Nervous system & health

Better sleep starts in the morning: Your 24-hour toolkit

Tino Both · 02 Jul 2026 · 16 min read

Briefly explained: Better sleep does not begin only at bedtime. Light, waking hours, caffeine and the distribution of demands shape the day–night rhythm. A useful sleep toolkit therefore consists of a few suitable changes, rather than as many evening rituals as possible — and distinguishes between insufficient time for sleep and difficulty sleeping despite adequate opportunity.

Have you tried many sleep tips without finding an approach that suits you?Together, we can explore how your day, your capacity for activity and settling down in the evening relate to one another. During the free initial telephone consultation, we clarify whether my functional support in Vilshofen suits your situation or whether a sleep medicine assessment should come first.

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Explore further: The sleep toolkit on the Huberman Lab PodcastAn important reference for this toolkit is Andrew Huberman's episode Sleep Toolkit: Tools for Optimizing Sleep & Sleep-Wake Timing from 8 August 2022. It considers the whole day. Here I connect that perspective with specific everyday steps and my functional approach. There is also the written Toolkit for Sleep to read.

Doing everything right in the evening — and still lying awake?

The phone is put away, the tea is finished and the relaxation exercise is done. Surely sleep should come now. Instead, you watch the clock and calculate how many hours remain. Recovery becomes another task you are supposed to succeed at.

This is precisely why it helps to look beyond the evening. Several conditions influence sleep. They include the internal day–night rhythm and the sleep pressure that builds during wakefulness. Tension, illness, medication and available time also play a part. Poor sleep is not always a lack of discipline.

The first question: Is there too little sleep — or is sleep difficult?

Two people say, 'I am completely exhausted in the morning'The first finishes work late and regularly has only five hours before the alarm rings. The second allows enough time but lies awake for a long time and wakes frequently. Both need help — but not the same help. More opportunity to sleep is central in the first case. The second calls for a closer look at the sleep difficulties.

For me, this distinction belongs at the beginning. Functional integration cannot replace missing time for sleep. Someone unable to sleep despite allowing enough time needs more than advice to go to bed earlier.

Your 24-hour sleep toolkit at a glance

Morning: Establish a clear start to the dayGet up as regularly as possible, use daylight and start the day with tolerable movement. Plan breakfast and coffee in a way that fits your daily life. Cold exposure is an optional addition, not a requirement.

Daytime: Use energy and make room for recoveryStop caffeine in good time, manage naps deliberately and allow short periods of rest between blocks of activity. Keep the timing and intensity of training and larger meals in view.

Evening and night: Ease the transitionDim the lights, perhaps take a warm shower or bath, and keep the bedroom comfortably cool and dark. If you wake at night, minimise additional stimulation. Choose a suitable routine from these options, rather than a daily list of obligations.

Morning: Give the day a recognisable beginning

Light is an important time cue for the internal clock. For an ordinary day–night rhythm, it makes sense to get daylight during the day and keep waking times as regular as possible. A short spell outdoors can be combined with the journey to work or a brief walk, for example.

You do not need to look at the sun. The aim is ambient light, rather than the strongest possible stimulus for the eyes. For light sensitivity, eye conditions or shift work, a blanket instruction to get as much light as possible every morning is too broad. Timing and tolerability need to suit the situation.

A realistic beginningChoose a habit that is possible on several days: Open the curtains after getting up and find a suitable opportunity for daylight outdoors. A manageable daily anchor helps more than a perfect plan that creates extra stress after two days.

As a guide, Huberman recommends going outside within the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking. This is a practical time anchor, not a deadline precise to the minute. If it is still dark, use normal indoor lighting initially and spend time outside after sunrise. Weather, season and light sensitivity affect what is comfortable and useful.

Movement and cold in the morning: Two different tools

A walk, gentle mobility work or a short, appropriate training session can ease the transition into the day. Outdoors, movement can be combined with daylight. You need neither an intense workout nor a particular step count. If mornings are short on time, another regular opportunity for movement is also valuable.

Cold remains optionalThe podcast presents deliberate cold exposure as an activating stimulus. It is not a requirement for good sleep. If you enjoy a cooler shower and can tolerate it safely, it can be part of your morning. Discuss this with a doctor first if you have circulatory or heart disease; do not suddenly plunge into ice-cold water as a sleep experiment.

Daytime: Distribute demands instead of trying to repair everything in the evening

When work, training, appointments and personal tasks run together without a break, the body is often expected to switch modes within a few minutes in the evening. Small interruptions and tolerable movement can create room for recovery during the day. The aim is not to exhaust yourself as much as possible to sleep well.

Especially after illness, 'exert yourself more' is not general advice. Anyone who experiences a marked delayed deterioration after small amounts of activity first needs medical assessment and appropriate management of activity. A good sleep plan also begins with what is actually tolerable at present.

If you can only train in the evening, exercise does not need to be ruled out across the board. Observe the difference between a moderate session and very intense exertion just before bed. If you remain overheated or awake for a long time afterwards, adjust the intensity, finishing time or subsequent rest period. A quiet walk creates different demands from late interval training.

