Wind down

What you need to do

For a week, be in bed for at least seven hours with a set bedtime, and put the phone down an hour before. Sleep is part of this diet. Short sleep is an appetite problem before it is anything else.

Options that work

• Pick the bedtime first, then count back seven and a half hours from the alarm
• Caffeine ends by early afternoon
• The last hour is dim: lamps, not overheads, and no screen in bed
• Cool, dark room. Alcohol fakes sleep: drowsy first, fragmented later
• Perimenopause wrecking your sleep, or snoring and gasping awake? That is a conversation for your doctor. Both are common and both have real options

Part of the fundamental Sleep, water, and the rest.

Why this works

Two nights of four-hour sleep raised the hunger hormone ghrelin 28% and reported hunger 24% [94]. Adults sleeping under 6.5 hours who extended sleep by about 1.2 hours ate 270 fewer calories a day with no other advice [95]. Alcohol cuts dream sleep and fragments the second half of the night, starting around two drinks [78]. The people who keep weight off for years keep a consistent routine across weekdays and weekends [96].

Sources

94. Spiegel 2004, Ann Intern Med. Two nights of four-hour sleep raised the hunger hormone ghrelin 28% and reported hunger 24%. Short sleep is an appetite problem before it is anything else.
95. Tasali 2022, JAMA Intern Med. Adults sleeping under 6.5 hours who extended sleep by about 1.2 hours ate 270 fewer calories a day with no diet advice at all.
78. Alcohol and sleep meta-analysis 2024, Sleep Med Rev. Across 27 studies, alcohol cut dream sleep and fragmented the second half of the night, with disruption starting around two drinks.
96. Wing and Phelan 2005, Am J Clin Nutr. People who kept 30 or more pounds off for years mostly eat breakfast, weigh themselves at least weekly, move about an hour a day, and eat the same way on weekends as weekdays.

The fridge version

One line, seven boxes. Print it and put it where you eat.

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