While you sleep, your brain washes out waste — including the proteins linked to Alzheimer's. Poor sleep blocks that process. Start with the top 5 actions below.
Your wake time anchors your whole body clock. A steady wake time helps you fall asleep faster at night and improves sleep quality more than any sleep aid.
Sleeping in by more than an hour on weekends throws your clock off — like mini jet lag every Monday.
Morning light is the strongest signal your body clock gets. It works even on a cloudy day. It tells your brain "it's daytime now" and starts a 14–16 hour countdown to your evening sleep hormone.
It's free. It takes 10 minutes. The effect on that night's sleep is measurable.
Your body needs to drop about 1°C to fall asleep — a cool room helps that happen. Even small amounts of light block your sleep hormone. Phones add light AND anxiety.
Charge it in the kitchen. These three changes alone give measurable results within days.
Caffeine sticks around for hours. Half is still in your system 5–7 hours later. A 2pm coffee leaves 50% on board at 9pm.
Caffeine doesn't make you less tired — it just blocks the "I'm tired" signal. The tiredness builds underneath. Cut it off after 1pm for two weeks and see how you sleep.
Alcohol gets you to sleep faster — but then it breaks up the second half of the night, slashes dream sleep, and cuts deep sleep. Both are essential for memory and brain repair.
The brain's overnight cleaning process — which clears the proteins linked to Alzheimer's — is also blocked by alcohol close to bed.
Count back 7.5 hours from your fixed wake time. That's when lights need to be out. Don't shift it by more than 30 minutes either way.
The goal is a steady, long-enough window — not chasing a magic number of hours.
Your nervous system needs a runway from "alert" to "ready for sleep." Pick something low-key and stick with it: a paper book, light stretching, journalling.
What you do matters less than doing the same thing each night — and keeping screens and bright overhead lights out of it.
Exercise is one of the best things you can do for sleep. But hard sessions within 2–3 hours of bed raise your body temperature and stress hormones — both of which delay sleep onset.
Walks and gentle yoga are fine in the evening. Save HIIT and heavy lifting for earlier.
Short naps (10–20 minutes) sharpen your afternoon without affecting night sleep. Longer naps drop you into deep sleep and you wake up groggy.
Naps after 3pm push your body clock later and make falling asleep at night harder. If you regularly need long naps, that's a sign to fix night sleep first.
The ISI is a quick 7-question test that measures how bad insomnia is. Your score gives you a baseline to track against.
If your score is over 14, see your GP and ask specifically about CBT-I — a talking therapy that has stronger long-term results than sleeping pills.
Sleep isn't just rest. It's when your brain switches on a cleaning system that flushes out waste — including the proteins (amyloid-beta and tau) that build up in Alzheimer's disease.
This cleaning runs hardest in the first half of the night, during deep sleep. A single bad night already raises waste levels you can measure. Long-term poor sleep is one of the most-modifiable dementia risk factors going.
Sleep isn't only about hours in bed. Four areas drive quality — fix all four and the difference is huge.
If you have ongoing insomnia, the evidence is clear: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) works better long-term than sleep medication.
If your ISI score is over 14, ask your GP specifically about a CBT-I referral or a digital CBT-I program — before going down the medication route.
Month 9 — Sleep and Recovery. This is where we go deep on sleep stages, body clock biology, and exactly how poor sleep speeds up cognitive decline.
The actions above mean you'll arrive at Month 9 with the basics already locked in — and ready for the next layer.
reMYnd is a prevention program, not a clinical treatment. Speak with your GP if you have ongoing insomnia, suspected sleep apnoea (loud snoring, gasping, daytime sleepiness), or are on sleep medication. © reMYnd by Naomi Ferstera — remynd.com.au