The quickest path to a better night’s sleep

Cari Nazeer
Forge
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2 min readDec 10, 2020
Photo: Elizabethsalleebauer/Getty Images

🛌 Today’s tip: The best cure for a night of insomnia is to skip the nap the next day.

While it’s tempting to sneak in a quick daytime nap after a night of tossing and turning, that’s one of the worst things you can do, Markham Heid explains in Elemental. To get your sleep schedule back on track, he writes, you need to accumulate “sleep debt” — that is, placing pressure on the body’s need for sleep by staying awake.

“Eventually, if a person doesn’t relieve that pressure by taking naps or sleeping in late, the body’s homeostatic need for sleep will overwhelm whatever is keeping that person awake at night,” Heid writes. Yes, you’ll have to get through a long, sleepy day or two, but your reward on the other side will be finally falling into that elusive state of blissful rest.

📚 More from Forge on getting some shut-eye:

Start Your Bedtime Routine Right When You Wake Up
Read more >>

What Good Sleepers Don’t Do
Read more >>

‘Revenge Bedtime Procrastination’ Is Real
Read more >>

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Published in Forge

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Cari Nazeer
Cari Nazeer

Written by Cari Nazeer

Former lead editor, Forge @ Medium