Sleep is more important than your diet and exercise. Sleep is when your body is making repairs, upgrades, and literally transforming. Go to bed early and wakeup early. This will depend on the time of year and when the sun sets and rises in your location, but 10PM is when you should be in bed and waking up around 6AM. If you need more sleep you should be going to bed earlier. Waking up early might be tough at first, but it is essential. Going to bed at 12pm and waking up at 8am is good according to mainstream advice, but it is incorrect.

Your body has cycles that it goes through and will only make and release certain hormones at certain times of night. If you miss that 10pm to 12pm then you are missing out on a lot of Human Growth Hormone(HGH) & Testosterone that is essential. The power of darkness to your health is extremely underestimated. If it is dark outside then it should be dark inside. Keep it pitch dark as possible before & during bed.

Ninety-percent of healing that is regeneration and cellular reproduction occurs during sleep and very restful states. Naps are health-giving, especially when feeling sleepy or tired. A 10 to 60 minute nap often does wonders for the body, mind, and spirit. People who are sleepy, need sleep. Getting well and strong depends on having lots of sleep.

- The Recipe for Living Without Disease

Recommendations for optimal sleep

Complete darkness before & during

This means all artificial light off once the sun goes down. This even includes the small little blue lights on the bottom of TVs or on power outlets. Below is an example of what not to do. If it's dark outside, it should be dark inside. Embrace the complete darkness as much as you can get.

Setting up your bedroom

Your bedroom should be a sanctuary for healing and recovery. Set it up as such.

• Blackout curtains to make room pitch black
• Stickers (like these) for small LED lights
• Unplug all devices so they are shut down and have no light emission. Best to keep devices far away as possible in general.
• Make sure phone is on airplane mode and far away or outside bedroom
• Fill bedroom with natural stones and plants.
  More on this in the future.
• Buckwheat pillow if you're not ready to drop the pillow entirely.

AM Sunlight

Sunlight on the skin and eyes in the morning builds melatonin. Melatonin is your key hormone for a restorative sleep. Any artificial light on the skin or eye will destroy melatonin.

Melatonin is made by the combination of IRA and UVA light. This means Infrared-A and Ultraviolet-A which are abundant in the morning.

Fresh Air & Temperature

I like to have the windows open so fresh air comes in, and I just bundle up the blankets if temperature is really cold. Mid 60s °F or 15-20°C is optimal for sleep. Remember the body loves rhythm, not only of light and dark, but also hot and cold. A cold bedroom is best for sleep.

Consistency

The body loves consistent sleep and wake times. Aim for going to bed around the same time every night and develop an evening routine to get yourself into good habits. Aim for 9-10 PM. This can be later in the summer and earlier in the winter. Wake up for sunrise and get that early morning sun. Don't look at any artificial blue light until you've gotten natural light outside.

No stressful exercise or no meals 4 hours before bed

So I know as footballers we often have training or matches late at night under artificial lights. This is an unfortunate reality of modern unnatural living where matches used to be played at 3PM on a Saturday but now are all the time under harsh flickering fluorescent light.

We do our best to mitigate what we can and optimize the days we don't have evening training or matches.

Lights at Night

You have a few different options.

Here a few basic red LEDs you can screw into a lamp: Bulb 1 Bulb 2 Bulb 3
You can read more about red LEDs in this blog

I use some LED Strips like this. You can just plug this into the outlet and it'll light up the room. Gembared also has a red light reading clip which is pretty useful.

Midwest Light therapy also has a some helpful red lights. They ship international if you order over $50.
code: footballentangled for 10% off.

My favorite option is of course the coconut or beeswax candle. You can find these locally made at a farmers market or look on line for vendors in your area.

Further Learning

https://jackkruse.com/sleep-ya-big-dummy/

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