I've slept in a lot of strange places over the years. Hostels in Peru. A van in New Zealand. A hammock in Thailand where I'm pretty sure something crawled over my foot at 3 a.m.
What I've learned from all that moving around is this: sleep isn't a luxury you figure out when you're old. It's the thing that decides how well you get old in the first place.
That's exactly what Jennifer Martin says, and she'd know. She's the director of the Benjamín León Jr. Family Center for Geriatric Research and Education and a professor at the FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Her research sits right at the intersection of sleep and healthy aging.
"Sleep is actually at the center of a lot of health behaviors we know about — like diet and exercise," Martin says. Skip the sleep, and everything else gets harder. Staying at a healthy weight. Keeping your mood steady. Even just functioning like a normal human being.
And the stakes aren't small. Chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to higher risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's. That's not a reason to panic. It's a reason to pay attention tonight, not someday.
Here's what Martin recommends if you want to actually fix your sleep instead of just complaining about it.
Schedule Sleep First, Then Build Your Day Around It
Most of us plan our day and squeeze sleep into whatever's left. Martin says flip that.
"Carve out seven and a half hours to schedule your sleep first," she says. "Schedule everything else around that."
She's also blunt about the hustle-culture myth that sleep-deprived people get more done. "I've never worked with anyone who became less successful when they started sleeping better," she says. "People are more successful when they are well-rested because they are more efficient."
Adults need seven or more hours, at least six nights a week. A consistent wake time and bedtime matter more than people think. Good news though — you get a cheat day. Stay up late Saturday, sleep in Sunday. Just don't drag that pattern into Monday, or you'll feel jetlagged without ever leaving your bed.
Keep Your Phone Out of Reach
Martin's rule is simple: lie down, stretch your arm out, and if you can touch your phone, it's too close.
Grab it at 3 a.m. and start scrolling, and your brain wakes right back up. One headline, one cat video, and that's it — sleep's gone. Get the TV out of the bedroom too, and skip the laptop before bed. Blue light tells your brain it's go-time when it should be winding down.
Control What You Can, Especially If You're Caring for Someone Else
If you're up every few hours with a baby or a family member who needs help, you don't have full control over your sleep. Fair enough. But Martin says don't make it worse by adding bad habits on top — like doomscrolling when you finally get a quiet moment.
Caffeine's a big one in Miami, she points out. "When we are younger, we metabolize cafecito quickly. When you're 75, it might make it harder to fall asleep." Her advice: cut off caffeine about ten hours before bed. And make your sleep space boring on purpose — quiet, dark, cool, comfortable. Sometimes it's as simple as an extra pillow.
Expect Your Sleep to Change With Age — That's Normal
Here's something I didn't know: as we get older, we naturally get less deep sleep and wake more easily. That's not a problem to fix. It's biology.
Your circadian rhythm shifts too, nudging you toward earlier bedtimes and earlier mornings. Martin says embrace it instead of fighting it. If you're waking at 3 a.m. and can't get back to sleep at all, though, that's worth a conversation with your doctor.
Pick One Thing and Try It
Martin's last piece of advice might be the most useful: don't chase perfect sleep. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good," she says. Pick one change — phone out of reach, less caffeine, a fixed wake time — and give it a few weeks.
I like that approach. It's the same way I've approached most changes in my life since I hit the road full-time: small experiments, see what works, adjust, keep moving.
Sleep's no different. Tonight's a good night to start the experiment.
Source: Miami’s Community News
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