BOOK YOUR ESCAPE

Sleep

For Your Free Time

Ways to Rest Easy

By Getaway -

There’s nothing like than waking up with a well-rested, clear mind. With the weight of the pandemic, and more time spent indoors and on screens, many people believe they’ve fallen into less healthy sleeping habits over the past year. 

Here are a few tips to help you recommit to better sleep:

Cellphone lockbox. Photo by Michelle Watt.

Keep Your Bed Phone-Free

There are plenty of reasons to keep phones far from our beds — that’s why our cabins are wifi-free and have a cellphone lockbox. The light from a smartphone’s screen disrupts our body’s melatonin production and the addictive allure of social media often keep us scrolling past our bedtimes. 

Break the habit of late-night screentime by turning off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bed. Even better? Charge your phone outside your bedroom and invest in an old-school alarm clock or one that mimics the sunrise to wake you up more naturally.

Set Your Daytime Schedule 

Establishing healthy habits throughout the day will help you rest easy at night. Keep a consistent sleep schedule by getting up at the same time every day, even on the weekends. Cooking and eating food eating meals rich in fruits and veggies (we’re fans of these easy-to-make vegan skewers and variations on avocado toast). Regular physical activity — we like to hike — and spending time outside every day can also promote better sleep. 

Create a Relaxing Night Time Routine

Make where you sleep a relaxing space — this often means cool, dark and quiet. Adding a fan can also help. Getaway Outposts are designed with sleep in mind: beds are fit with comfy linens and pillows, plus room-darkening shades to keep your cabin dim. It’s also important to wind down your mind. Let go of anxious or work-related thoughts over a cup of decaffeinated tea or by journaling a bit before bed. A good book also makes a great escape, so our cabins come with recommended reads to help you de-stress. 

Ready to Sleep Soundly in Nature? Book your Getaway today.

Features

Breaking Down Blue Light

By Getaway -

Historically, the UV rays of the sun posed the most amount of danger to our eyes. As we’ve evolved into a society where we’re in front of screens more than outside in nature, there’s a new concern that’s emerged: the dangers of blue light.

Souce: Bluelightexposed.com

Natural and artificial blue light

Blue light is on the spectrum of light visible to the human eye and is found everywhere there is light. In fact, these shorter, high energy blue wavelengths cause the sky to look blue when they collide with air molecules. Our bodies use blue light to regulate our circadian rhythm, or our sleep and wake cycles. When the sun is out and blue light is scattered, it can help us feel more alert, heighten reaction times and make us feel better.   

But there’s been a surge of artificial blue light, emitted from our digital screens (TVs, computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets and fluorescent and LED lighting). This change may well harm our health and sleep.

The temptation to nestle with our phones in bed can disrupt our sleep cycle as blue light can disrupt your circadian rhythm by tricking your brain into believing that it’s daytime.

The risks of overexposure to blue light

Citizens of the digital age are often guilty of looking at their phones right before sleeping and right after waking. While looking at your device first thing in the morning may increase alertness, the temptation to nestle with our phones in bed can disrupt our sleep cycle as blue light can disrupt your circadian rhythm by tricking your brain into believing that it’s daytime. This is why Apple introduced the ‘night shift’ mode to iPhones in 2016, but their change in tone might not be enough as what we’re doing on our phones—scrolling, reading, getting notifications—can still keep our minds awake.  

Nico, on the Getaway team, testing blue light filter glasses.
Nico, on the Getaway team, testing blue light filter glasses.

 

How to manage your blue light exposure

The most obvious solution to avoiding overexposure to artificial blue light: spend more time outside (cabin in the woods, anyone?) and put away your devices, especially before going to sleep.

 

We chatted with Ian from Pixel, a company that creates computer eyewear to protect your eyes from screens, on ways to manage the symptoms from starting at our laptops or phones for too long.

We’re already being impacted by blue light on a regular basis since we’re constantly glued to screens.

Ian emphasized the severity of this issue: “We’re already being impacted by blue light on a regular basis since we’re constantly glued to screens. People can experience digital eye strain after a short duration of staring at a screen.” Here are some tips from him on how to combat the eyestrain:

  • Use the 20/20/20 rule, where you take a short break after 20 minutes in front of a screen.
  • Reduce the brightness of your screen and keep a proper distance between you and the screen, about 16-30 inches  
  • Wear computer glasses to reduce eyestrain

To balance out our exposure to blue light, we’ve been testing out Pixel glasses at the Getaway offices:

Nina testing out Pixel glasses at the Getaway offices.

While it may not be the best option for those who wear glasses already, it’s a great way for those with perfect eyesight to rock eyewear. That said, it still won’t beat the best way to avoid too much blue light disrupting your sleep cycle: to turn off your devices after work and to take some real time off.

P.S. Interested in winning your own pair? Enter our contest here.