The content you consume before sleep influences your subconscious processing. To foster meaning and creativity, read generative material like poetry or psalms instead of information-dense, educational content. This stimulates the right hemisphere of your brain, allowing for deeper, more meaningful rest and insight.

Insomnia is often maintained by 'conditioned arousal,' where your brain learns to associate your bed with being awake (from working, watching TV, or worrying in it). To break this, if you're awake for 20 minutes, get out of bed until you're sleepy again to re-teach your brain that bed is only for sleep.

Melatonin is not a sedative; it's a hormone that signals to your brain that it's nighttime. Meta-analyses show it only reduces the time to fall asleep by about 3-4 minutes. Its primary effective uses are for managing jet lag or specific circadian rhythm disorders.

Mindless scrolling seeks a "fake" dopamine hit from passive consumption. By contrast, structured, intentional engagement—like sending five meaningful messages—creates "real" dopamine from accomplishment and relationship building. This purposeful activity can paradoxically reduce overall screen time by satisfying the brain's reward system more effectively.

For individuals whose only free time is late at night, traditional screens disrupt sleep with blue light. E-ink or transflective LCD tablets like the Daylight Tablet solve this by providing a digital interface for writing and research that mimics paper and omits sleep-disrupting light.

The common feeling of needing to 'detox' from a phone or computer is a sign of a broken user relationship. Unlike a sofa, we can't simply replace it. This aversion stems from devices being filled with applications whose incentives are not aligned with our well-being, a problem AI will amplify.

Research consistently shows that blue light from digital devices lacks the power to increase the risk of aging eye diseases or contribute to eye strain. The relief some users feel from blue light glasses may be a placebo effect or due to their anti-glare coating, not blue light filtration.

Many activities we use for breaks, such as watching a tense sports match or scrolling the internet, are 'harshly fascinating.' They capture our attention aggressively and can leave us feeling more irritated or fatigued. This contrasts with truly restorative, 'softly fascinating' activities like a walk in nature.

The push for energy-efficient LEDs came at a biological cost. These bulbs save energy by omitting parts of the light spectrum, like infrared, present in natural sunlight. This results in an unnatural, blue-heavy light that fails to provide the full-spectrum signals our bodies need to regulate circadian rhythms.