Your personal

sleep advice
By the Sleep Experts of Somnox

Somnox © 2020
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Sleep is one of the most important things when it comes to the

overall quality of your life. It directly affects your energy levels,
mood, productivity and much more. In my opinion, it should be
one of the first things to tackle on any self-improvement journey.

This guide will go over:

• Sleep schedules
• How much sleep you need
• How to establish a new sleep schedule
• How to fall asleep
• How to wake up
• Some General tips for sleep
• What to do when you miss your schedule

Let’s hop right in :)

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1.

Sleep Schedule

Edit: I know most people won’t be able to follow a schedule

perfectly, so take this part as a “best case” scenario.

A fixed sleep schedule can work wonders by itself. All you have
to do is go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. This
allows your body to adjust its natural rhythm.

When I first got adjusted to a regular sleep schedule, I noticed

that I wasn’t only falling asleep quicker and waking up on time; I
was also dreaming much more than before.

Your schedule should be important to you. Don’t keep watching

YouTube videos, browsing Reddit or doing anything else when
you should be sleeping. You’ll only be more tired the next day and
have less energy.

It’s a loop of staying on your phone, getting less sleep, having less
energy and more stress the next day, and staying on your phone
to build off stress again. You’ll feel much better once you drop the
habit of using your phone in bed.

Social activities like parties can get in the way of your schedule
sometimes, but try to keep exceptions to a minimum. We’ll look
at ways to fix your schedule after a night out later in this post.

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2.

How much sleep do you

need?

I recommend starting with 8. You can then try changing it in

increments of 30 minutes and see whether 7:30 is enough or if
you need 9 hours. Genetics and the amount of activity during the
day play a major role in the needed amount of sleep.

If you are younger, you’ll probably lean towards 8-9 required

hours, while older people might be fine with 7-8 hours. Keep in
mind that the amount of sleep refers to time spent sleeping, not
time spent laying in bed.

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2.1

How to establish a new

sleep schedule?

1.
Start by setting your times in stone

Write the exact time you want to go to bed and the time you
want to wake up at down. This time should be the same for
weekdays and the weekend. Sleeping in on weekends will mess
up your natural rhythm and you won’t need it if you get enough
sleep during the week.

2.
Set a single alarm for your wake-up time

habit and encourages you to oversleep. You’ll associate the sound

of the alarm with “I can sleep a bit more until the next one” and
not with “I need to wake up now”. Using a single alarm for the first
time might be scary, but the anxiety of oversleeping will usually
get you up right away.

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3.
Fast for 16 hours

Look at the time you want to wake up at and count 16 hours

back from it. For example, if you want to wake up at 5:30 am, that
would be 1:30 pm the day before.

5:30 - 12 = 17:30
17.30 - 4 = 13:30

On the first day of adjusting to a new schedule, start fasting at

that time and eat nothing until you wake up in the morning.
Prepare your breakfast in advance so you can eat as soon as
you wake up. If you struggle with eating in the morning, try
something like a protein shake or fruit. You only need to do this
once to adjust to your new schedule. The fasting will reset your
biological clock as your body is programmed to be awake for
eating and will adjust to the times you eat. By fasting and then
eating as soon as you wake up, you can reset that mechanism.

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3.

9 practical tips to help

you fall asleep

Falling asleep quickly is a problem for many people. While having

a set schedule helps a lot, there’s still more you can do:
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Tip 1.

Have a screen-free hour

before bed

Falling asleep is the process of your body and mind winding

down after a stressful day. You can decide whether that process
starts an hour before you go to bed, or whether that process only
starts after you put your phone away one hour into laying in bed.

Looking at screens like your laptop or smartphone strains your

eyes and prevents your body from producing Melatonin, which
regulates your sleep-wake cycle.

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Instead of browsing the Internet, use that hour for relaxing

activities. You can read with dim light, draw, meditate, write or
do something else that helps you calm down. Give your body a
chance to wind down so you can fall asleep quickly. Try things like:

Reading Drawing Meditation

Writing Listen to a podcast Listen to soothing

music

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Tip 2.

