The Nutrient: Alertness from an eye mask, digital minimalism, sitting alone

Research

Wearing an eye mask during overnight sleep improves episodic learning and alertness
Sleep

Will wearing an eye mask while sleeping improve memory and alertness?

"Our results demonstrate that wearing an eye mask during overnight sleep can facilitate both new learning and alertness the next day."

"This revealed superior episodic encoding and an improvement on alertness when using the mask."

The question on my mind was if there's a preceived benefit, or if the benefit is subconscious. Does light exposure while you're sleeping cause you to wake-up feeling unrested?

"Self-reported sleep quality, as assessed with the sleep diary, showed no benefits of the eye mask in either experiment."

To me, this means that light in your sleep environment has a negative impact on your cognitive health without you even realizing it. Blackout curtains will presumably have the same affect without ruining your sex life.

Watch

Digital Minimalism with Cal Newport
YouTube

You become intentional about using technology by being comfortable with missing out.

“Digital Minimalism is a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.”

When it comes to mindlessly wasting time, Instagram is my kryptonite. One new rule I have is to not follow professional surfers, hunters, or photographers. It's too entertaining. Instead, I'm becoming more strategic and I gauge my Instagram use based on whether or not it's supporting  my goal to share and talk about health. This is pursuing a positive behavior, as opposed to trying to avoid a negative one.

Words of the week

"All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
– Blaise Pascal

Enjoy your weekend,

Dr. Adam