The Chemistry of Sleep: A Recipe for Effective Time Management

In addition to posting here, I write for Time Management for iPad Magazine, an authority on Time Management. These links for IOS  and Android here takes you to the March 2014 issue, which includes an article I wrote on the importance of focus. Here is an excerpt:

The chemistry of sleep is a hormonal process. Primarily, a hormone called melatonin, produced by the pineal gland located in the centre of the brain, triggers the nervous system to shut down for the night. Melatonin can only be manufactured in low-light conditions. What this means for busy working people is that the production of melatonin starts as soon as the light receptors of the body (the eye and the skin) perceive a decrease in ambient light. So as the sun starts to move toward the horizon, the body anticipates nightfall and starts to produce the hormone in anticipation of sleep.

In a nutshell, this means that the sleep sequence doesn’t start the moment people put their head on their pillow, but rather it begins as the workday draws towards its traditional end of 5:00-ish. The amount of melatonin in the bloodstream then builds up over the following six hours or so until a sufficient amount exists to help a person drift into a sleeping state.

The problems start when people fight this process, either intentionally or otherwise. For example, succumbing to the temptation to take work home in the evenings, to catch up on emails after dinner, or to simply keep on working, forces the body back into “alert” mode where it must fight against the introduction of melatonin by effectively diluting it. Furthermore numerous recent studies have shown that the blue light emitted from electronic devices such as TVs, computers and smartphones is precisely the type of light that is instrumental in decreasing melatonin production.

To read more, please use these links for IOS  and Android.