Actually, most people could get more sleep of they chose to. Or at least they could get more rest. Stop watching shows and movies, put down your phone, close your eyes, shut up and sleep.
Not parent, but nothing I have tried improves my sleep. Baseline is just bad. Exercise, meditation, alarms – nothing works. The only thing that raised the baseline was quitting caffeine.
The thing that finally worked for me was blackout curtains in my room. I didn't realize just how much the incoming light from outside my window was affecting my sleep. In pitch black darkness, I'm out like a light and have the deepest sleep imaginable. (It's so effective that I have to set an alarm to wake myself up, otherwise I'll stay asleep for 10-12 hours)
I'm able to replicate this somewhat using a sleeping mask, but I find most of them pretty uncomfortable; I like to sleep on my side, and that doesn't work terribly well when something's on my face.
Full disclosure here of course, I work an evening shift (12pm-11pm) so I'm used to going to sleep much later in the evening. Even still, I often found difficulty falling asleep due to light bleed from the lights around my apartment, and I feel like this contributed to my sleeping issues more than the sunlight in the morning, which my body's clock seems to have adjusted to on its own. (I still naturally wake up around 10-11am even without blackout curtains.)
I grew up in a house that had the massively thick kind of exterior blinds everywhere, the ones that really make your room pitch dark ("Außenrolläden" in my native language). After moving out from my parent's house I have lived in several places, but often in older buildings without decent blinds. I didn't realize the influence this may have had on me before a temporary room mate pointed out that the room is far too bright for her at night.
Sleeping masks did not help me too, so I got thick blackout curtains for my next flat, and the first effect was that I suddenly had vivid dreams again regularly, which I only had occasionally in the years before. I am considerably more alert during the day now. In retrospect I indeed must have felt constantly slightly tired for years during the day, after sleeping in such rooms.
It is possibly dangerous to sleep in even slightly light rooms. The lowered levels of melatonin are correlated to several bad illnesses (just look it up). I push my SO who still sleeps in a too bright apartment to regularly wear his sleeping mask at least, but people who have never slept in really dark rooms for prolonged time may simply not have the experience points here.
Mine did as well. I absolutely loved them. When I was having our house built in America I tried everything I knew to get them built in. Apparently they are a fire hazard(1) here and so are not permitted by code.
(1) Then again, the house I lived in that had them was nearly 100% concrete as most houses in Germany were. American houses, not so much. Sure would be useful here in Florida come hurricane season though.
>In pitch black darkness, I'm out like a light and have the deepest sleep imaginable. (It's so effective that I have to set an alarm to wake myself up, otherwise I'll stay asleep for 10-12 hours)
This could be a sign you're not getting much restful sleep and that you may need those 10 - 12 hours to pay back sleep debt.
That 80's show married with children have an episode where the kids instantly go to sleep if someone puts a cloth over their eyes. I've been using that with great success on myself for more than a decade now :)
Have you tried reducing carb intake? Particularly in the later part of the day. I've gone "keto" 3 times for about 6 months each, and my sleep is always excellent during those periods. When I looked into it I found that elevated insulin levels throughout the night can disrupt sleep.
I understand completely. I have a sleep disorder where most of my sleep is as it should be, but when I enter REM, I "wake up" throughout the REM portion of the sleep cycle. The end result is I get very little REM sleep leaving me constantly exhausted. Changes to diet (including making sure I quit eating earlier in the day, for example, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, etc.) haven't made any difference, and neither have changes to the bedroom - making it darker, getting a new bed, and all that.
Right now I'm taking Gabapentin, which helps a little. So far the sleep specialists I'm working with (both a neurologist and a psychiatrist) haven't been able to find anything that helps more.
