Get rid of screen time for 3 hours before bed.

Also, I highly recommend the book "Why we sleep"

Edit: you can also experiment woth wearing socks (by changing limb temperature you influence blood flow and heat dissappation

THREE hours? What the heck do you do for that nearly 20% of your waking life?

I guess you buy a lot of books, or visit the library a lot. I personally like reading but not so much that I want to do it for three hours every flipping night.

I honestly thought this comment was joking at first! In fact I'm still not certain... is it really so difficult to imagine doing something other than stare at a screen for 100% of your waking life? What do you think people did for the entirety of human history? You could be writing, or drawing, or playing an instrument, or listening to music, or baking cookies, or taking a stroll, or playing darts, or building a model rocket, or literally any activity ever.

I don't mean to condescend, but man.

The concern is not the act of reading, but rather the additional exposure to light suppressing melatonin production.

Melatonin plays an important role in the sleep/wake cycle.

Avoiding unnecessary light for a period of 3 hours prior to sleep gives the body a chance to run it's shutdown scripts by producing enough melatonin, etc.

https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/melatonin-insulin-re...

Would putting all monitors in warm/night mode be sufficient?

Not op but I really enjoy my famous midnight walks. Walking also let's your body dump excess energy and so maybe you could get away with 1-1.5 hours only. Works well enough for me.

I'll take the opposite approach:

What does your life look like if you can't spend 3 hours away from a screen?

There's a whole world of opportunity out there.

I know it's not the same but for those that won't do this (for such a long period) at least activate/install some kind of night mode. It automatically adjusts the warmth of your screen color depending on time/daylight.

In the evening (or early morning) it will transition the colors to a warmer (red) tone. This helped me a lot. I really tire easier while sitting in front of the screen.

E.g. Gnome has this out of the box. It's called "night light".

Socks is one of the surprisingly good suggestions

Socks on or off?

On

Was there not a news just a few days ago about the research finding that screen time has no effect?

Maybe? There's been lots of research saying it does though, and I don't think I'd regret a decision to have less screen time before bed.

You might be thinking about the article about screen time and children, developmentally.

Soft foam earplugs (very cheap from chemists). I used to be a light sleeper. Not anymore

Over use of earplugs while sleeping will lead to a condtion by where you will never be able to sleep without them - even in dead silence.

When you sleep your brain and hearing system stays somewhat active, alerting you to potential dangers. Therefore by wearing earplugs to sleep you are actually causing your hearing system to become more sensitive.

I had seen many patients with hyperacusis caused in part by over use of earplugs.

Whatever your mind drifts too while hoping to sleep- don’t engage with that for hours before.

Also, aim for a full night of sleep. 5 hours is not enough. Being unreasonably underslept can make it harder to fall asleep. By the time you’re noticing major productivity hits you’re likely deep in the red.

Don’t have kids.

Weirdly, my sleep is way better with kids than without. I was always staying up too late (grad school), but now it's impossible -- I have to be in bed by 12. Their sleep schedule regulates mine. YMMV

Legit commentary, however, point 1, the phase of lowest sleep is temporary, and point 2, with kid #2 and I presume onwards, you've been through it before and it's easier to adapt.

White noise machine to block out any background sounds which could wake you.

Melatonin and bright light early in the morning.

For the bright light I have a 10,000 lux sun lamp hooked up to an automated power switch. So every morning before I wake up I get a huge dose of sunlight.

Is its brightness slowly increasing or do you get flashed all of a sudden? For me, the latter would immediately trigger a very painful headache for the next 4 hours!

Make sure you get enough sunlight or take Vitamin D3 (along with a good multivitamin). I was taking 6000 IU at one point and it seemed to make a big difference since I was outside rarely. Taking 400 or whatever is supposedly recommended did not seem to affect me.

Although you might need to get a few blood tests if you are going to take a significant amount like that. If D level is not low at all then I guess you would not want to try that.

Ear plugs help me also.

I like late night workouts. I sleep easier and more; additionally, eating before bed usually doesn’t bother me in this context.

I'm going to check out Isaac Arthur, it looks like there are audio only versions on soundcloud, which works better for me. I've used Art Bell and Terrence McKenna (via the Psychedelic Salon) in the past, and pretty much anything that is mildly interesting yet monotone and frequently I use a sleep timer since I'm generally asleep pretty quickly when this works.

For me the sleep prep is more about momentum than duration, if I'm moving in the relaxing direction the duration of the prep is not as important and I can go to sleep shortly after watching TV or using my PC.

For me it's not that Isaac Arthur is monotone, it's the fact that he's so confident about the future that is most relaxing.

Also, it's quite serene listening to him talk about gigantic space habbitats; it's such a good/calming thought that all humanity would be able to enjoy space, have all their basic needs met, saving Earth by offloading our resources exploitation elsewehere; I guess it's an engineer's wet dream :)

Exercise has helped me in many ways, including sleeping.

Exact opposite for me. I used to sleep really well. Since I started higher volume running, sleeping has been a challenge. It's only been a few months, so I'm hopeful that it's temporary.

Do you run in the mornings?

Most days. Once a week I run in the morning and the evening.

Reduce ambient lighting and opt for more red lighting.