best sleep of my life

Hey all 👋 

As a reminder, this what to expect from my personal newsletter:

• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Thoughts + resources on faith, parenting and family

• 💼 Business updates + learnings

• 🗓️ 1ish times a month

Today: How to get better sleep

New family routine 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 

Most of you know that we have 3 kids five and under (with one more on the way).

We've gotten the best sleep we've had in years the past few weeks.

Here's how 👇

My wife and I listened to a podcast (The 1,000 Hours Outside podcast, highly recommend for parents).

The guest talked about circadian rhythms and how most of the cells in our bodies take cues from light to inform how to function.

The summary: with artificial lighting (especially LEDs) from light bulbs, tvs, and computers flooding our eyeballs and bodies, we're messing with our circadian rhythm big time.

(hence why Apple + others made dark mode a common thing)

The result?

It’s killing our sleep quality and leading to a whole bunch of chronic health issues.

So what did we start doing?

• Dim the lights during dinner (lights off in other rooms)

• Read bedtime stories with lights off using book lights (kids think it's more fun, plus they've fallen asleep faster)

• Dana and I fold laundry and do dishes with candle lighting only

• We bring the candles upstairs for bedtime routine and leave phones downstairs (we use an alarm clock, old school I know)

• We read books/the Bible in bed with candle light/book lights only

Overall, our nights have been calmer.

The kids have been more chill.

Dana and I have enjoyed less distraction and more conversation.

Everyone has gone to sleep earlier.

Which has made mornings much smoother.

Overall, I’m feeling much more energized in the AM.

Plus, I’ve also started a fun game where we see how far away from a candle we can be and still blow it out (not very good at this, I need to work on my technique).

Anyways, I was surprised how noticeable the change in sleep quality has been.

Sleep is the bedrock of our health.

And I’m a better father, husband, writer, and entrepreneur when I’m well rested.

This has by far been the most helpful change we’ve ever made to improve our sleep.

If you try it, let me know how it goes.

Getting sleep while we can before baby #4 arrives!

Until next time 🫡 

Kieran

P.S. Judah is enjoying his last few weeks in the spotlight as the baby of the family.

his expression in this picture = his personality

New addition coming sometime in the next 3ish weeks. Feel free to join us in praying for baby to come between April 1st and April 10th so Dana can attend her little brother’s wedding that I’m officiating in late April!

P.P.S. Here’s the link to the podcast referenced above.