I Guinea-Pigged Myself Through 27 Different Experiments to Fixed My Sleeping Issue and Finally Found a Solution!
For the last 6 months I’ve had a terrible time sleeping 🛌. More nights than not, I’ve woken up after 5–6 hours completely unable to get back to sleep.
This frustrated me to no end. As a high-flying professional I needed sleep to perform at my best. When I don't get a restful sleep, I get cranky, cannot focus, and drift aimlessly.
After 6 months of trying what feels like literally everything, I think I’ve figured this sleep thing out.
What I did not want to do was immediately start with Ambien or other sleeping pills.
Not only because they aren’t as restorative as real sleep, but because I don’t want to fix this recent sleep issue by becoming dependent on a pill for something as basic as sleeping.
Instead, I approached things in a step-function way: starting with lifestyle interventions, then adding supplements, and saving medication as a method of last resort.
Interventions I've Tried
Meditation — I tried meditating for 10–20 more minutes before bed. Though I certainly felt calmer (and more meditation never hurt anyone), it didn’t seem to solve the core issue. Some nights I slept better and some nights I’d wake up the same — it seemed completely independent of whether or not I’d spent extra time meditating that night.
Noise — I got serious about drowning out noise in my apartment. I had the windows in my unit double-paned (to reduce sound), bought a white noise machine (this one), listened to music at 432 hertz (which some Bad Science says is optimal), wore earplugs… all of it. It probably helped some, but the sleep issues persisted. On to the next item.
Light — my room has blackout shades so it is already pretty dark, but I added an eye mask. Sleep issues persisted.
Cut out caffeine — for about a month I cut out caffeine. I wasn’t even a heavy caffeine user, and usually only had a single cup in the morning around 10am. However, I cut it out and discovered it didn’t seem to impact my sleep one way or another.
CBD — this magical supplement solves everything! It must have solved my sleep! Nope — not even close. I took a few different kinds of CBD, at the strongest potencies + highest doses possible. I even got some direct from a grower — still nothing. Same with Kava (a plant similar to CBD), edibles or THC before bed. None solved the sleep issue.
Stopped drinking — I’m not a huge drinker, so I didn’t expect this would solve things. But when I stopped drinking, my sleep issues persisted. Mind you — they got worse on nights that I did drink. But cutting it out completely didn’t fix anything.
Acupressure mat — I got an acupressure mat (to simulate the effects of getting acupuncture) in an effort to reduce stress before bed. Also a flop, though feels good.
Eating before bed — I stopped eating within 3 hours of going to bed. This made falling asleep easier, but didn’t solve the recurring issue. Next.
Supplements — I tried a lot of things here. Magnesium, melatonin, ZMAs, 2 specially formulated sleeping supplements… and none of them seemed to work consistently.
Chili pad — I bought and tried the infamous chili pad that everyone seems to love. According to my Oura data, sleeping with the Chili pad vs without made no difference. I don’t know if that’s because I normally keep my apartment cold (around 67 degrees at night) or what, but it seemingly had no effect.
I stumbled Onto the Solution
Now, this whole process wasn’t totally hopeless. There were a few clues that led me to believe my sleep was an environmental issue. First, at the peak of my issues being the worst, I spent a day in nature in Northern California. I slept in a hotel, didn’t check my phone or screens all day, got a ton of sunlight and ate pretty lightly. And I had my best sleep in 2022.
This, plus the fact that I seemed to sleep better outside of my apartment, hinted that the issue with my sleep was environmental.
This hypothesis was further supported after I had bloodwork done that showed nothing hugely abnormal, but a slightly higher than ideal amount of stress hormones.
What finally worked
After months of testing, I hit on 3 interventions that together seem to have solved my sleep issue:
1. ⭐IMPORTANT: Setting up an air purifier in my bedroom (this one -- the other ones I tried did not work well). I suspect that part of my issue was a low-key allergic or inflammatory reaction to dust particles, pollution, and bacteria in my apartment, which caused a stress response and caused me to wake up in the middle of the night.
⭐ After all, if your body thinks you’re getting poisoned, or are sleeping on top of a pile of toxic mold, 10,000 years ago the right move is to wake you up so you can change your environment! In today’s age, similar low-grade stressors can just build up and cause issues like insomnia or other health problems. I suspect my sleep was just part of this.
2. Creating a wind-down routine before bed, where I don’t look at screens, read fiction and have a cup of tea before hitting the sack. This seemed to help quite a bit.
3. Sunlight ☀️ — I noticed a strong correlation between the amount of sun I get in a day and how well (or not well) I sleep. I now try to go for walks and spend some time outside working during the day, just to ensure I’m getting enough sunlight to set my body’s circadian rhythms appropriately.
What I think About Getting An Air Filter:
I generally think that health issues are a reflection of something going wrong in your environment. Can’t sleep? That’s your body sending you a message that something is not right in your world.
In my case, I think the stresses of life were starting to get to me. I think of it like this: your body only has so much capacity to absorb and handle stress, just like a glass of water can only hold so much liquid. As you add stress to it — from work, life, or even just some extra pollution in your apartment — that stress builds up and starts to overflow, leading to symptoms like being unable to sleep.
In the last several years, a growing body of scientific evidence has indicated that the air within homes and other buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities. Other research indicates that people spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors. Thus, for many people, the risks to health may be greater due to exposure to air pollution indoors than outdoors.
My recommendation? Look into getting an air filter since your air might be the problem.