How do you sleep when the clocks go forward?

Spring officially arrives this Sunday when the clocks leap forward. However, losing an hour’s sleep makes some of us feel uneasy, especially individuals with long sleep onset latency (SOL) – that is, those who take a long time to fall asleep. The good news, whether you consider yourself a good sleeper or an insomniac, is that a few simple changes can significantly reduce the time it takes to fall asleep.

Allison Harvey and colleagues at Oxford University have conducted a number of studies to find the difference between what insomniacs and good sleepers think about before falling asleep. Insomniacs produce fewer images, and more of them are negative. Insomniacs also think more about how they’re going to fall asleep; they’re more aware of the sounds around them; and according to Stephen Haynes at Southern Illinois University, they’re more physically aroused – for example, they have a higher resting heart rate.

The solution, then, is simple: banish your negative thoughts and relax. This sounds straightforward, but it’s actually quite difficult.

It won’t work, for example, simply to tell yourself not to think negative thoughts. Paul Salkovskis and Patricia Campbell at Oxford monitored naturally occurring intrusive thoughts in volunteers, then asked them either to suppress those thoughts or think about something else. Those who thought about other things reported fewer intrusive thoughts, whereas those who tried to repress their thoughts actually experienced more of them.

Haynes and colleagues invited insomniacs and good sleepers to spend five nights in their sleep lab. Each night they measured SOL objectively, while also asking participants to estimate the time it took them to fall asleep. On the first three nights, all participants were allowed to sleep undisturbed. On the fourth and fifth nights, however, everyone was played an audiotape just after falling asleep in which they were asked to perform difficult arithmetic tasks. On those last two nights, the good sleepers took longer to fall asleep than on the first three nights, whereas insomniacs fell asleep relatively more quickly.

It seems distraction in whatever form helps insomniacs escape their worries. However, images are best, as Harvey found when she told insomniacs they’d have to give a speech the next day. As they fell asleep, she asked some to think about what they’d say; others to picture themselves giving the speech. Those asked to create images fell asleep faster and woke more relaxed than verbalisers.

Here, then, is how to help you fall asleep quickly this coming Saturday night:

Allow time for a relaxing bedtime routine – a warm shower, soothing music, dimmed lighting.

Once in bed, don’t try NOT to think negative thoughts – you’ll only think about them more.

Create specific pleasant images, for example a perfect summer day.

Finally, if going to bed an hour earlier feels too big a change, start the pullback on Wednesday and go to bed 15 minutes earlier each night.