Reset your body clock for a dreamy night’s sleep
NOW, more than ever, people seem to be finding getting a good night’s sleep a real challenge. It helps to understand that sleep is one of a number of functions performed by the body in what scientists call our circadian rhythm.
Think of that like a natural, internal body clock that repeats in line with each rotation of the earth roughly every 24 hours.
you might have considered yourself a good sleeper before the pandemic but struggle now; perhaps sleep problems you found manageable previously are making life really difficult.
Lockdown, for many, has thrown that circadian rhythm — which relies on us doing the same thing at about the same time each day — out of kilter.
Look at how our day-to-day lives are playing out. Most of us are working from home, meaning we’re less tied to the alarm clock and can wake later without having to fit in a commute.
There’s no school run, mealtimes can be more fluid, working hours can drag on. That all-important internal body clock doesn’t know which way is up any more.
Clients have also been telling me that, through feeling miserable or sheer boredom, they’ve been going to bed earlier since this third lockdown began.
But they’re not tired enough to sleep, so they end up lying awake for hours telling themselves they’ve developed insomnia.
The very idea of that stresses them out, meaning their brains start producing the stress hormone cortisone, which sets their hearts pounding and their thoughts racing. And that only makes it even harder for them to get to sleep.
Or perhaps they do drift off into a blissful slumber, only to wake up seven or eight hours later in the early hours of the morning.
The problem people in that scenario face is that there is only so much sleep a person can achieve in any 24-hour period — if you’ve had your sleep quota for the night, just much earlier, your brain isn’t able to say: ‘ That’s OK, have some more.’
So, how do you get a good sleep pattern back? Actually, it’s easier than you might think.
First, let’s think about how that cycle of sleeping and wakefulness works. Try to picture a homemade swing, a little plank suspended on two ropes from the branch of a tree. Now, imagine pushing a child on that swing. With each push you give them you add to their momentum, and each push carries them higher.
The higher they go, the faster the swing goes as they come down again and the momentum carries them further up the other side.
But if you stop pushing them they will gradually lose momentum and, little by little, the swing will get lower and lower and eventually will come to a halt.
Pushing a child on a swing is a gentle process. All we need to do is give the child a little push at the right time, just as they are beginning to swing down again.
But think of what happens if you get your timing wrong. If you leave it too late, the child is accelerating away from you and you almost have to run after them to push at all — and you have hardly any effect.
Or if you try to start pushing too soon, you feel the weight of the child against you and the child comes to a sudden halt.
even the simplest swing can get out of time, and it can get quite complicated if your bid to correct it adds another spin.
your sleep cycle is like that swing — and its rhythm has been disrupted.
But we can get a good rhythm going again with three good, big pushes.