How to Get Your Best Night’s Sleep

Why Sleep is So Important for Your Health

Sleep is a foundational pillar of health. Everyone knows it, but few people today get truly high-quality rest every night. It’s not just about how much you sleep, how well you sleep matters even more.

Sleep is paramount because it’s when your body runs deep cellular repair and restoration. Think of sleep as your own “Wolverine healing cycle” that mends the day’s micro-damage. Biologically, that includes processes like cellular autophagy (cell recycling), apoptosis (programmed cell turnover), glymphatic drainage, and more - cleaning up damaged components and replacing them with new ones. Below is a list of the top cleanup processes going on during high-quality sleep:

• Clears brain waste (glymphatic drainage): Sleep increases cerebrospinal fluid exchange to clear metabolites, such as β-amyloid.
• Recalibrates synapses and consolidates memory: Sleep down-scales excess synaptic activity, allowing for better memory retention + learning ability.
• Runs autophagy and maintains proteostasis: Circadian-tuned recycling clears damaged proteins and organelles to keep cellular quality control on track.
• Activates DNA-damage responses: Sleep increases chromosome dynamics and repair processes that reduce accumulated neuronal DNA damage.
• Keeps apoptosis targeted + effective: Sleep supports anti-oxidative, pro-repair states so apoptosis removes truly compromised cells without collateral loss.
• Drives tissue repair (Growth Hormone axis): Early slow-wave sleep pulses growth hormone that supports protein synthesis, collagen formation, and tissue remodeling.
• Rebalances autonomic tone (HRV): Non-REM favors parasympathetic activity, which helps restore cardiovascular flexibility.

Sleep is clearly not just time to rest, it is also time for our body to perform cellular maintenance, systems cleanup, and next-day performance. It is actually incredible just how much damage control is going on every night we hit the sack.

The issue today is that because of our environment and lifestyle habits, many of these processes are not running as robustly as they should. We do not repair daily cellular damage as effectively, and over time, that adds up, raising the risk for chronic problems.

The good news is that simple habits can transform sleep quality and give your body what it needs to repair at full capacity.

Light, Melatonin, and Your Internal Clock

Getting a good night’s sleep starts with synchronizing your circadian rhythm,aka your body’s internal clock. Like any fine-tuned system, your body’s timing is extremely important. Imagine trying to properly execute trillions of cellular reactions when the timing isn’t very precise!

Your body is always using input signals from its environment to understand what time of day it is and where on the planet you are. If it knows that information, it can fine-tune all of the biological processes running in your body to be optimized for that exact environment. These input signals are known as “zeitgebers”, German for “time-givers”. The most important zeitgeber for synchronizing our body’s clock is light.

Of all the wavelengths of light, blue light is the master clock signaler. Blue light has high-energy wavelengths that signal wakefulness and stimulation (ideal for daytime). However,when exposed to blue light at night, it can severely disrupt our circadian rhythm and thus sleep.

Blue light at night tricks your brain into “daytime mode,” delaying the natural rise of melatonin and pushing back your natural onset of sleep, and thus the vitally important cellular repair processes.

FUN FACT · Why Blue Light Has Such a Strong Effect? Specialized cells in our eyes (melanopsin-containing retinal cells) are most sensitive to blue light and send signals to the brain’s master clock (the suprachiasmatic nucleus) to regulate the circadian rhythm.

Moreover, it’s not just the color of light but also the intensity and angle that matter: bright light of any color can reduce melatonin. A study (see chart below) found that 2500 lux light at nighttime had up to a 69% reduction in melatonin concentration vs a 500 lux light of the same color.

How to Optimize Your Light Environment

So, how can we use this knowledge to optimize our light environment and get the best night of sleep possible? Simply abide by “less is more”:

• Dim the brightness of lights in the evening as much as you possibly can. The further you are from sunset (ie, at 10PM vs 7PM), the dimmer your lights should be.

• Use lamps at or below eye level: Turn off overhead or ceiling lights and opt instead for table or floor lamps in the evening. Even simply shading overhead fixtures or using wall sconces can help keep the angle of light low.

• Warm up your light spectrum: Completely avoid cool-white lighting at night. Instead, use warm-hued bulbs: incandescents, amber/red LEDs, or even salt lamps and candles.

• Block out blue light:

  • If you can’t avoid using devices or being exposed to blue-wavelength light at night, consider wearing blue-light blocking glasses with amber/orange lenses.
  • On your devices, use night-mode, triple-click color filter shortcuts, or screen filter apps (like f.lux or Night Shift) to tint your screens and make them a warmer color.
  • Using a Daylight Computer in full amber mode before bed provides a 100% blue light free screen that is still highly visible.

