Change as good as a rest
A study shows that a 10pm bedtime is best, but only if you can get off to sleep...
When’s your bedtime? All over the shop? Join the club… But according to a new study, getting to sleep between 10-11pm could be the sweet spot, at least when it comes to heart health. The research found there was a 12% higher risk of cardiovascular disease amongst those with a 11-11:59pm bedtime, 25% higher for those who sleep at midnight or later, and 24% higher for pre-10pm sleepers.
If sleep is an ongoing struggle, chances are you’ve already read a billion ‘sleep hygiene’ tips and know all the things you ‘should’ be doing – yet the perfect night’s sleep is still out of reach. So, now what?
Take the pressure off
Perfect sleep? It doesn’t exist. So while you may really want to nail your sleep routine, taking the pressure off is important – especially if you’re feeling trapped in a cycle of insomnia.
“If you take a ‘normal’ person’s sleep, it’s not perfect all the time,” says Dr Guy Meadows of Sleep School (sleepschool.org). “The reality is that normal sleep is disturbed for a multitude of reasons, whether that’s a stressful day, aches and pains, whatever.”
Meadows reassures though, this is not about blaming yourself. Human brains are designed to identify sources of worry and getting into an anxious cycle with it is very normal. The trouble is, this can put is in a state of hyperarousal – aka our own personal sleep-blocker. We can also begin to obsess about it.
“You might be lying in bed going, ‘Well I’ve had the perfect bedtime routine, I’ve done the yoga, I’ve done the meditation, etc’ – and inadvertently what happens is, it puts sleep on a pedestal.
That just heightens people’s anxiety and alertness,” explains Meadows.
Take the focus off bedtime
“When someone starts to struggle with sleep, they often begin to worry about it during the daytime and dread nighttime coming,” says Dr Lindsay Browning, sleep expert for And So To Bed (andsotobed.co.uk/drlindsay-browning).
There are some lifestyle adjustments that can be genuinely useful, Browning notes – such as reducing caffeine intake, and doing something that’s physically and emotionally relaxing before bed, like a nice warm bath.
Increasingly your daytime exercise could help too. “The more you exercise, the more deep sleep you will have. Deep sleep helps you feel refreshed when you wake up and helps with sleep continuity.” (Just don’t do it too close to bedtime, as this may be
“disruptive to sleep”.)
Time to ACT
The Sleep School pros are pioneers of a system called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which aims to slowly shift away from fixating on the sleep struggle,.
Meadows says one of the key components of ACT is “present moment awareness”, so accepting we’re having a bad night’s sleep, but trying to avoid freaking out about it.
So even when you’re knackered, Meadows suggests you say: “I am in a bad place with sleep right now but that doesn’t mean I’m going to completely not care about the things that are important for my health. I am shattered so I might not go for that big run, but I’ll go for a walk around the block.”
Meadows also notes there’s even research on how little acts of self-kindness during the day can help – like a 10-minute walk, making a nourishing lunch and watching a movie – which “might seem relatively mundane and small, [but] they actually help to promote a better mental environment from which sleep can emerge”, says Meadows.
Put that phone away (or at least try)
“Instead of simply saying, ‘Don’t touch your phone’, start by taking small steps to become less dependent on it at night,” suggests Browning. “Turn on ‘do not disturb’ and make sure that’s set to come on at the same time each evening an hour or so before bedtime. If you’re nervous about family not being able to contact about emergencies, most phones allow for this to be set to allow certain contacts through.
“Invest in an alarm clock,” Browning adds, “so the phone can be placed somewhere else, rather than next to the bed. Lastly, break the habit of your phone being the
last thing you look at before bed and get into the habit of reading a book or magazine instead.”