Despite how simple it appears on the surface, sleep is a profoundly complex process. Your body responds to external stimulation like sunlight and darkness as well as a host of internal hormones and biological processes to regulate sleep rhythms.
There are many factors that can throw our sleep into disarray—stress, natural hormonal changes associated with aging, even the temperature of our bedroom at night. Another way you might inadvertently hinder the flow of your body’s production of melatonin is by using electronic devices like phones, computers, TV, and tablets (iPads).
When these devices are used close to bedtime, the light they emit sends signals via your eyes to the brain, informing it that it’s still daytime. This way, when you spend a lot of time on electronic devices at night, your brain believes it’s still daytime, and it will suppress the release of melatonin, meaning you won’t get sleepy.
It’s not just the light from devices that encourages wakefulness. Constant access to social media and the news also exacerbates sleep issues by creating stress and anxiety. Your brain naturally scans the horizon for threats to our safety. However, it often cannot tell the difference between a threat that’s immediate (like an intruder in your home) and a threat that’s distant (like a wildfire 1,000 miles away). For this reason, scrolling late at night or reading the news can send your brain into its fight-or-flight response, even if you’re not in imminent danger.
Unfortunately, for many of us, smartphones have become part of our nighttime ritual. We use them to wind down at the end of the day by scrolling mindlessly, not realizing that we’re actually making our brain more anxious and alert. Thus, we exert extra pressure on our biology and push away the natural sleep initiation process.
The pandemic amplified this problem. COVID-19-related insomnia became severe for so many people that it earned its own name: Coronasomnia.
Age and life stage can also create hurdles to a good night’s sleep. Teenagers, for instance, tend to stay up late, hanging out with friends or spending time on their phones, then go to bed late and wake up late, especially on weekends. This can create an internal clock issue called delayed sleep phase disorder, or circadian rhythm disorder. This happens, in part, because of the teenager’s natural physiologic hormonal influences (pubertal hormones) and in part because of societal norms and behavior.
On the other hand, older people (particularly over the age of 70) usually go to bed earlier and wake up earlier, creating the exact opposite problem. We call this advanced sleep phase disorder (ASPD), and it’s compounded by the fact the 70-plus population is often retired and prone to take naps during the day. This makes it harder for them to achieve good sleep quality at night.
Sleep is also affected by the ambient temperature. Our bodies fall asleep more easily when the surrounding air is chilly, and I advise my patients to sleep in a room that’s slightly below room temperature and experiment with temperatures between 65 and 70 degrees at night. A cooler temperature is also needed for optimal melatonin secretion, thus promoting sleep onset.
It’s not surprising that sleep quality is poorer in tropical climates, and it is always better to set temperature at lower level for optimal sleep.
What’s more—as a society, sleep simply is not a priority. Our society places value on hustle culture and sleep deprivation. This leaves us in a precarious position