By designing your light environment to be “less” at night-time (minimizing blue and bright light at night and favoring warm, low-level lighting), you’re essentially giving your body the same clear “darkness” signal it evolved to expect. In turn, your pineal gland gets the signal to produce melatonin, and you’ll feel naturally sleepy when you should. You’ll then be able to repair and restore your cells to the best of their ability, meaning you’ll wake up the next morning feeling good as new.

Don't Forget About Flicker

Nearly all LEDs flicker on and off at a rate our eyes cannot see, but our brain and nervous system can feel. There are no studies confirming this, but a highly activated nervous system is surely not beneficial for better sleep. Try opting for a low or no flicker screen at night time, such as the DC-1. Our in depth flicker guide lays out all the best recs.

Evening Screen Time and Mental Stimulation

Even if all of your screens are in 100% blue light free mode, they can still disrupt your sleep. That is because the type of content you are consuming matters even more at night time.

Interactive, fast-paced, or stressful content at night can overstimulate your brain and delay sleep. Ever found yourself lying in bed, mind buzzing after an intense work email or a thrilling show? The mental stimulation from screens increases arousal and can prolong sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep).

Social media feeds, video games, or even engaging work-related reading can trigger emotions (anxiety, excitement, stress) that make it harder to disconnect and relax. Even if your room is dark and your device is in “night mode,” an active mind can keep you awake.

The solution is to set boundaries on both when and how you use screens in the evening. Here’s how to do it:

• Follow the 1-hour rule (or more): Cut off screen time at least 1 hour before your planned bedtime. This gives your brain a chance to unwind without the hurdles of bright light and information input. In that last hour, choose calming offline activities: a warm shower, reading a physical book, listening to gentle music or an audiobook, playing a board game, light stretching, or relaxation exercises. Consider this your “digital sunset.”

• Avoid stimulating content before bed: If you do use screens in the evening, be mindful of what you watch, read, or play. Steer clear of intense or stressful material in the hour or two before sleep. Save the horror movie, heated online debate, or work project for earlier. Pick mellow content at night: feel-good shows, nature docs, low-key puzzles, comedy and stop with enough lead time for your mind to settle.

• Use app timers, downtime settings, and physical blockers on smartphones to avoid late night doomscrolling:

  • Turn on built-in tools in OS settings like DownTime (iOS), Digital Wellbeing/Bedtime Mode (Android), Focus modes, and app-level limits to auto-lock the most stimulating apps after a set time.
  • Schedule Do Not Disturb so you are not pulled back in.
  • Try physical blockers such as a timed phone lockbox (for example, BRICK-style boxes) or charging your phone in another room so the device is literally out of reach.

• No screens in the bedroom rule: Make your bedroom a screen-free sanctuary if possible. No TV; charge your phone outside the bedroom or across the room in do-not-disturb mode. As a practical alternative, use a simple alarm clock instead of your phone.

By managing your evening screen habits, you help your brain shift into sleep mode. Many people find that after implementing a “screens curfew,” they fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. The goal is to remove both the light pollution and the mental noise that screens bring to our nights.

Crafting a Sleep-Friendly Environment

Your bedroom environment can make or break your sleep quality. Think of your bedroom as a sleep oasis. It should be cool, dark, quiet, and free of things that might disturb your rest. Small changes to your surroundings can lead to big improvements in how deeply and continuously you sleep.

Temperature & Fresh Air

Ever notice how you sleep better in a cool room under cozy blankets? It’s not just preference – science shows the ideal bedroom temperature for most people is around 60–67 °F (16–19 °C).

A slightly cool environment helps your core body temperature drop at night, which is a natural signal for sleepiness. Overly warm temperatures can fragment your sleep and reduce restorative deep sleep. Set your thermostat to ~65°F (18°C) or lower before bed.

Cracking a window for fresh air. Not only can this cool the room, but improved ventilation has been linked to deeper sleep and improved mood. In one study, lowering bedroom CO₂ by ventilation significantly improved objectively measured sleep quality and subjective mental “freshness” in the morning. Fresh air is also more negatively charged from an ion perspective, which can be beneficial for reducing inflammation and net negative charge in your biology. The downside is that an open window could be noisier, so you’ll have to weigh the tradeoffs.

