Sleep Optimisation: Strategies for Better Health, Lifespan, and Performance

Written By Samuel Cheetham-Cleaver

When it comes to health and performance, sleep isn’t a luxury - it’s a necessity. It's an interesting take, but one we must acknowledge, for the 300,000 years homosapiens as we know them have roamed the earth, there have been no signs of evolving away from our desire to get 8 hours sleep each night.

Poor sleep affects every aspect of your biology, including metabolic health, cellular health, cognitive wellness, hormone regulation, immunity, and emotional stability. Despite this, many high-performers sacrifice this precious resource in the name of productivity. But in truth, sleep optimisation is what enables sustainable health, added years of life, and peak physical and mental performance. This is true even if your priorities are your family, you need to become the next Olympian or Jeff Bezos, but you need to consider the trade-off that poor sleep quality and quantity have.

What Happens When You Sleep

During sleep, your body enters a semi-unconscious state. Here, it transitions through various stages of sleep - NREM and REM - each becoming a little deeper until we enter the 'deep sleep' we've all heard of. This happens over the course of 90 minutes (on average), meaning 7.5 hours of sleep is equivalent to 5 full sleep cycles.

  • NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement): Deep, restorative sleep; important for physical recovery and immune function.

  • REM (Rapid Eye Movement): Dream state; crucial for memory consolidation, creativity, and emotional regulation.

The interesting thing about the final deep sleep stage is that it's harder to access. Adrenal hyperfunction, excess stress, having consumed food too late before bed, and a whole myriad of other potential causes can contribute to stopping you from easily accessing deep sleep.

Furthermore, REM - the stage for cognitive recovery, emotional regulation included - increases with each sleep cycle that goes by. This may mean you acquire 10 mins of REM sleep in cycle 1, but a whole hour in cycle 5. Now consider if you want to get 7 hours sleep rather than 7.5. You could now be missing out on a whole 30 minutes of REM sleep, which is a substantial decrease, and the ramifications will be experienced over the mid and long term.

Not exclusive to lacking REM, but poor sleep as a whole shows an increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and dementia. This, alongside fatigue and reduced reaction time, decreased cognitive performance, heightened stress and irritability, increased risk of depression and anxiety.

The Architecture of Great Sleep

The foundational principle of sleep is to understand the basics of your circadian biology and rhythm. The first point to acknowledge is that irrelevant of sleep quality or quantity, your body will do what it needs to live and complete the tasks you need to complete. Note that doesn't mean it will do it well.

The first step in any sleep hygiene plan should surround light management. When we discuss light, we are talking about natural light that contains the appropriate wavelengths at a given time of day. Natural light can also be substituted with technology such as SADs panels, light therapy glasses or even full spectrum lightbulbs. With all that said, why the obsession with light?

A new way to think of sleep is you spend 16 hours of waking time, preparing for eight hours of good sleep. This is where light exposure comes into its own. If you were to receive natural light to your retina soon after waking, it will start a proverbial 16-hour timer in the brain. Around 14/16 hours later, DLMO (delayed light melatonin onset) starts. This is essentially a flood of melatonin aiding your body in going to sleep to acquire great quality sleep. Without this light exposure, you won't have this surge.

Further, when you wake up, this is due to CAR (cortisol awakening response). Cortisol is given a bad name, but in this context, it is essential. It upregulates digestion, body temperature, mobilisation of fluid, cognitive function, pretty much everything in your body at this point is 'waking up' due to CAR. Light further enhances and reinforces this CAR effect.

Finally, on light, we should generally expose ourselves to more of it. Be that a lunchtime stroll, a SADs panel at your desk, or even moving your desk near a window, this can all help tremendously.

Consistency

Consistency files our next huge needle mover for sleep. CAR in place and DLMO, you have fundamentally set a rhythm for your biology, however as humans, we have a tendency to throw ourselves off rhythm voluntarily. Note - we are the only living organism on the planet to do this. This leads to understanding that our biological rhythm can be conditioned to respond appropriately at certain times of the day, provided we give it a consistent stimulus at a consistent time.

We should be aiming to sleep and wake within 30 minutes of our 'normal' time. Meaning if in the week you go to bed at 2200 and wake at 0600, that should be consistent on the weekends too - by 30 mins. Mind, life doesn't always work this way, but as with anything, we do our best, and that will usually be more than good enough.

