Sleep is as, if not more important to our health as a good diet and regular exercise.  Yet it is estimated that 39% of people in the UK are regularly getting less than 7 hours of sleep a night and as many as 1 in 3 people are regularly affected by insomnia.  A lack of sleep can leave you feeling exhausted, finding it difficult to concentrate, make you feel irritable, and can increase feelings of anxiety and depression.  It can lead to weight-gain, make you more prone to illness and infection, and can contribute to long-term health consequences.  The cost to the UK economy of sleep deprivation was estimated at £40bn a year in 2016, equivalent to 200,000 lost working days*.

Are you getting enough sleep?

There is no definitive answer to how much sleep is the ‘right’ amount – it varies by individual. However, most research has now shown that getting between 7 and 9 hours sleep on a regular basis is the optimum amount.

To determine whether you are getting enough sleep, would require a thorough, clinical assessment.  However, there are a few factors to consider as a guide: -

• After waking up in the morning, do you feel like falling back asleep mid-late morning?

• Do you struggle to function optimally in the morning without caffeine?

• If you didn’t set an alarm, would you sleep past your usual wake-up time?

• Do you struggle to concentrate or remember simple things?

• When you go to bed at night, do you fall asleep almost immediately?

If you answer ‘Yes’ to some or all of the above, you are probably sleep deprived.

The Benefits of Sleep

As mentioned in the introduction, getting sufficient, good quality sleep is vital to our health and well-being.  Sleep is crucial to helping us learn, memorise information and make logical decisions (ever noticed how your tendency to over-react to things increases when you’re tired?). Sleep regulates our emotions, and the dream-state helps to process traumatic experiences and inspire creativity. Sleep also supports our immune systems, helps to regulate metabolism and appetite, encourages a healthy gut microbiome, and aids a healthy cardiovascular system. 

And whilst going without food or exercise for 24 hours has little detrimental impact on how we feel or perform (and can in fact be beneficial in respect of food), foregoing sleep for 24 hours will leave you feeling significantly below par.

Sleep (mis)perceptions

Yet sleep is so often neglected.  Many people perceive it as an inconvenience, a waste of time that stops them being productive and gets in the way of doing the things they really want to do.  ‘Burning the midnight oil’ or getting up ever earlier to squeeze a bit more out of every day are heralded as signs of commitment, motivation, productivity.  Artificial lighting, technology, and our 24-hour ‘always on’ culture make it even harder for people to switch off and get some much-needed rest.

How to improve your sleep

If you feel that you are sleep deprived and you want to give yourself the opportunity to benefit fully from the nightly tonic that sleep offers, here are my top tips to try and help you get more sleep.

1. Have a regular sleep/wake schedule

Going to bed each night and getting up each morning at a similar time helps to ensure that you are timing your sleep opportunity (i.e., when you are giving yourself the opportunity to sleep) with your circadian rhythm (the internal clock system that is one of the 2 processes that governs our sleep/wake cycle). 

2. Avoid bright lights in the evening

Exposure to artificial lighting, particularly overhead lighting, and the blue light that is emitted from mobile phone, computer, even television screens, confuses your circadian clock into thinking that it is still daytime and that you need to be awake and alert, rather than allowing the internal processes that prime you for sleep to be triggered by increasing darkness.  As much as possible, turn down lights in the evening and avoid screens for at least an hour, ideally longer, before bedtime.

3. Sleep in a cool, dark environment

Following on from the above point, avoiding any light in the bedroom will support the correct functioning of your circadian clock.  Additionally, having a cool bedroom will support good sleep.  Body temperature naturally increases during the day and decreases during the evening to a low in the early hours.  It then starts to increase before you wake up.  If your bedroom or bedding is too warm, your body temperature may rise, causing you to wake up.

4. Get early morning daylight

Getting outside into daylight within an hour or two of waking can be very beneficial to help set your circadian clock.  Just being outside for 10 minutes can be helpful.  Remember to never look directly at the sun (or any bright light).  If it is still dark when you get up, then use bright, overhead lights or a daytime simulation light (ring lights can also be useful for this purpose).

5. Avoid caffeine later in the day

All the above tips are related to how your circadian rhythm regulates your sleep/wake cycle.  The other factor that (independent to your circadian rhythm), impacts on your sleep, is a chemical called adenosine.  While you are awake, this chemical builds up in the brain.  By evening, high levels of adenosine turn-down the awake-promoting parts of the brain and turn up the sleep promoting parts.  Caffeine, however, blocks adenosine from attaching to adenosine receptors in the brain, thereby masking feelings of sleepiness and keeping you awake. 

Caffeine has an average half-life of 5 to 7 hours, meaning that 5 to 7 hours after your last intake of caffeine, you still have 50% of the caffeine active in your system.  So, if you are going to be bed at 11pm, and your last cup of coffee was at 4pm, 50% of the caffeine from that drink may still be stopping you from sleeping. 

6. Limit daytime naps

Finally, napping during the day will reduce the amount of adenosine (sleep pressure) that has built up during the day because adenosine gets cleansed from the brain while we sleep. Therefore, if you are struggling to sleep at night, either avoid daytime naps or restrict to early afternoon, and for only 20-30 minutes

If you would like to know more about how I help people to sleep better, click here.

There are many factors that can impact on our sleep, including stress, age, medical conditions, travel, exercise, diet, and sleep disorders (such as sleep apnea).  If you are concerned about your sleep, and especially if you suspect that it may be related to a medical condition or sleep disorder, you should seek advice from your GP in the first instance. 

References

* Sleep deprivation 'costs UK £40bn a year' - BBC News. 

Walker, M. (2018). Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams. Penguin.