In his book, The Seven-Day Sleep Prescription, renowned sleep scientist Dr. Aric Prather shares seven powerful solutions that he uses to help his patients at his sleep clinic achieve healing and restorative sleep.
Let’s discuss each in turn.
The Seven-Day Sleep Prescription
- Day 1. Set Your Internal Clock
- Day 2: Ease Off the Gas
- Day 3: Energize—But Do It Right
- Day 4: Worry Early
- Day 5: You Are Not a Computer, You Can’t Just Shut Down
- Day 6: (Re)train Your Brain
- Day 7: Stay Up Late
Day 1: Set Your Internal Clock
We cannot force ourselves to fall asleep, but we can influence when we fall asleep by controlling when we wake up. Prather suggests choosing a consistent wake-up time for every day of the week, including weekends, to help stabilize our body’s internal sleep rhythm. Setting an alarm is recommended to establish this wake-up time, especially if our sleep schedule needs adjustment.
Upon waking up, exposing ourselves to natural light by opening blinds or going outside is beneficial, as light helps regulate our system. Prather also advises rewarding ourselves for waking up by engaging in enjoyable activities such as drinking coffee, reading a book, or walking. By making waking up a rewarding experience, we train our brain and body to value it more than sleeping in.
Day 2: Ease Off the Gas
We must take a long-term perspective when managing the day and week ahead. Prather advises considering the entire week and distributing your responsibilities evenly rather than cramming them into one timeframe.
It’s crucial to remember that taking care of yourself is a responsibility too, so make sure to allocate time for sleep and breaks. Doing so allows you to plan effectively, set realistic expectations for yourself and others, and maintain a manageable stress level.
Prioritizing sleep is vital because it sets you up for success, even though its benefits may take time to be visible. As such, avoid accumulating sleep debt by reducing it today, as you can’t store sleep for later.
Prather encourages taking short “micro-breaks” during the day, lasting five to fifteen minutes or longer if possible. We can use these breaks for activities like meditation, walking, listening to podcasts, or engaging in relaxing hobbies.
To hold yourself accountable, set timers or link breaks to existing routines. Then, commit to incorporating these breaks daily, making them a regular part of your routine for improved productivity, creativity, and happiness in the long run.
Day 3: Energize—But Do It Right
Prather explains that a mild physical shock, like exposure to cold temperatures, can benefit your energy levels and overall well-being. While extreme measures are not necessary, a brief cold exposure can activate your nervous system and act as a jumpstart to your energy. Studies use a “cold pressor task” where participants place their hand or forearm in ice-cold water, increasing blood pressure and cardiovascular activation. Enduring the cold also provides an opportunity to train yourself for stress resilience.
Research suggests intermittent exposure, or hormetic stress, can positively impact your health and longevity. The key is to view stress as a challenge rather than a threat. By reframing stressors as exciting challenges, you can experience a healthy stress response and energizing effects. For example, public speaking may initially induce stress, but viewing it as a challenge can lead to an energizing rush afterward.
To implement this approach, when you experience an afternoon slump, try exposing yourself to cold by placing your head in the freezer or immersing your forearms in cold water. Notice the discomfort but relax into it. This small stressor can rev up your system and increase alertness. Going forward, reframe stressful situations as exciting challenges and trigger positive stress responses that promote healing and longevity at the cellular level.
Day 4: Worry Early
In this chapter, Prather provides two strategies to help you manage worry and rumination during the day, before bedtime. The first strategy, “Worry Early,” involves setting aside a specific time during the mid-to-late-afternoon for worrying. It should be a focused, uninterrupted period of about 15 minutes.
Allow yourself to freely worry about one topic at a time without expecting to solve the problems. If worries arise outside of this designated time, remind yourself that you have scheduled worry time for tomorrow. Write down any persistent worries that surface at bedtime so that you can address them during your next scheduled worry time.
The second strategy is “Constructive Worry.” Create a two-column list with the first column labeled “Problem” and the second column labeled “Solution.” Then, identify current problems you tend to ruminate on and list the next one to three steps you can take to address each issue. This serves as a blueprint for getting started on the problems, solving them only partially.
Fold the paper and place it near your bed, acknowledging that you plan to tackle these issues when you are at your best. If worries arise at bedtime, remind yourself that you have a plan and resist the urge to solve problems in the middle of the night when you lack cognitive clarity. These strategies reduce nighttime worrying and preserve your sleep quality.
Day 5: You Are Not a Computer, You Can’t Just Shut Down
Prather emphasizes the importance of following certain ground rules for an effective wind-down routine before bed. He advises starting the wind-down process at least two hours before bedtime without any exceptions, as it’s crucial for improving sleep.
Additionally, Prather advises against doing the wind down in bed, explaining that spending too much time in bed before sleep can negatively affect your sleep quality. To help, Prather suggests setting an alarm for your wind-down routine, treating it as important as waking up.
Prioritizing restful activities over late nights and all-nighters is recommended for better cognitive functioning and overall health, as transitioning out of work mode and selecting activities that put you in a pleasant, calm, and low-arousal state.
Day 6: (Re)train Your Brain
Prather explains the concept of “stimulus control” for managing conditioned-arousal problems during sleep and provides five essential rules to follow. Rule #1 advises not getting into bed until you feel sleepy, even after the designated wind-down period. Instead, engage in less stimulating activities like listening to music or meditating. Rule #2 states that the bed should be reserved for sleep and sex, avoiding using phones, laptops, or books.
Rule #3 encourages allowing yourself to fall asleep by spending around 15 minutes in bed, practicing visualization exercises or trainspotting. Rule #4 suggests that if you’re still awake after 20-30 minutes, get out of bed and engage in soothing activities until you feel sleepy again. Lastly, Rule #5 emphasizes the importance of consistency and repetition, stating that results may take a few weeks to become noticeable.
Day 7: Stay Up Late
In the final chapter, Prather discusses sleep compression, which helps improve sleep efficiency and address difficulties with falling or staying asleep. Sleep compression aims to close the gap between your sleep opportunity and the actual time you spend asleep.
To start, determine your average time asleep and add half an hour. This new total will be your sleep opportunity for tonight. Then, count backward by that amount of time from your consistent wake-up time to find your bedtime.
Prather advises committing to this compressed sleep window for a week and keeping track of your sleep using a sleep diary. If you experience positive changes, such as falling asleep quickly and staying asleep, you can gradually expand your sleep window by backing off the compression in small increments.
Alternatively, if sleep compression seems too extreme, you can try the gentler approach of gradually bumping back your bedtime by half-hour increments until you find a time when you can fall asleep more easily. This method takes longer to build up sleep pressure but can still be effective with patience and consistency.
Conclusion
In conclusion, The Seven-Day Sleep Prescription presents effective solutions for achieving restorative sleep. By implementing consistent wake-up times, allocating adequate time for sleep and breaks, exposing ourselves to mild stressors, managing worry and rumination, and adhering to certain ground rules for a wind-down routine, we can successfully train our body and mind to prioritize restful activities, resulting in improved cognitive functioning and better overall health.
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