Don’t Go Toward the Light
Tapping on your phone or laptop
right up until bedtime is obviously a
bad way to decompress. But it turns
out that the gadgets themselves cause
sleep problems. Our brains react to
the blue light emitted by computers,
smartphones, and even LED bulbs
much as they do to daylight—as a
signal to reduce melatonin produc-
tion and stay alert. If you can’t avoid
screens in the two to three hours
before you head to bed, try wearing
amber-tinted glasses. A recent Colum-
bia University Medical Center study of
insomnia sufferers found that those
who wore these blue light–blocking
glasses before bed slept 30 minutes
more at night. You can find them
online for less than $40.Beware of Sneak Attacks
Although it’s one of the most in-
famous sleep disrupters, caffeine can
still sneak up on you. Hot chocolate
and decaf coffee, for instance, can
contain up to 20 milligrams—enough
to bother people who are sensitive.
Alcohol is a problem too. “I had to
scale back on booze,” reports Ladd.
“At least they didn’t take away choco-
late ice cream, because then I would
really have nothing to live for!”
Certain heart, blood pressure, and
asthma medications, as well as some
remedies for colds, coughs, and aller-
gies, can also make sleep more diffi-
cult. Ask your doctor or pharmacist
for alternatives.breast cancer survivor with an elderly
mother, Ladd found that her worries
would inevitably stampede through
her mind at bedtime. “Ironically, my
mom’s death brought some relief ” to
her insomnia, Ladd says. “I had been
worrying so much about her.”
Is there anything worse than des-
perately needing sleep and not being
able to get it? It’s not just a matter of
feeling tired; over the long run, sleep
deprivation can contribute to depres-
sion, obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart
attack, Alzheimer’s disease, and can-
cer. “The silent sleep-loss epidemic is
the greatest public health challenge
we face in the 21st century,” argues
Matthew Walker, PhD, of the Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley, in his new
book, Why We Sleep. “Scientists such
as myself have even started lobbying
doctors to start ‘prescribing’ sleep.”
Unfortunately, telling patients to
sleep more doesn’t mean they’ll be
able to do it. Nor does repeating the
hard-to-follow advice they’ve heard
a million times: Exercise more, stick
to a sleep schedule, avoid caffeine in
the evening. As a result, a full third of
adults report that they fail to get the
recommended seven to nine hours a
night on a regular basis.
Fortunately, science has begun
unraveling sleep’s mysteries, produc-
ing more nuanced—and natural—
strategies for improving our time in
dreamland. We’ve compiled many of
the latest ideas here. Our prescription:
Read it and sleep.
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