Sleep System

Behaviour first, products second, supplements last. One fixed schedule, one wind-down, one room kept for sleep.

  • 10pm–8amSame sleep window every night, weekends included.
  • 9pmPhone on the charger in the kitchen lockbox. No screens, no exercise.
  • 8amOut of bed and into direct sunlight for 5–10 minutes.
  • AlwaysThe bedroom is for sleep and sex only.

Version 1, last updated . See the change log.

The 24-hour day A 24-hour clock with midnight at the top. Sleep runs from 10pm to 8am. Wind-down 9 to 10pm, social window 5:30 to 9pm, morning sunlight at 8am. Melatonin begins rising around 8pm and core body temperature bottoms out around 6am.
The day on a 24-hour clock, midnight at the top. Inner markers are the body's own timing signals this schedule is built around.

Why a fixed schedule works

Sleep is timed by two systems. Sleep pressure (adenosine) builds every hour you're awake and clears while you sleep. The circadian clock pushes alertness up through the day, peaks in the early evening, then drops away. You fall asleep fastest when pressure is high and the clock's alerting signal has just fallen off. That window is the sleep gate.

The clock is set mostly by light. Bright light in the morning pulls it earlier; bright light at night pushes it later. A fixed wake time plus morning sun anchors the clock, and the 9pm screen cut-off stops evening light from dragging it back.

Two-process model of sleep regulation Over 24 hours from 8am, sleep pressure rises through the day and falls overnight, while the circadian alerting signal peaks around 8 to 9pm then drops. Sleep is easiest where pressure is high and the alerting signal falls, around 10pm.
Two-process model (Borbély, 1982), drawn for this schedule. Curves are schematic, not measured. The evening peak in the circadian signal is the "wake maintenance zone", which is why going to bed at 8:30pm often fails even when tired.

What a night looks like

Sleep runs in cycles of roughly 90 minutes. Deep sleep (N3), which drives physical recovery, is packed into the first half of the night. REM, tied to memory and emotional processing, grows through the second half. Cutting the night short at the end costs mostly REM; a late bedtime costs mostly deep sleep.

Hypnogram of a typical night Sleep stages from 10pm to 8am across six cycles. Deep sleep dominates the first two cycles, REM periods lengthen toward morning.
Illustrative hypnogram for a healthy adult in a 10pm–8am window. The 8 Sleep's tracking gives a rough version of this; treat its stage split as an estimate, not a lab measurement.

Evening

Social plans live in the 5:30–9pm window so they never push into the wind-down. From 9pm the job is to lower light, lower arousal and drop core temperature.

  1. Phone in the kitchen lockbox, devices off.Removes the single biggest source of evening light and stimulation. No exercise after this point either: it raises core temperature and heart rate.
  2. Chamomile tea.A warm, caffeine-free ritual that tells the body the day is over. Doubles as the gentlest "supplement".
  3. Hot shower.Warming the skin pushes blood to the hands and feet, which dumps heat and lowers core temperature afterward. Best done 1–2 hours before lights out.
  4. Brush, floss, change into PJs.Same order every night so the sequence itself becomes a sleep cue.
  5. 5 minutes of yoga.Slow stretches, not a workout. Keep the heart rate down.
  6. Meditate.Headspace (student, $17/year) is the pick. Insight Timer is free; Waking Up is free on a scholarship request.
  7. Lights out.If still awake after about 20 minutes, get up, sit somewhere dim, return when sleepy. This keeps the bed linked to sleeping, not lying awake.
Core temperature across the evening Core body temperature falls from 9pm into the night. The hot shower briefly raises skin temperature, which speeds the drop in core temperature before sleep.
Falling core temperature is one of the triggers for sleep onset. The shower and a cool bed both work by speeding up this drop. Schematic.

Optional in the evening

Two kiwifruit about an hour before bed. Small trials found faster sleep onset and longer sleep; kiwi is high in serotonin and antioxidants. Study.

Magnesium bisglycinate. Some evidence, mostly weak and in older adults. Only after the behaviour is in place. Product.