Caffeine: Consider timing as well as quantity

A coffee in the late afternoon can still matter in the evening. Sensitivity varies between people. Alongside coffee, energy drinks, certain teas and caffeinated training products contribute to the total amount.

Instead of changing several things at once, first note your actual times and reduce late caffeine. Huberman's written toolkit suggests eight to ten hours before bedtime as a guide. With bedtime planned for 23h, that would be around 13h to 15h. Sensitivity and quantity vary; consider waking periods and recovery the following morning as well as falling asleep.

The podcast also suggests delaying the first coffee by around 90 to 120 minutes. You can try this as a personal change of habit, but it is not a universal requirement for good sleep. An earlier caffeine cut-off in the afternoon is usually a more practical first question than a strictly timed wait in the morning.

Meals: Go to bed neither hungry nor overly full

Dinner is also part of the toolkit. A very large meal immediately before lying down can be uncomfortable, for example because of fullness or reflux. If this is familiar, compare it with an earlier or smaller meal. A light snack may suit you if hunger keeps you awake.

This does not imply a compulsory large breakfast or fasting until midday. What matters is how you nourish yourself throughout the day and what you tolerate. A useful beginning is to avoid regularly postponing food until late at night. Where conditions or medicines require meals at fixed times, individual dietary advice remains the guide.

Naps: Recovery without displacing night-time sleep

A short midday nap can feel beneficial. If falling asleep at night is difficult, an early, short trial of around 10 to 20 minutes is more manageable than a long sleep in the late afternoon. Set an alarm if needed and observe whether you feel clearer afterwards and still become sleepy in the evening.

Longer naps can suit particular situations, but are not a standard recommendation for difficulty falling asleep. Even 90 minutes does not guarantee an exactly completed sleep cycle. If you remain groggy afterwards or lie awake longer at night, adjust the timing and duration or skip the nap.

NSDR or yoga nidra: Resting without needing to sleepNSDR stands for 'Non-Sleep Deep Rest': Guided rest while awake. A short recording with calm attention to the body, or a comfortable yoga nidra format, can be an alternative to a nap. Choose a voice and duration that do not add further demands. This is a break, rather than an equivalent replacement for lost night-time sleep. Stop the exercise if attention to the body becomes uncomfortable.

Afternoon light: Go outside once more before evening begins

If your day takes place almost entirely indoors, another period outdoors in the late afternoon can be useful. A short walk can also serve as a transition between work and the rest of your evening.

This is not an instruction to seek bright light for as long as possible into the night. Light affects the internal clock differently depending on timing. For an ordinary daily rhythm, the simple direction remains: Sufficient light during the day, less towards evening and as much darkness as possible during sleep. Very late sleep onset or shift work requires more precise timing.

Evening: Fewer demands instead of more optimisation

A quiet transition does not have to be an elaborate ritual. Dimming the lights a little, briefly noting unfinished tasks for tomorrow and avoiding especially stimulating activities right up to the last minute are possible approaches. Not everything has to work for everyone.

An often-overlooked distinction: Warm light is not automatically dim lightSomeone changes all the lamps to a warm colour but leaves the room very brightly lit. The colour has changed, but not necessarily the overall light exposure. For a practical comparison, using a smaller, dimmer light source may be more useful than buying ever more filters.

Screen brightness, duration of use and content also interact. A warm display mode does not automatically make an exciting discussion calming. I therefore ask about what you are doing during this time as well as the technology.

Warmth in the evening: First comfortably warm, then release heat

A warm shower or bath around one to two hours before bedtime can support the transition. The interesting relationship is that warmed skin can subsequently release heat more easily. The temperature change that follows is relevant to sleep, rather than maximum heat. A systematic review of warm showers and baths found, among other things, shorter times to fall asleep.

In practice, this means comfortably warm rather than burning hot, followed by time for a quiet transition. A sauna is a more intense demand and not a necessary alternative to a shower. If you tolerate heat poorly, have circulatory symptoms or tend to stay awake after a sauna, you do not need this element in your evening routine.

Bedroom: Cool, dark and with as few disturbances as possible

A room that is not overheated and a suitable duvet are often more comfortable than warm air under an overly thick duvet. You should not feel cold. Blackout curtains or a comfortably fitting sleep mask can help if light is bothersome; suitable earplugs may be an option for noise, provided you can still hear necessary warning signals.

Put your phone somewhere that does not invite you to check it every time you wake. If you need to get up at night, use just enough dim light to keep your route safe. Safety takes priority over maximum darkness.

Awake at night: Do not immediately start a second day

Brief waking periods are not automatically a problem. Try not to turn them into a new task involving clock checks, messages or intensive breathing control. A familiar, comfortable rest recording may suit you if it can be used without a bright screen.

If you are clearly awake for longer and become increasingly frustrated in bed, it may help to briefly do something quiet in a safe, dimly lit place and return when you feel sleepy again. If this happens regularly, the approach can be adapted more specifically as part of CBT-I.

