Sleep clinics are built to detect specific categories of disruption — and they do that well. When the primary issue isn’t airway-related, however, results often come back mostly normal while the underlying problem persists. Understanding the scope of what polysomnography is designed to capture — and what falls outside it — is where the investigation […]
Your Sleep Study Came Back Normal—But Your Sleep Still Isn’t. Read Post »
When you’ve addressed your specific internal sleep disruptors and builders, sleep becomes robust enough to handle everyday variables—including screens before bed. The more significant question isn’t whether you’re watching Netflix; it’s whether your internal sleep architecture has two key sides working together: disruptors that block the body’s capacity for sleep, and builders that create it.
Having a 50-step pre-bed routine while still plateauing at 4-5 bad nights a week points to a specific gap: removing sleep obstacles and building the internal capacity to create sleep are two different things. The sleep hygiene approach addresses external factors like blue light, room temperature, and mattresses, but those adjustments don’t build the body’s
Melatonin tends to enter the conversation about disrupted sleep as an obvious next step—but it infrequently solves the problem outright. Its effects depend on individual timing, metabolism, and whether melatonin is even the limiting factor at all. This article works through how to assess whether melatonin is relevant to your sleep and how to align
The distinction between treating and solving sleep problems explains why considerable effort can produce minimal lasting change. Treating removes obstacles—environmental adjustments like cooling your room, blue light blockers, and white sound machines that prevent disruption or make poor sleep more manageable. Solving targets what generates sleep capacity in the first place: the underlying architecture that
Poor sleep is a indicator—not the problem itself. That distinction matters because the same observable complaint can arise from different underlying causes, and applying the wrong approach to the wrong cause either produces no change or makes things worse. The Vault 5-Part Sleep Clarity Series begins here: with a framework for understanding what’s driving the
The 2-phase solution for sleep issues (Part 1 of The Vault 5-Part Sleep Clarity Series) Read Post »
Sleep is hard in a way that exercise and nutrition aren’t: you can’t decide to be good at it. That’s why many health-aware adults find themselves accumulating supplements, devices, and habits without seeing meaningful improvement in their sleep. Kat Fu spent 15 of her 20 years in health optimization in that position—blue blockers from 5
Sleep Is Hard: The Vault 5-Part Sleep Clarity Series Read Post »
Poor sleep is not the problem—it’s what persists when the root cause hasn’t been found. Two types of sleepers are contrasted here: Person A, who follows strict sleep rituals and gets inconsistent results, and Person B, who keeps a sensible rhythm and sleeps 7-9 hours. Moving from A to B requires identifying what is driving
Poor sleep is not the problem (here’s why that matters) Read Post »
The reason sleep tips not work—even when followed consistently—is not inconsistent effort. The body needs specific raw materials, cofactors, and regulatory compounds to run its sleep machinery, and no behavioral strategy can substitute for these when they’re absent. This is why some people see initial improvement from routine changes, then plateau or regress: the biochemical
The question behind “why does my friend sleep through the night while I wake at 3 AM if we have the same hormone levels?” points to something specific: hormone levels and sleep continuity don’t always track together. Around 3 AM, melatonin output declines while cortisol begins its pre-wake rise. When estrogen and progesterone rhythms lag