Morning

Out of bed at 8am, including weekends. Then 5–10 minutes of direct sunlight, outside, no sunglasses and not through a window. Glass blocks much of the light that matters and outdoor light is many times brighter than indoor light, even when overcast.

Morning light does three things: it stops melatonin, it sets the clock so melatonin starts again about 14 hours later, and it lifts alertness for the day. Missing it is the most common way a schedule drifts later.

"use ana" is in the original notes and needs clarifying. It's listed under open questions below.

Light intensity by source Typical illuminance on a log scale: phone screen about 50 lux, indoor room about 200, overcast outdoors about 10,000, direct sun about 100,000.
Typical light levels on a logarithmic scale. Ten minutes outside on a cloudy morning delivers more light than a full day indoors.

Bedroom and bed

The room should be dark, cool and quiet, with nothing in it that isn't for sleep. Blackout curtains (3.5 × 1.24 m) handle light; an eye mask covers travel and gaps. Even dim light during sleep raises night-time heart rate and next-morning insulin resistance.

Temperature is handled by the 8 Sleep cover, which sits between the protector and the sheets and cools or warms the surface through the night. Aim cooler at sleep onset and slightly warmer toward waking.

For breathing: nose strips if congested, mouth tape only if nasal breathing is clear (see the caution in the evidence table). An air purifier is optional.

Bed layers from bottom to top Mattress, mattress protector, 8 Sleep cover, grounded cotton fitted sheet, organic cotton flat sheet, weighted blanket.
The bed, bottom to top. The bamboo quilt and memory foam pillow sit on top of this stack.

How strong is the evidence?

Every piece of the system graded on the research behind it. The top of the list is where effort pays; the bottom is optional, and some of it is closer to preference than science.

InterventionEvidenceWhat the research saysSource

Strong: consistent findings across trials or clinical guidelines. Moderate: several trials or meta-analyses with some caveats. Limited: small or low-quality studies. Weak: little data or safety concerns. Source links open PubMed searches for the named paper.

Products

Tools that make the behaviour easier to keep. Prices in AUD at the time they were noted. The 8 Sleep is most of the spend; everything else together costs under a fifth of it.

Spend by product Horizontal bars of product cost. 8 Sleep at $3,808 is far larger than every other item.
ItemStatusNotesPrice

Sheet and linen alternatives

Against Bryan Johnson's protocol

His sleep protocol is the most extreme public example of treating sleep as the top priority. Most of it is already covered here.

Blacked-out roomCovered
Same bedtime dailyCovered
One hour of downtime before bedCovered
Temperature-controlled mattressCovered
Blue-light-blocking glassesNot needed
Sleep aloneNot adopted

Blue-light glasses matter less when screens are off from 9pm. Sleeping alone is a personal call, left open.

Change log

This page changes as the system does. Each change gets a line here.

  • Version 1. Built from the original sleep notes: schedule, wind-down, bed layers, products, supplements, sources. Added the science, diagrams and evidence grades.

What to measure

Judge the system on these, from the 8 Sleep or a simple morning note:

  • Regularity: sleep and wake within 30 minutes of target on 6 of 7 nights.
  • Time to fall asleep: under 20 minutes.
  • Sleep efficiency: time asleep ÷ time in bed above 85%. A 10-hour window is generous; if efficiency sits low, bring the bedtime later rather than lying awake.
  • Morning feel: alert within 30 minutes of waking, without caffeine.

Open questions

  • The original notes list both "wind down at 9pm, no electronics" and "10pm devices off". This page uses 9pm. Confirm.
  • "On wakeup: use ana" — what is ana?
  • Sunlight alarm clock: no model picked yet.
  • Is 10 hours in bed right, or is actual sleep need closer to 8? Check efficiency after a month.
  • Mouth tape: confirm clear nasal breathing first, and stop if it causes discomfort.
  • Sleep alone or not, per the Bryan Johnson comparison.

Experiments

Run one change at a time for two weeks, compare against the baseline, log the result above.

  • Baseline: two weeks on schedule and wind-down only, no supplements.
  • Add two kiwifruit an hour before bed. Measure time to fall asleep.
  • Add magnesium bisglycinate. Measure sleep efficiency and morning feel.

Sources