Drugs like alcohol and prescription sleeping pills produce a state of sedation, which mimics natural sleep but doesn’t provide the health benefits. So instead of enhancing and improving your sleep, you’re actually harming it by using these sedative drugs.

Naps can be extremely beneficial in increasing mental alertness and improving learning and memory, but long naps and naps in the late afternoon or evening can disturb our natural sleep cycle by making it much harder to go to sleep at the appropriate time.

Going to bed before midnight and staying in bed for 8 hours has benefited me tremendously in just a few days. I have abundant energy throughout the day and evening with no need for naps. Even at midnight I’m not overly tired, but I can go to sleep easily.

Sleeping erratically tends to compromise the quantity and quality of our sleep, which in turn compromises our health and well-being. Going to bed at a regular time and sleeping for a full 8 hours seems to be the most beneficial way of sleeping for humans.

The fact that humans and all other animal species sleep tells us how important sleep truly is. It is an essential physiological process like breathing and eating, and it influences our health, well-being, and longevity even more so than diet and exercise.