Alcohol and THC: Sleepy does not automatically mean rested

Alcohol may initially make you tired and still disturb your later sleep. THC is also not a reliable general strategy for improving sleep; evidence for cannabis in sleep problems is limited. If you regularly need a substance to fall asleep, an open conversation about this is worthwhile. Do not change prescribed preparations on your own.

Weekends, jet lag and shift work: A balanced approach to rhythm

Keeping waking times as similar as possible on workdays and days off makes a recognisable rhythm easier. After a late night, however, you do not have to impose additional sleep deprivation. Adequate opportunity to sleep and safe daytime activities remain important. Observe whether sleeping in very late on Sunday regularly delays falling asleep on Sunday night.

The temperature minimum is a specialist topicBody temperature follows a daily rhythm. Its lowest point is often in the final part of the usual night. Light before or after this point can shift the internal clock in different directions. This is relevant to jet lag and shift work, but a rough estimate of 'two hours before the alarm' cannot provide a reliable personal light schedule. Usual rhythm, shift pattern or direction of travel need to be considered together.

Supplements: An optional topic, not an automatic fourth step

The Huberman Lab toolkit discusses magnesium threonate, apigenin and L-theanine. These names form part of the overview, but do not amount to a blanket recommendation to combine all three. The evidence varies by substance and sleep problem and is partly limited.

If you are considering a supplement, first clarify its intended purpose and whether conditions, medicines or preparations you already take argue against it. With magnesium, for example, the total amount from supplements and kidney function must be considered. Product weight and the amount of elemental magnesium are different things.

Melatonin is a time signal produced by the body. Targeted use can be helpful for certain rhythm problems; timing and individual circumstances matter. It is not an automatic part of every evening routine. Particularly for children, pregnancy, chronic conditions and regular medication, selection belongs in professional advice.

What we can examine more closely in Applied Neurofunction

Perhaps the difficulty lies less in the evening ritual than in the state in which you arrive at it. Visually demanding work, constant changes of orientation or a demanding breathing strategy can offer starting points for a functional view. I begin with a situation you actually recognise, rather than a list of supposedly impaired systems.

A possible example: Exhaustion increases after screen workWe choose a short, tolerable visual task and record how demanding it feels. Then we deliberately change one condition — such as target distance or the extent of a gaze shift — and repeat the same task. If a helpful difference appears, a small adjustment for your working day can follow. We check over several days whether evening recovery also improves.

This clearly separates two questions: An immediate response can help adjust the dose of a task. Whether you sleep better as a result becomes apparent only from subsequent sleep patterns. A muscle test or a brief daytime retest does not replace a sleep diary for this purpose.

A manageable four-week plan

The weeks give you a sequence, not a guaranteed route to success. Choose just one suitable change for each stage. If something already works well, you do not need to reorganise it. Necessary assessment is not postponed for this plan.

Week 1: Rhythm and lightFirst make a rough note of when you get up and how much opportunity for sleep you have. Then choose a daily anchor, such as a regular short period outdoors in the morning. If bright evening light is more noticeable, start there instead.

Week 2: Caffeine, meals or napsWhich habit might be pushing your evening later? For example, compare having your final serving of caffeine earlier. If caffeine is not relevant, consider the long, late siesta or very late, large dinner. Do not change everything at once.

Week 3: Temperature and a quiet transitionTry one comfortable element: Perhaps a warm shower some time before bed or a better-suited duvet. Alternatively, a short rest without a screen may fit. What matters is whether the transition becomes easier, rather than more elaborate.

Week 4: Review and simplifyWhat helped over several nights? What was unnecessary or uncomfortable? Keep the few useful steps. Supplements are not compulsory this week; if difficulties remain, professional assessment may be a more useful next step.

A few keywords are enough for your review: Falling asleep, longer waking periods, daytime wellbeing and additional effort. You do not need to keep checking the clock at night or produce a perfect sleep chart. After four weeks, your routine should be clearer, rather than longer.

When sleep tips alone are not enough

Professional support is useful for persistent difficulty falling or staying asleep that affects daytime functioning. For chronic insomnia, cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, is a first-line treatment. It goes beyond general sleep hygiene. Substantially restricting time in bed on your own is therefore not part of this toolkit.

Loud snoring with pauses in breathing, pronounced daytime sleepiness or frequent dozing off should be assessed. Do not drive if you cannot reliably stay awake. Pain, distressing experiences and mental health conditions may also need targeted support.

Frequently asked questions

Does daylight help even when it is overcast?Daylight is still present outdoors when there are clouds. What matters is a tolerable habit that fits daily life. This does not imply a fixed number of minutes for every person and every weather condition.

Do I need magnesium or a 'sleep stack'?No, combining different preparations is not a requirement for better sleep. Persistent problems deserve appropriate assessment. Supplements should address a specific, justified question.

What if relaxation exercises make me even more restless?More practice is then not automatically useful. The task, depth of breathing and attention can play a part. The article on inner restlessness gives a specific example.