The ultimate guide to the best night’s sleep ever in 13 simple steps – from wearing a head torch to ‘worry windows’
HOW many times have you been told your bedroom should only be for two things: sleep and sex?
The problem is we end up either scrolling away on our phones or working in bed and then lying awake for hours — the recommended seven to nine hours sleep now just a dream.
In our Sun Health poll, you told us the biggest obstacles to getting to sleep were worrying about your health and money, and being disturbed by your partner.
More than a third said they sometimes struggle to get to sleep, and 51 per cent didn’t know what sleep hygiene means.
Professor Russell Foster, a neuroscientist at The University of Oxford, warns: “Sleep is as important as good nutrition and exercise for longevity.”
So as part of our Health Kick series, running throughout January, we asked the experts for their top sleep hygiene tips. Here are their simple steps to establish a routine that eases you into sleep every night.
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BRAIN GAME
CHALLENGING your brain to do new things or giving it new experiences that tax it in lots of different ways will help make it “tired” at night, says Dr Kat Lederle.
Difficult mental tasks demand more mental energy, says Dr Lederle, who is head of sleep health at somnia.org.uk.
She advises: “During the day, provide your brain with more variety and stimulation, even when doing normal tasks. Work out a new route to the supermarket to engage your problem-solving skills, or try a new recipe.
“Your brain will be ready for sleep in the evenings because it needs that time to recover.”
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SNORE OFF
IF your partner snores, you’re likely to lose an hour of sleep a night, according to a study by scientists at the University of Utah.
Oxford University’s Prof Foster says: “Get them tested for obstructive sleep apnoea (when the muscles in the back of the throat relax, obstructing the airways and causing gasping, snorting or choking noises).
“But also think about separate bedrooms.
“Sleeping together is not an indicator of the strength of your relationship and it may be bad for your sleep.”
EYES WIDE OPEN
TRY lying in bed in the dark with your eyes open, says Colin Espie, Professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford.
This is part of a technique called “paradoxical intention” where you resist sleep instead of trying to force it.
Prof Espie says: “The idea is to turn the tables so you find yourself giving up on trying to stay awake.
“When you start to find it hard to keep your eyes open, keep them open a few seconds longer until you have to abandon that and closing them feels like a relief.”
WAIT IT OUT
PROF Espie says: “If you wake up, give yourself a quarter of an hour without looking at the clock.”
If that doesn’t work, he says, then get up: “Go somewhere quiet and do something passive like reading, but don’t be tempted to look at a screen.
“When you start to feel sleepy, go back to bed.
“People get stuck not wanting to disturb their partners and try to lie still until they fall asleep, but getting up reboots your system, so you can get back to sleep more quickly when you return to bed.
“The aim is to stop people becoming clock-watchers, lying there for hours on end and not sleeping.”
WASH UP
A BATH or shower can trick the body into dropping off.
Dr Lindsay Browning, a psychologist and neuroscientist from troublesleeping.co.uk, says: “If you have a warm bath, you artificially raise your body temperature.
“When you come out of the warm bath, your body temperature will naturally start to decrease, mimicking the drop in temperature that happens as you fall asleep, making you feel sleepier.”
A 2019 study from the University of Texas found the best time to have a sleep-inducing bath is around 90 minutes before bedtime.
SNACK (UN)HAPPY
YOUR digestive system wants to sleep too. The cluster of cells that regulates the brain’s body clock tells organs when to turn key activities on and off.
That includes the liver, which at night is programmed to switch from burning sugar for energy to burning fats stored during the day.
If this cycle is disrupted by eating close to bedtime, it can reawaken the digestive system.
The liver is forced to go back to storing fat instead of burning it, which can lead to weight gain.
Professor Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute in California says: “If you don’t want to gain weight, it’s best not to eat late at night.
“Try to go for 12 hours without eating overnight to allow the liver to do its job.”
20-MINUTE RULE
TRY to nap for no longer than 20 minutes, says Prof Foster: “After 20 minutes, the brain may move into its deeper slow-wave sleep, leaving you groggy when you wake up.
“The need for a longer nap also suggests you are not getting enough sleep at night, so you may want to try and go to bed a bit earlier so you can sleep longer.”
RIGHT LIGHT
OVER the age of 40, seven in ten men and eight in ten women have to use the loo at least once a night and can then struggle to get back to sleep.
Professor James Goodwin, Director of Science and Research Impact at Brain Health Network, says the secret to making sure this doesn’t disturb your sleep is to use a night vision torch with red light, not blue.
He says: “Don’t put on the overhead light, which emits blue light which makes the brain alert and disturbs the sleep cycle.
“If I have to get up or check the time during the night, I use a torch with a red lens — which gives off longer wavelength red or ‘evening’ light which doesn’t have the same effect.”
CUT THE LABEL
SLEEP is like putting your brain on a rinse cycle, says Heather Darwall-Smith, psychotherapist at the London Sleep Centre: “It acts like a reset button.
“After a good night’s sleep, our ability to be alert, energised and emotionally stable is improved.”
However, this process can be interrupted if we are worrying we’re not dropping off quickly enough.
Heather says: “If you keep telling yourself you are a bad sleeper this will rewire the behavioural pathways in the brain.
“You may become hyper-focused on the problem and call yourself a bad sleeper, but that can reinforce the experience.”
FEELING BLUE
THE 24/7 work culture means many of us deal with emails and work issues late at night.
However, our brains are trained to interpret the blue light from screens as it does sunshine, a cue to be alert and ready for action.
Dr Emer MacSweeney, a neuroradiologist at Re:Cognition Health, uses glasses that screen out blue light from around 8.30pm.
She says: “Natural melatonin production is triggered by the dark, so blocking blue light for a few hours before sleep enables melatonin production to continue as normal.
“I get to sleep very quickly if I wear blue light-blocking specs in the run-up to bedtime.”
NIGHT OWL
EARLY birds make up ten to 15 per cent of the population, and night owls 15 to 25 per cent.
Prof Foster says: “The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle.
“This means night owls often struggle to get off to sleep at a conventional time because their body clock is delayed. They can also feel more groggy if they have to wake up at a conventional time, because their body clocks will want them to be asleep.”
He suggests rearranging your work life: “As a night owl, as far as possible I schedule meetings later in the day, rather than first thing in the morning, which are torture for me.”
WORRY WINDOW
OUR worries can take over in the middle of the night.
Sleep physiologist Dr Guy Meadows, says: “The University of Nevada found that trying to push worries away only makes them worse and fuels their strength, frequency and number.
"So don’t leave it until bedtime to deal with them — do it in the morning when they aren’t so overwhelming. Look at your emotions as they rise in your body and give them physical attributes.
“For example, ‘My anxiety feels like a cold black knot tightening in my stomach’.
“The idea is to accept feelings for what they are — sensations passing through your body in the moment — and move on, rather than trying to change or fight them.”
COOL BEANS
YOU may not realise your morning coffee may still be interrupting your sleep at bedtime. Caffeine interrupts the release of melatonin, the hormone that makes us sleepy.
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Dr Browning says: “Five to seven hours after your cup of coffee, half the caffeine is still in your system.
“So if you have trouble sleeping, have your last cup of caffeine of the day at around 2pm.”