Remember when falling asleep was easy? Even well into my 30s, I could simply close my eyes, take a few deep breaths and gently drift off to dreamland. These days, it takes a carefully curated wind-down routine, an army of sleep aids and the mental zen of a shaman for me to fall and stay asleep.
Some nights it's because of the rap-tap-tap of my 4-year-old complaining of a bad dream, or the intermittent cries of my 1-year-old. Other times, it's my laundry list of deadlines or to-dos. Or maybe it's existential dread? Perimenopause? Whatever it is, I'm not alone: A 2022 report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about one in seven adults had trouble at night for most or all of the previous 30 days.
I exercise almost daily, even if it's just an outdoor walk. I eat lots of nourishing, vitamin-rich foods, and drink very little alcohol. These things can set a person up for a successful night of zzzs. But I'm still tossing and turning. If I wanted to go all-in on optimizing sleep, I needed to go further. Like any good writer, I've been investigating.
Knowing that good sleep can't be fixed with one magic solution, I've been incorporating some holistic tactics, hoping they'll culminate in one big cure. From air purifiers to red light therapy, THC gummies to binaural beats, here are the options I've tried to (finally) successfully snag a full night's sleep.
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For the home
Ever since we lived in Los Angeles, we have become diligent users of air purifiers. We live in North Carolina now and keep up the habit. Researchers at the University of Louisville found that air pollution, a warm bedroom and high levels of carbon dioxide can disrupt our sleep.
I started my quest to better sleep by upgrading our bedroom air purifier. The one we'd been using was archaic and had begun making an unpleasant sputtering sound. So I tried the Sans Air Purifier, which is not only whisper quiet but also smarter: It uses medical-grade filtration to capture 99.9% of particles 0.1 micron in diameter, activated carbon to absorb chemicals, odors and gases, and internal UV-C light for protection against pathogens. Maybe this is strange to say about an air purifier, but it also just looks really nice.
To run diagnostics to see if it improved our air quality, I started using the Airthings Wave Enhance monitor to track air quality, carbon dioxide levels, VOCs, humidity, temperature and light pollution. The Airthings app gives me real-time updates on air quality, pressure, temperature and more, and remembers past stats for up to a year. This way, I know for sure that I'm falling asleep in an optimal environment.
For the body
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