Sleep guide
Master your sleep:
the shortest guide there is
Ok, here we go.
This is the absolute best and shortest guide on how to MASTER your sleep. For good.
Enjoy! 🥱
The short version
Wake with the sun.
Days bright.
Nights dark.
It’s really very simple
Our circadian rhythms, and above all the sleep-wake cycle, are HIGHLY dependent on light exposure.12 Strong evidence
Light exposure? Yes: your relationship to sunlight AND to the artificial light you’re exposed to. Bright room light in the evening tells your body it’s still daytime. In one study of 116 people, it delayed melatonin, the hormone that opens your biological night, in 99% of them, and cut its duration by about 90 minutes.2
Get this one simple thing right and WORLD CLASS sleep follows, night after night.
Do your research if you must (it’s all linked below). Otherwise, Gorilla Research will tell you exactly what to do.
The research in numbers
99%
1 weekend
+478%
What to do
We always try to stay natural. So we copy nature:
Night in nature = dark.
This one is basic. Can’t stay natty if you don’t respect natural darkness. Screens and bright ceiling lights after sunset are the opposite of that.3
Day in nature = outside.
Bright, beautiful sunlight, 6am to 6pm in the tropics. Stay natty. Be outside regularly. Embrace the sun in your life.
That’s all.
Tools you’ll need
Our picks
from ilumina, our sister shop
- Shop glasses
Blue-blocking glasses
You need a pair immediately. Put them on once the sun is down, for the last 2–3 hours before bed.
- Shop lights
Circadian-friendly lights
Amber and red night lamps with no blue light and no flicker, for your evenings at home.
ilumina is Gorilla Research's sister shop, run by the same team. Buying there supports the research.
The glasses are the big one. In two small randomized trials, people who wore amber blue-blocking lenses before bed slept better than people wearing look-alike glasses that didn’t block blue light.45 Early evidence
Alarm clock? Jk. Wake up with the sun, daily. Start winding down at sunset and fall asleep naturally in the evening.
Free extras:
- f.lux, free software that warms your screen colors after sunset.
- An eye mask, for maximum darkness.
“But I’m a night owl!”
The skeptic
Gorilla Research
Sure, genes do nudge some people a little earlier or later.6 But at Gorilla Research, we understand humans to be diurnal creatures, and every night owl to be a case of circadian misalignment, which always comes with harsh consequences. Our view
See, in nature, in natural darkness with no artificial light around, you simply adjust back: sleepy in the evening, awake in the morning. Researchers tested exactly this by taking people camping with only natural light. Within a week, their internal clocks had synced to the sun: biological night began at sunset and ended just after sunrise. And the night owls shifted the most.1 Some evidence A follow-up found that a single weekend of camping got people about 69% of the way there.7
Huge sunlight tip
We at Gorilla Research wholeheartedly encourage sunbathing. It might just be the most healthful thing you can do on any given day. Our view
Some people do burn easily, and we see that as largely a circadian problem. So start EARLY IN THE MORNING, when the sun is gentle, and build up slowly from there. As you shift toward the morning, many people find they tolerate stronger sun automagically. ✨ Our view
Whatever you do, never burn.
What about melatonin supplements?
Not needed. (shrug) Fix your light and your body makes its own.
The research agrees they’re no magic pill: across 19 trials, melatonin helped people fall asleep about 7 minutes faster on average.8 And what’s in the bottle is a gamble. When researchers tested 31 supplements, the actual melatonin ranged from 83% less to 478% more than the label said, and about a quarter contained serotonin.9 Some evidence
Go deeper
The research behind every light claim here lives in our sister project, ilumina.
Footnotes
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Wright KP Jr, McHill AW, Birks BR, et al. “Entrainment of the human circadian clock to the natural light-dark cycle.” Current Biology, 2013. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.06.039 ↩ ↩2
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Gooley JJ, Chamberlain K, Smith KA, et al. “Exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin onset and shortens melatonin duration in humans.” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2011. doi:10.1210/jc.2010-2098 ↩ ↩2
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Chang AM, Aeschbach D, Duffy JF, Czeisler CA. “Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness.” PNAS, 2015. doi:10.1073/pnas.1418490112 ↩
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Burkhart K, Phelps JR. “Amber lenses to block blue light and improve sleep: a randomized trial.” Chronobiology International, 2009. doi:10.3109/07420520903523719 ↩
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Shechter A, Kim EW, St-Onge MP, Westwood AJ. “Blocking nocturnal blue light for insomnia: a randomized controlled trial.” Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2018. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2017.10.015 ↩
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Jones SE, Lane JM, Wood AR, et al. “Genome-wide association analyses of chronotype in 697,828 individuals provides insights into circadian rhythms.” Nature Communications, 2019. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-08259-7 ↩
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Stothard ER, McHill AW, Depner CM, et al. “Circadian entrainment to the natural light-dark cycle across seasons and the weekend.” Current Biology, 2017. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.041 ↩
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Ferracioli-Oda E, Qawasmi A, Bloch MH. “Meta-analysis: melatonin for the treatment of primary sleep disorders.” PLoS ONE, 2013. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063773 ↩
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Erland LAE, Saxena PK. “Melatonin natural health products and supplements: presence of serotonin and significant variability of melatonin content.” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2017. doi:10.5664/jcsm.6462 ↩
How we label evidence
- Strong evidence
- Backed by large or repeated human studies.
- Some evidence
- Supported by human studies, but few or small ones.
- Early evidence
- Promising early trials; needs more research.
- Our view
- Gorilla Research’s position, from experience and tradition. Not settled science.