!!
Interesting suggestions. Some seem a little out there but others are worth a try. I know I am beat when I wake up. Some days it seems as though I just lay my head down and then it is time to get up.
I will be sure to try a few of these out.
I have insomnia; I have the type where it takes forever to fall asleep (~1 – 1 1/2 h). No matter how tired I am, pysically or mentally, I have trouble. Then I was watching a little blurb on the TV from some doctors (Wise Quacks) in a community show talk about applying a cold wash cloth to the forehead 20 min prior to going to bed. Supposedly ~15% of the population has above average activity in the frontal lobe and applying the cold cloth helps slow it down for a better sleep. Since it was only a cold washcloth, I gave it a try and it work. A simple solution!
Anyone dealing with restless leg syndrome at night? I started having pain in my upper legs causing me to shift positions constantly and leading to disrupted sleep.
I would like to try some suggestions before going to a doctor.
Victoria, I am actually a sleep, brain, behavior researcher and not a sleep clinician. But I hear about the clinical side at our scientific conferences and in journals. Restless legs is difficult to understand and thus treat. My first suggestion is to stabilize your sleep times. Our brain does an amazing job of adapting to the habits that we give it and preparing the body to do what we want it to do. Sleeping at the same time every day may help your neurochemicals better figure out when to let your body relax. Also, I would recommend removing all possible stimulants (no caffeine, no energy drinks, etc). My last major question is how much do you actually exercise, walk, or otherwise make good use of your leg muscles? I’m less confident that exhausting the leg muscles would work, but it is something that might be worth trying. But I would only try that after you stabilize your sleep patterns and remove all stimulants from your diet. There are some drugs that the drug companies are pushing for RLS. I am not a fan of using drugs for anything but I think it is important to point out that the sleeping medications were not designed for long-term use which is what most people do with them. I find it scary. I hope this helps.
I do a lot of exercise. I usually do a workout in the am for 40 min and then do another one in the evening for 1 hour. Resistance training every other day. I am moving my evening workout to a late afternoon one to see if that helps. It almost feels like maybe the leg muscles are overworked. What about decaf coffee? I drink a lot of that.
Victoria, did you read the Primal Blueprint Fitness ebook? That much exercise doesn’t seem to align with its ideas…
Victoria, The first issue to resolve is your sleep-wake schedule. Are you going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning both during the week and the weekend? That is the first change you should try. My suggestion is to try stabilizing your sleep times for at least 2 to 4 weeks and see if that makes a difference. Moving any exercise periods earlier in the day may help. Some people can really feel a difference in their sleep quality by making their exercise times before about 6 pm. But, it doesn’t seem to affect everyone. Also, please remember that any effect from changing your exercise time will likely be much less than the positive benefit of stabilizing your sleep patterns. I don’t think that decaff coffee would be a major issue. At least there is no scientific evidence about decaff coffee. Hope this helps.
Be careful, everyone. I am a sleep and brain scientist. Please be careful playing with your sleep. Many things are happening at night while we sleep. Playing with your sleep can be unwise. My recommendation for what it is worth, go to bed and get up at the same time every day. That will likely solve most problems. It is important to note that if you don’t have stable bed times that any other changes you might make will be unreliable at best.
I’m a swing shift worker. Do you have any sleeping advice for those of us stuck in the 24 hr. work world? Thanks.
Leigh Anna, Shift work definitely makes it harder. My first suggestion would be to stabilize your sleep times as much as you can. For example, if you work nights, try to find a specific time of the day that you can sleep, even if it is in two episodes and sleep at the same time every day that you work nights. Do the same thing no matter what shift you actually work. Try to pick a time that you can sleep and really work to sleep at that same time every day. Of course, if you work nights, you won’t do that on days off. That is one of the biggest problems for night shift workers. In those cases, I’d recommend stabilizing the sleep times at night for days off and having separate but stable sleep times on the days that you work nights. It isn’t perfect, but working nights is never doing to be perfect. I hope this helps.
Good post. I will follow your guidelines from now.
try read something really boring tutorials like higher Math or Estonian language .
works like a charm