Sous les briques, le soleil

I’ve had sleep issues for two decades. Weekly bad nights were normal. Now they’re single digits per quarter.

Here’s what changed.

The basics

1. Consistency matters more than duration. Same bedtime, same wake time. Research shows sleep regularity predicts mortality better than sleep duration. I’m in bed by 10pm, up at 7:20am.

2. Reading before sleep. Kindle, no lights. One chapter. Non-negotiable wind-down.

3. No food after 8pm. Light lunches. Alcohol limited to two glasses max on social nights.

4. Magnesium glycinate. A few hundred mg. Modest but real effect on insomnia severity in RCTs. Well tolerated.

5. Weighted blanket (7kg). Large effect size on insomnia in controlled trials. Not for everyone. Hard to sell to a partner.

6. Movement. 5km run on Sundays. Bike commute. Without it, my brain spirals on Sunday afternoons anticipating the week.

When the mind won’t stop

The real problem: rumination. Work thoughts loop. You check the time. You calculate how few hours remain. The loop tightens.

Breaking it:

1. Get out of bed. Beds are for sleep, not for wrestling with thoughts.

2. Label what’s happening. “I’m ruminating about that deadline.” Sometimes I open my laptop and dump the thoughts into a note. Tomorrow’s problem now.

3. Accept the loss. The night is already suboptimal. Tomorrow might have a nap. The next night will be better.

4. Physiological sigh. Two inhales through nose (second one deeper), long exhale through mouth. Five minutes of this beats meditation for mood and arousal reduction.

5. Return to bed.

Why this matters

I work in longevity. Nothing else matters if sleep is broken. I wish I’d learned this at 20, not 40.