Darkness During Sleep

We’ve touched on designing your light environment leading up to sleep, but being in darkness is even more important when you are actively trying to fall asleep. The goal is to make your sleep environment as dark as possible. Even low levels of light (like streetlight glow through the window or the LED on a charger) can suppress melatonin and alter sleep stages.

Use blackout curtains or blinds to eliminate outside light pollution, and consider a sleep mask if complete darkness is hard to achieve. (A human eyelid can transmit 0.1–0.6% of blue/green light and up to 5% of red light!)

Pro tip: Before bed, do a quick scan for any little LEDs (on electronics, power strips, smoke detectors) and cover them with tape or dimming stickers.

Peace and Quiet

Noise, both steady hum and sudden spikes, can fragment deep and REM sleep via brief autonomic arousals, elevating heart rate and blood pressure and reducing next-day alertness. Even single indoor events around ~33–40 dB can trigger EEG arousals.The WHO advises keeping outdoor night noise below ~40 dB L_night, and field studies near airports/roads show higher nocturnal BP and awakenings despite lack of recall of waking.

“Masking” sounds (such as white/pink noise, fan, rain) can improve sleep onset and continuity in noisy settings. Aim for a stable bedroom soundscape under ~35 dB (sound level of leaves rustling or a soft whisper), and use earplugs when needed.

Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs)

EMFs are often seen as a controversial topic, but in our opinion, there is enough scientific evidence to warrant concern about their impact on our biology. Researchers such as Dr. Martin Pall & Dr. Henry Lai have collected thousands of studies that showcase that EMFs from our technology and power grid can act as chronic stressors on biological systems. If we are looking to get our best night of sleep, we need to consider all potential stressors that may deter full cellular restoration.

Our homes and bedrooms are full of electronic devices – Wi-Fi routers, phones, TVs, smart speakers, not to mention all the wiring in the walls. These devices emit various types of EMFs (radiofrequency radiation, electric and magnetic fields from power currents). If we want to create the best sleep sanctuary, we need to mitigate EMFs in our bedroom. Here’s how you can do that:

• Unplug at night and get electronics out of the bedroom

  • Before bed, unplug and power off electronic devices in your bedroom that aren’t needed overnight**.** Chargers, TVs, and bluetooth gadgets emit EMFs even when not in active use.
  • Keep your phone on airplane mode and completely out of the bedroom at night time. Your phone is the #1 source of RF radiation, so keeping your phone out of the bedroom is the easiest way to reduce exposure. Use a separate alarm clock if needed.

• Turn off Wi-Fi routers overnight

  • Your Wi-Fi router constantly emits radiofrequency EMFs. If you’re not using it (and you shouldn’t be while asleep!), consider turning it off before bed. Some routers even have a built-in sleep timer setting for overnight off hours. You can also get a $10 outlet timer at any hardware store so you don’t even need to think about unplugging it each night.

• Consider a total power kill

  • If you want to fully reduce exposure to low-frequency magnetic and electric fields from in-house wiring, you can cut the circuit breaker to your bedroom. This may be the best way to get that “off-grid cabin night of sleep” that we can never seem to replicate. But don’t switch the breaker like a light switch every night, they weren’t designed for that! Check out custom relay installations if you are serious about it.

It may sound like overkill, but by optimizing the environmental factors of your bedroom to be cool, fresh, dark, quiet, and electromagnetically calm, you’re removing many common barriers to deep sleep. You might be surprised how much better you sleep when you fine-tune your bedroom into a true haven for rest.

Aligning Your Lifestyle with Your Natural Rhythm

Perhaps the most powerful changes you can make are to your daily routine. Human bodies crave consistency and signals from the natural world. By structuring your day to work with your circadian rhythm (instead of against it), you set yourself up for sleep success. This means looking at when you exercise, eat, get bright light, and go to bed…and making sure those activities support healthy sleep timing.

The 3-2-1 Rule

One popular framework for evening habits is the "3-2-1" rule:

• 3 - stop eating heavy meals 3 hours before bed
• 2 - stop intense exercise or work 2 hours before bed
• 1 - stop all screen time 1 hour before bed

This staged wind-down prevents common issues in our modern lifestyles that can interfere with getting high-quality sleep.

Bright Days, Dark Nights

In addition to your evening routine, morning and daytime habits are just as important for setting up great sleep at night. One simple motto to follow is “bright days, dark nights.” Expose yourself to as much sunlight throughout the day as you can, especially in the morning, and keep nighttime lighting as dim as possible (as we’ve discussed).