Light to dark

Now we understand light, it's time to look at further tactics. Your biology runs off of many different cues, light, food, movement, temperature, stress and even caffeine can play a part. The morning part of our day should be filled with what can be considered daytime cues, and the evening the opposite.

In the morning, we should look to expose ourselves to natural light, get some movement in, raise our body temperature and even use some caffeine to further enhance this cueing effect. The exact opposite can be said for the evening. Here's what an efficient morning and evening routine may look like:

Morning - Wake up to gentle alarm at 0600. Put on some shorts and head to the patio in the garden. Once there, perform 50 jumping jacks and then relax for 5 mins in the sun or so with a newspaper before heading indoors. Head upstairs, head into a cold shower (which inversely raises core body temperature), come out, get dressed for work and head to breakfast downstairs. Once finished, say goodbye to the family, grabbing your coffee on the way out.

Evening, 3 hours pre-sleep - Have dinner no later than 3 hours prior to sleep. You've already changed your lamps to low blue light bulbs, giving it a nice warm glow around the house at night. You watch TV but avoid using your laptop or phone unless wearing blue light blocking glasses. This is due to the brightness and blue light exposure being so close to the face with these devices. You may at this point choose to have a hot shower (which now cools the body) before getting into some evening wear and relaxing for a couple of hours before bed. You now head to bed to a proprioceptive pillow, light breathable duvet and mattress, whilst the room is kept cool to (16–19°C). You may at this stage also spray your pillow with some lavender sleep mist to aid contextual cueing for the brain, helping it recognise that you're now heading to sleep.

As you can see, these routines are pretty simple. They typically just require a few tweaks. This is how you can consistently embed exceptionally biological rhythm leading to enhanced sleep quality that keeps improving over time.

Advanced Tools for Sleep Tracking and Support

Wearables and Sleep Apps

Devices like WHOOP, Oura Ring, Garmin and Eight Sleep track:

  • Sleep stages

  • Recovery readiness

  • Movement and heart rate variability (HRV)

This can give us awareness of how well we are prepared for the day ahead. It's at this stage you may adapt your day due to a lessened recovery/sleep status than what you were prepared for. On the other hand, you may not have the ability to, in which case you may add in more micro-breaks and practices for management of allostatic load (stress load placed on the body). See our article on anxiogenic and anxilytic stimulus for more on allostatic load.

Supplements and Sleep Aids: What Works?

  • Melatonin: Best for jet-lag or circadian resetting

  • Magnesium bisglycinate: Supports muscle relaxation and GABA

  • Adaptogens (ashwagandha, reishi): Help regulate stress hormones

  • L-theanine: L-theanine calms the mind without causing drowsiness

Jet Lag Mitigation and Frequent Travelling

Our clients at VOKE typically suffer from jet lag before working with us. Frequent travelling is common, and jet lag is expected, but it doesn't need to be the case. Jet lag, however, and what we call time-shifting, is a huge topic in itself. For that reason, I urge you to check out the article on jet-lag to understand how you land in a different timezone, eight or more hours ahead/behind, without any jet-lag at all.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How can I fall asleep faster? Use a wind-down routine, reduce light exposure, and avoid caffeine after midday.

2. Is 6 hours of sleep enough? Most adults need 7–9 hours. Consistently getting less may impair function and recovery.

3. Do naps help or harm sleep? Short naps (20–30 minutes) can boost alertness. Avoid late-day naps to protect night sleep.

4. Is melatonin safe long-term? It’s best for short-term use (e.g. jet-lag). Long-term use may suppress natural production.

5. Should I track my sleep? Yes—tracking can offer insight into habits and trends. Just don’t become overly reliant or anxious about the data.

6. What’s the best sleep position? Back and side sleeping support spinal alignment and reduce snoring risk. Avoid stomach sleeping if possible.

Conclusion: Sleep as the Cornerstone of Wellbeing

Sleep is more than rest - it’s restoration, regeneration, and readiness. Optimising it boosts immunity, sharpens cognition, balances emotions, and enhances performance in all areas of life.

Whether you're seeking to recover from burnout, maximise athletic performance, or simply feel energised day to day, sleep optimisation is the non-negotiable foundation.

Start small. Be consistent. And remember—every good day starts the night before.

References

Samuel Cheetham-Cleaver
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