I’ve made several changes over the past few months that have improved my sleep.
A cool environment is important to my sleep, and Chili Pad has proven to be a better way to cool myself on warm nights than attempts at air conditioning. I have it pump water at 72 or 73 degrees through small tubes sitting between me and the mattress. I was careful to buy enough tubes to put the pump in the next room where its noise and light aren’t noticeable. One drawback is that the straps that should hold it in place no the mattress weren’t quite the right length, and broke immediately – that creates a minor problem where it slides around a bit.
The second change was to use only lighting with no blue light an hour before going to bed. I had tried this more than a year ago by placing a red filter in front of my computer monitor and turning off most of the regular lighting. That produced little change even though it cut out 90 to 95% of the blue light. Last week I bought a red light to replace the remaining regular lighting, and now I see a moderate improvement in how quickly I can fall asleep.
I’ve started occasionally using a sleep mask so that I can sleep a bit later than sunrise instead of letting the sun completely control when I wake up. But I don’t like the way it feels, so I won’t use it often.
I’ve also started using a Zeo, and intend to measure the effects of caffeine on my sleep. But I don’t like wearing the headband, so I won’t use the Zeo for long periods of time.
Try this: http://stereopsis.com/flux/
“F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It’s even possible that you’re staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.”
Been using it for months and it’s great.
f.lux makes my screen look better, with little effect on my sleep.