Getting morning sunlight is one of the most effective ways to anchor your circadian rhythm. Ideally, go outside within 30 minutes of waking and get some sun on your face (no sunglasses for at least 5-10 minutes) - this sends a strong signal to your brain’s clock that “the day has begun,” which will then roughly time melatonin to be released about 12-14 hours later when you need to sleep.

Research shows that people who get ample daytime light (particularly natural outdoor light) and very little light at night have the most robust circadian cycles and even lower rates of health problems. In fact, an 88,000-person study in the UK found that those who had the brightest days and darkest nights had the lowest risk of mortality from all causes.

Light Intensity (Brightness) By Environment or Space

Consistency.

Don’t sleep (pun intended) on consistency. Our bodies love regularity. Strive to keep a consistent sleep schedule – that means going to bed and waking up at roughly the same times every day, even on weekends. Best case scenario is waking at sunrise or first light, and then falling asleep at 7-8hrs before that wake time.

It might be tempting to sleep in or stay up late on days off, but an irregular schedule can cause circadian rhythm disruption and alter your sleep quality. Studies have found that people with more regular sleep schedules have better cognitive function, metabolic health, and even a lower risk of heart disease and depression compared to those with erratic sleep times. In fact, one recent study suggested that sleep schedule consistency may matter even more for long-term health than total sleep duration each night (quality > quantity).

Be a Nature Maximalist

Finally, try to live in sync with natural day-night cycles as much as modern life allows. Humans evolved to take our cues from the sun – bright noon sky means activity and alertness, dark evening means calm and sleep.

In the Northern Hemisphere, we are in the time of year where it is dark longer than it is light, meaning that nature’s cycles are tilted towards even more sleep and restoration. Embrace these cycles and increase your total sleep time by 30-60 minutes during the winter months. Allow your body to restore and repair on a seasonal timeframe as well.

Fun fact: One small study by CU Boulder found that a weekend camping trip (with only natural light and no electronics) was enough to reset participants’ circadian clocks. You don’t have to camp every weekend, but the principle is clear: the more we align our daily routine with the natural light-dark cycle, the better our sleep tends to become.

The Master Checklist for Your Best Ever Night of Sleep

• Wake up at sunrise/first light every day.
• Get 10–20 minutes of outdoorsunlight soon after waking (no glasses/contacts).
• Get ample sunlight during the day to keep circadian entrainment strong.
• Keep your night time environment as dim and warm as possible → swap cold, bright LEDs for warm incandescents, or amber/red LEDs.
• Use software screen filters or blue light blocking glasses for night time work (or a DC-1).
• Follow the 3-2-1 Rule: Cut off big meals past 3 hours before bed, intense exercise 2 hours before, and screens 1 hour before.
• Try to avoid any hyperstimulating content or stressful work >2hrs before bed.
• Maintain a consistent bedtime that slowly adjusts seasonally (location dependent).
• Keep a cold room (<68F), dark room (<0.5 lux) and quiet room (<40dB).
• Open the windows for fresh air.
• Avoid technology in the bedroom + mitigate EMFs where possible (Wi-Fi off).

The Most Sleep-Friendly Screen on the Market

As sleep connoisseurs, we were very deliberate in designing the Daylight Computer to be the most sleep-friendly device that you can buy.

1. Blue light free but still amber in tone, so you can see the screen at low brightness.
2. A paperlike, color free display for an analog, low stimulation experience.
3. A backlight that is flicker free to minimize nervous system activation.
4. Smart Airplane Mode to turn RF antennas off in standby when not in use.
5. No notifications by default.

Final Thoughts

Achieving the “best night’s sleep” consistently comes down to respecting your body’s natural rhythms. By controlling light exposure, being mindful of evening activities, optimizing your sleep environment, and keeping supportive daily routines, you’re sending all the right signals to your internal clock. Over time, these habits compound into significantly better sleep quality. Better sleep on a consistent basis is going to allow you to truly feel like the best version of yourself.

We care about sleep, because we think everyone should wake up feeling refreshed and energized each morning. This is why we made the Daylight Computer to be the most sleep-friendly electronic device possible.

To get the positive sleep momentum flowing, start with a few changes at a time and build up from there. Maybe this week, dim the lights and stop using screens 1 hour earlier than usual. Next week, add in a morning walk after breakfast. Keep a journal, if you like, to track improvements in sleep or energy. Your body will thank you for each positive step.

Here’s to embracing the sunset, cherishing the dark, and waking up refreshed. Sleep well 🌙