Control your breath

Use breathing techniques to breathe slower. This helps

tremendously with calming down and will impact how quickly
you fall asleep. You can follow the 4-7-8 routine:

Step 1.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making
a whoosh sound.

Step 2.
Close your mouth and inhale quietly through
your nose to a mental count of four.

Step 3.
Hold your breath for a count of seven.

Step 4.
Exhale completely through your mouth, making
a whoosh sound to a count of eight.

This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three
more times for a total of four breaths. If you are not getting
enough air, try it with 4-4-4 seconds first.

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Tip 3.

Count backward from 200

This is a simple but effective technique. Mentally count from

200 backward with your eyes closed. Counting sheep is a great
alternative to this and great for boring yourself to sleep.

The act of focusing on something calming prevents yourself

from getting excited because you’re thinking about doing
things. Research shows that just thinking about an activity like
playing tennis is enough to raise your blood pressure. Thinking
of mundane and calming scenarios that don’t involve yourself
moving is best for calming down.

199

200 198

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Tip 4.

Use the 2-minute technique

The US military developed this technique to allow jet pilots to fall

asleep quickly between missions. It works like this:

Step 1.
Relax all the muscles in your face, including tongue, jaw and the
muscles around the eyes

Step 2.
Drop your shoulders as far down as they’ll go, followed by your upper
and lower arm, one side at a time

Step 3.
Breathe out, relaxing your chest followed by your legs, starting from
the thighs and working down

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Spend 10 seconds trying to clear your mind before thinking about

one of the three following images:

• You’re lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing but a clear

blue sky above you
• You’re lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room
• You say ‘don’t think, don’t think, don’t think’ to yourself over
and over for about 10 seconds.

If you get used to this technique, meaning that you use it every
time you fall asleep for multiple weeks, it’ll start working like
magic.

I calm my breath down with the 4-7-8 technique for 5 breaths,

then I start with this 2-minute routine. If that’s not enough, I’ll
either start counting from 200 backward or get up and try again
after 15-20 minutes.

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Tip 5.

The Somnox Sleep Robot

If you are having trouble falling and staying asleep, the Somnox
Sleep Robot can help. It is a device created by robotics engineer
who wanted to help their fellow family members get rid of the
sleeping pills they were taking.

The Somnox Sleep Robot helps you guide your breathing in a

subconscious way in combination with soothing audio. Aiming
to help people fall asleep faster and get better, more restorative
sleep each night.
 Somnox © 2020

Find out how it can help you

www.meetsomnox.com

Learn more

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Tip 6.

Exercise

Working out during the day helps you fall asleep much more
quickly. as it uses up your energy In turn, you will sleep more
and end up with more energy the next day. That’s the reason
regular exercise increases the energy you have available in
the long run instead of using it up. Besides that, exercise also
have a lot of other benefits.

It helps to It helps you to It keeps your

reduce stress lose weight heart strong
and anxiety and healthy

If you’re not into sports, you should still at least take a walk or do
some lighter exercising.

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Tip 7.

Watch your nutrition and

caffeine intake

Caffeine affects your body for 4-12 hours after ingesting it. This
means that having a coffee at lunch can impact your sleep,
even though they are quite a bit apart.

Eating can have just as much of an effect on your sleep. Try not
to eat anything in the last 2 hours before going to bed. You can
still drink some water if you need to.

Getting the right nutrients has major effects on your life so it is

always worth sorting that out.

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Tip 8.

Improve your sleeping

environment

Is your room too warm? Does light get into your room at
night? Is there a lot of noise coming in from outside? What
about your pillows and your mattress?

All these factors impact the quality of your sleep and you
should look into all of them. Sleep takes up roughly one-third
of your day and will continue doing so for the rest of your life,
so it is worth optimizing.

