Sleep Hygiene Part 1
Sleep Hygiene
But what actually is Sleep Hygiene?
It is a series of basic practices and good habits that are put in place to promote optimal sleep. These can be broken into several categories:
- Environmental factors
- Scheduling
- Physiological factors
I’ll talk through each of these points with various hints and tips on small things to change to help you get the best night’s sleep.
There are a lot of suggestions within this blog, and that is all they are, suggestions. Some you will read and think you can easily adapt them into your daily life, and others will seem unachievable. The whole point of these blogs is to provide you with options, for you to go away and find a combination that works for you. So grab a pen and paper and start making some changes.
Physiological factors
Exercise – as little as 10 minutes of aerobic exercise per day, walking or cycling, but avoid strenuous exercise close to bedtime.
Daylight exposure – make sure you get exposure to sunlight during the day as this is a key driver for circadian rhythms, this is more difficult in winter but just as important. So, make sure you get outside every day. It is also important for a healthy sleep-wake cycle, so aim to flood the bedroom with early morning light by opening curtains early.
Food – avoid foods which are heavy, rich, fatty, fried, or spicy foods or citrus or carbonated drinks before bedtime. There are a few reasons for this, this first is that these foods often cause heartburn and if you are prone to this it can often be worse at night, which will affect your sleep. The other reason is that by consuming these foods before bed your digestive system is setting up to go to work, this level of activity will not allow your body to fully rest as you still need to digest the food, meaning even if you manage to fall asleep it won’t be a deep and restful sleep as your internal processes are still working overtime to digest such heavy food.
Avoid Stimulants –
- Do not smoke – nicotine stimulates the body in a way that disrupts sleep and has been linked with numerous sleeping problems.
- Reduce alcohol consumption – Moderation is key here, whilst alcohol can help you fall asleep, your body must work harder to break it down and this can disrupt your sleep.
- Have a deadline on caffeine – Caffeine acts to block the neurotransmitter Adenosine. The role of Adenosine in the body is when it gets to a certain concentration it tells the body to rest, during rest the adenosine levels lower. Caffeine works to block the body reading the levels of this chemical, these levels continue to rise as there is nothing telling the body to rest and lower these levels, so when the caffeine wears off you suddenly get hit by these very high levels of Adenosine telling you rest (this is the principle behind the caffeine crash and why it becomes a vicious cycle to drink more coffee to get through the day). Caffeine half life can vary but an average healthy person is 5/6 hours, which means after 5 hours the amount of caffeine consumed has been halved. So, for you to go to bed without any caffeine inhibiting your sleep you should aim to deadline your caffeine intake between noon and 2pm. Move onto de-caffe and increasing your water intake will help aid your sleep.
Naps – naps can be a vital tool in helping to reenergise you and lower your levels of Adenosine, which gives you more energy. Try to limit your naps to one per day. There is a key to napping (trust me years of pulling over in laybys on long drives taught me the best practice for naps!), firstly do not get too comfortable, so do not go to bed, nap in a chair or on the sofa (or car seat), leave a window open to keep the room cool and the curtains open to keep the room light. The ideal length of time is 90mins for a nap (the length of a complete sleep cycle) however this is often too long for during the day, so anytime less than an hour is good, aim for between 20 to 45mins. If you close your eyes and do not fall asleep within 10mins then try not to force a nap as that is your bodies way of saying it does not need one.
Scheduling – this is an important aspect of your sleep hygiene and its about creating a routine. This will help your body start to recognise when its bedtime, create a time for you to wake up and go to sleep, by training your body this way it will then get into a cycle of releasing melatonin at a particular time making getting to sleep easier. Which means even at weekends or when your schedule is in upheaval (can you say pandemic?!) you need to try and keep to your routine. Your body does not know what day it is so trying to have a late night and lie in at the weekend will confuse the cycle and stop you getting into the routine of melatonin release, meaning the sleep you do get won’t be as good a quality as it would be being in a routine.
Things you can do to help you with your routine include creating an environment conducive to sleep, I’ll look at these in the environmental factors. However, creating routines are also important, for example if you always clean your teeth, do your skin care, go to the toilet then head to bed, your body will start to recognise these patterns as a pre-cursor to sleep and start to release melatonin to help you get ready for sleep. Make sure you have a regular schedule and really get into a routine with this. Some other suggestions to help you find a routine include a good skin care routine, having a warm (not hot) shower/bath, reading or journaling, light stretching, or 10 minutes of meditation are great ways to start winding down and get your ready for bed and good for your mental health.
Sit down with a piece of paper and try to work out a good routine that you are going to stick to. You can always start small and once the habits have formed you can then add on more habits to help you. This is called habit stacking.
Also try to avoid having emotionally upsetting conversations close to bedtime as these will play on your mind and stop your brain from switching off. If you are someone who has a very active brain, then try leaving a notepad and pencil by your bed, the act of writing down your thoughts will mean you will not have to try and hold on to them in order not to forget them, which will allow your brain to switch off, leading to a better night’s sleep.
Another thing to try and change is to only use your bed for sleep, so do not use it for watching TV or for eating. This means your brain will start to associate the bed with sleep.
The more things you can put in place to try and get your brain into the habit of sleep, whether a routine, or the setting, the more likely it will be for you to fall asleep quicker and have a much better quality of sleep when you do.
I've covered quite a lot in the first part of my sleep hygiene blog. so I'm going to stop here and give you time to process this and start to make some changes to your existing habits. Let me know in the comments if any of the suggestions are ones you think you can adapt to your own bedtime routine.
There is more to come so watch this space for Sleep Hygiene Part 2.
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