Caffeine Addict's Guide to Sleep
By Adam Nash MA LPC
Don’t ask how people are doing, ask how they are sleeping. You’ll learn a lot more. (1)
-Andrew Huberman
With daylight savings having just happened I feel like Westley in the Princess Bride (2) when he gets hooked up to the machine and they suck a year from his life. However, I feel like I got a whole night of sleep taken from me and I am still working to recover. Due to this, every year, I find myself reaching for more and more caffeine. Energy drinks, coffee, iced tea, caffeine infused chocolate, you name it I have probably used it to attempt to keep myself awake and focused. This, however, sets off a terrible cycle of bad sleep. As I drink more caffeine in order to stay awake throughout the day I end up falling asleep later and sleeping worse which leads me to drinking more caffeine the next day and on and on the cycle goes. This cycle is quite risky since sleep issues make a lot of health issues, including mental health, worse. One study found that “Although depression showed the strongest link with suicide, poor sleep quality increased the risk for suicide by 34%” (Turvey et al 2002) meaning sleep is super important for our mental health. So, from one caffeine addict to another, how are we going to manage to get our sleep schedule to a healthier place, while hopefully avoiding having to cut out all caffeine. I want to look at a few things that I think are super helpful to hopefully get you and me back to regular sleep.
“I think I've reduced the amount of blood in my caffeine system to an acceptable level.”
― Alastair Reynolds
Limit your Caffeine Intake in the Afternoon:
Caffeine has a “half-life” of six hours for the average human. Meaning that if you drink an energy drink with 200mg of caffeine at noon at 6pm you still have 100mg’s of caffeine in your system. Due to this it is highly recommended that all caffeine consumption ends 10 hours before you are planning to lay down in bed, in order to be fairly confident that all caffeine is out of your body. I typically attempt to have all of my caffeine consumption done by 1pm in order to allow myself a chance to head to bed at 11pm. Bonus points if you are willing to wait 60-90 minutes in the morning for your first coffee or energy drink because this will allow you to avoid the afternoon crash which, at least for me, ends up in me reaching for another caffeine source in the afternoon in an attempt to stay awake through the 2:30 feeling.
Limit your Alcohol Use:
Another thing I find myself turning to when I am tired is that after drinking enough caffeine to stop my heart I am wired at night and think “a glass of whiskey will help me fall asleep”. The hard part about drinking alcohol is that when you first start drinking you begin to feel tired, which is what we are hoping for, but as Matt Walker stated “Alcohol blocks REM sleep- You tend to wake up unrefreshed and unrestored. But it doesn’t seem to negatively impact deep sleep” (3). What does this mean for our sleep? Simply put REM sleep is what makes us feel sharp and rested mentally in the morning and allows us to focus on our day. When we drink alcohol we are limiting our REM sleep which leads to us feeling tired and not mentally sharp and we are more likely to reach for more caffeine which continues the cycle of drinking too much caffeine to stay awake and then alcohol to fall asleep and on and on we go.
Limit Phone Time in the Evening:
I know we have all done it. Sitting in bed at night staring at our phone, 10 inches from our face, wondering why we aren’t getting tired. Our body is a fine tuned machine that responds to things happening around us. Blue light, which is a lot of the light that comes from phones, TV’s, and LED lights, causes our brains to not release melatonin which is very important in our body becoming tired (4). Due to this it is a good idea to limit phone and TV use for two hours leading into bed time. I know this is tough and I struggle with it but it can really be helpful to set down the phone and read before bed (even setting down your phone and just watching TV is more useful for sleep than staring at your phone)
Morning and Evening Sunlight:
As we talked about in the last tip our bodies respond to the light that we take into our eyes. Because of this another super useful strategy is to get sunlight into your eyes in the morning and evening (before sunset) in order to set your Circadian Rhythm. Dr. Andrew Huberman states “I consider viewing morning sunlight in the top five of all actions that support mental health, physical health and performance” (5). Getting sunlight as soon as you can when you wake up allows your body to release the proper chemicals throughout the day and sets the time for your body to begin to get tired. Likewise getting outside as the sun is lower tells your body “It's evening, and I should be tired” which will aid in your ability to fall asleep.
Experiment with Supplements and Sleep Aids:
Finally, if sleeping is still not working then it can be time to look into getting a supplement or a sleep aid. I recommend that you speak to your doctor before using anything as there is a risk. However, make sure you look for a sleep aid that has as limited down stream effect as possible. (For father research on sleep supplements https://peterattiamd.com/ama42/)
Sleep is super important to our long term health and I hope that you do what you can to find a pattern for your sleep. From one caffeine addict to another, sleep is much more helpful at feeling awake than another energy drink or cup of coffee.
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