Generally, an optimal sleep environment is:

• Cool
• Dark
• Quiet
• Comfortable
• Stress-free
• Only used for sleep or intimate relations

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Checklist

Cool
Dark
Quiet
Comfortable
Stress-free
Only used for sleep or intimate relations
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Tip 9.

Look into other factors

Stress, kids, drugs/alcohol, sleep apnea, insomnia, and other issues

can have a major effect on your sleep. All of those things affect
your energy, mood, happiness, and productivity.

Seek help for these kinds of issues. Home remedies and

techniques can’t fix everything and there are people who work on
these things professionally.

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4.

How to wake up

Waking up in the morning can be challenging, especially if you

didn’t quite get enough sleep. Here’s a list of things you can do to
make sure you get out of bed:

Have only one alarm

Multiple alarms only encourage you to ignore them and make
you more likely to oversleep.

Use the 5-second rule

As soon as you hear the alarm you go 5-4-3-2-1 (out loud or in
your mind) and you get out of bed. Don’t give your mind time to
convince you to stay in there.

Get out of bed

Getting out of bed is usually the hardest part, but as soon as
you’re not in there anymore it is much easier to stay awake.

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Have a morning routine

I always drink a glass of water right after waking up, then I take a
cold shower. A set routine can help override the emotional part of
your brain.

Turn the light on

Light tells your body that it is daytime and helps ease the
sleepiness.

Use a smart alarm clock

There are lots of different models of clocks that need more than
just a press of a button to turn off. Whether you need to solve a
puzzle first or go to your bathroom to take a picture, they’ll usually
wake you right up. (I use the free app Alarmy for this)

Make staying in bed uncomfortable

You can achieve this by opening the window blinds or turning the
heat on automatically each morning so the bed gets too warm.

After a few days of adjusting to your new schedule, you should

be able to wake up even without a clock most of the time. If you
oversleep a lot, you might need to adjust your sleep time and add
half an hour.

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5.

Other tips for sleep

Tip 1
If you can’t fall asleep within 20-30 minutes of laying in bed, get
out and do something else for 15 minutes, then try again.

Tip 2
Some people focus better in the mornings; others function best in
the evenings. Adjust your schedule accordingly.

Tip 3
If you work from home or don’t have many social distractions, it
might be worth looking into polyphasic sleep. Polyphasic sleep
is about sleeping multiple times a day (taking a nap is the most
common form of polyphasic sleep) to reduce the time spent
sleeping while maintaining energy levels.

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Tip 4
The best positions for sleep are flat on your back or your side.
Depending on circumstances, some others might work well
too. Sleeping on your stomach is generally considered the worst
position, as it puts a lot of pressure on your body and strains your
back.

Tip 5
Calming sounds or white noise can help you fall asleep. There are
lots of websites or apps that allow you to play forest sounds, rain,
or static noise.

Did you know?

About 3% of the world’s population possesses a gene that allows
them to function just fine with only 6 hours of sleep. Research
into whether this is healthy doesn’t seem complete yet though.

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6.

What to do when you miss

your sleep schedule

Sometimes life gets in the way of sleep. There are two ways of
getting back on track after:

If you’re only running one or two hours late on your schedule,

go to bed and try to get the most out of it. You can work on the
accumulated sleep debt by adding half an hour to your sleep for
the next couple of days if you need it.

However, if you missed more than half of your sleep, try to stay
awake for the whole night. Then treat your sleep time as if you
were adjusting to a new schedule. Fast for 16 hours before your
next wake-up time or at least try to skip dinner. Have a coffee in
the morning so you can stay awake during the day.

I’d also recommend adding at least 30 minutes to your sleep for

the following week to get rid of the sleep debt.

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Want more?
Check our Free video course:
Learn Optimal Sleep to Improve
Your Health, Energy and Mind

We have also created a free video course on how to Learn Optimal

Sleep to Improve Your Health, Energy and Mind, you can join free
through this link.

Learn more

If you have any questions or feedback please let me know

:) You can contact me at info@somnox.nl.