Should YOU be tucked up in bed by 8.30pm?
These women say a nightly curfew perks up their looks — and sex lives
FOR years, Louise Cartwright burned the candle at both ends — and probably a bit in the middle, too. As a result, everything from her sleep to her sex life had suffered immeasurably.
Night after night, she’d fall into bed between midnight and 2am, exhausted from running her own financial consultancy business, and the family home.
Louise was usually far too frazzled to think about even a cuddle with her husband before her head hit the pillow. And the one or two glasses of wine she habitually drank before bed, wrongly believing they’d help her relax, did quite the opposite. Her sleep was disturbed and unsatisfying.
When her alarm went off at 6.30am, she used to pull the pillow over her head and nearly weep with despair at the thought of the day ahead.
‘My sleep patterns were all over the place and it impacted on every area of my life,’ recalls Louise, 42, a mother of two. ‘My energy levels were nonexistent.
‘During the day I felt anxious, tired, cranky and unproductive, longing for bed, but knowing I wouldn’t feel any better the next day.’
Her eureka moment came in late 2016 when, prompted by a series of family bereavements and her father being diagnosed with bowel cancer, she decided to overhaul her lifestyle.
At the crux of it was her decision to impose a strict sleep curfew. It’s the latest healthy lifestyle trend and is based on prioritising getting between eight and ten hours of good quality sleep at the same time every night.
Fifteen months later, Louise is almost evangelical about the benefits the curfew has brought to her life. Lights out for Louise is 8.30pm at the latest, to clock up nine hours’ sleep, more if her schedule allows. She declines most social invitations, has left dinner parties before the main course and will go out for a meal with her husband Gary no later than 6pm.
BUT the early bed time has done wonders for her sex life with Gary, 49, a health and safety director. ‘We enjoy wonderful early morning sex because I’m rested, refreshed and naturally awake — not wrenched from sleep by the alarm.’ (Her daughters aged 16 and 17 board at a local college.)
‘We’ve been married ten years and it’s easy to let romance drift because you’re busy and tired. My sleep curfew has revived our relationship.’
Certainly there’s a strong scientific argument for Louise’s sleep regime. Sleep plays a powerful role in determining everything from appetite to energy levels.
Weight gain, mood swings, irritability, depression and anxiety have all been linked to lack of sleep because of its effect on our hormones.
Throw in factors such as young children, the menopause, stress and a social life, and even seven hours a night is unattainable.
According to Professor Kevin Morgan, a top psychologist who has been studying sleep health for decades, imposing a strict sleep curfew is beyond most people’s reach, but some of its principles are valuable.
‘What we are sure of from a scientific perspective is that regularity is the guardian of good sleep,’ he says. ‘So maintaining a regular routine is positive. The problem is it simply isn’t attainable for many people.’
Still, Louise insists the transition to the sleep patterns she last enjoyed as a small child was very easy. Her pre-bedtime routine starts at 7pm, when most adults her age are sitting down to dinner or cracking open the wine.
‘I start by writing down three things I’ve been grateful for that day, have a herbal tea, and an Epsom salts bath or do a 20-minute yoga session. I don’t have bright lights on, only candles or fairy lights, in preparation for putting myself into that sleepy state.
‘Apart from our relationship, the biggest difference is an increase in my motivation for work. And my skin looks better.’
A sleep curfew brings inevitable sacrifices, but Louise says she was never much of a social animal, preferring to spend time with family.
‘Friends still find it odd that I won’t stay out late on the rare occasions I do go out, but I won’t budge because I know I’ll feel awful in the morning.’ Yet a sleep curfew hasn’t worked so well for creative director Amancay Tapia’s home life.
Her partner — the father of their 15-month-old daughter — has rented an apartment nearby, so frustrated was he by her militant sleep routine.
‘I go to bed at 8.45pm in winter and 9pm in summer and I won’t change that for anyone,’ says Amancay, 37, who is also a filmmaker. Luckily, her daughter also sleeps soundly.
‘My friends think it’s weird that I don’t want to go out and have fun, and my boyfriend and I argued because he’d disturb me by watching movies, working on his computer or just making noise in our two-bedroom home.
‘He moved out a few months ago for the sake of our relationship and we’re looking for a three-bedroom property so he can use the spare room if he wants to stay up late.
‘If I don’t get nine or ten hours’ sleep I feel exhausted, I look awful, I’m not as productive and all I can think about is sleep.’ Amancay rises at 7.30am and says people think she’s younger than she is, which she puts down, in part, to being well-rested.
SHE says: ‘My bedtime routine consists of drinking rose petal or camomile tea, taking a shower and putting my phone away before I go to bed.
‘Friends tell me I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead, but my response is that they’ll probably die sooner without getting enough.’
Though said in jest, it’s a point Professor Morgan picks up on.
‘What we know from studies is those who sleep for five hours or less, and particularly those who sleep nine to ten hours or more, are more likely to die before they are 65. It seems that six to eight hours is the optimum.’
Dawn Murray wishes she didn’t sleep so much, but ten hours a night has long been her habit. ‘Even at university I’d go for one early drink with friends, then head home to bed while they went clubbing,’ says Dawn, 40, a married primary teacher. She has two children aged two and four, so she has to be asleep by 8pm to achieve this because they can wake as early as 5.30am. ‘Sometimes I even go to bed at 7pm when I’ve tucked them up. I panic that if I don’t get enough sleep, I won’t be able to function,’ she says. ‘But I feel I miss out. Friends with little ones go out, have fun and accept they’ll be tired the next day. I’d love to go out, let my hair down and not worry about getting home to bed, but psychologically I just can’t do it.’ Dawn says her husband has been understanding of her sleep regime since they met eight years ago. ‘In the past I’d be anxious about him coming home late from a night out and if he disturbed my sleep, I’d go nuts. But I’m working on that,’ she says. ‘If we’re invited to weddings or parties the children are a good excuse — I tell the hosts, “They’re tired, we need to go home now!” ‘It’s an ongoing joke with my friends that I either won’t go out at all, or I’ll leave super early. ‘The great irony is that I’m worried about being tired and yet finding my obsession with sleeping increasingly tiresome. ‘I do feel my life would be more fun if I could be more relaxed about the amount of sleep I get.’ Indeed, we all need good quality sleep and a life, says Professor Morgan, but sleeping in the extreme may not be the way to achieve that combination. ‘Regularity, not duration, is more important,’ he says. ‘Six hours of sleep would still sit in harmony with some people’s circadian rhythm — which tells our bodies when to eat, sleep and rise. Some people will biologically be able to sleep for long periods, others won’t. ‘Far better to focus on factors that increase your chances of getting to sleep such as a comfortable bed and the right environment rather than obsessing over how many hours you’ll get.’