How to get great sleep
It can feel horrible when you can’t sleep. When it’s long into the night and you’re panicking about how you’re going to get up in the morning. Your mind will probably be racing, you’ll be tense and you’d probably give anything to just settle down. Get great sleep.
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone could help you with this? Step in with some helpful suggestions to help you sleep. You’re in luck, because that’s what I’m here to do right now.
This post will take you through the fundamentals and help you get the best sleep you can. I’ll share some helpful tips and show you where a lot of people go wrong. You’re going to be surprised.
For a lot of people, sleep can be a huge problem. Poor sleep and poor mental health often go hand-in-hand, so let’s tackle them together.
If you think about it, sleep affects everything I cover on the site. Sleeping well can enhance all areas of our lives. It’s that important. I’ve studied sleep and I’ve helped people who have struggled with it, in addition to their wellbeing and mental health.
We’ll start off by looking at what we can do before we settle down, as well as the right sleep environment. We’ll then move on to what happens if we can’t sleep and more importantly, what happens when we sleep. This is all wrapped up by looking at what we can do if we wake up at the wrong time.
It’s everything you need to know about sleep. As always, when we’re finished I’ll leave you with three easy things you can do right now.
Things to do before we settle down
In our busy lives, most people just expect to stop what they’re doing, climb into bed and magically drift off to sleep and be fully refreshed the next day. That doesn’t always happen though, as there are things we really need to consider every night before we settle down. Things most people overlook.
A simple awareness of the following can make a huge difference. This is your route to sleeping well.
Think about what’s going on in your body
It helps to think of our bodies as a huge chemistry set when it comes to sleep. If we’re stressed and anxious, horrible chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline will build up, and they don’t help us sleep.
As well as making us alert and anxious, they also work against the natural chemicals, like serotonin and melatonin, that naturally build up during the day and then make us sleepy and drowsy in the evening, when it’s time to shut down.
You probably know that the blue light from screens, even with night modes enabled, isn’t a friend of these helpful chemicals either.
If someone is working late and decides to go straight to bed, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to just instantly relax and drift off to sleep. Their mind will be racing and the body will still effectively be encouraging it.
All of this suggests we need to have some winding down time. To do things that helps us relax and get in the right frame of mind.
Think about a pre-sleep routine
My suggestions would include listening to relaxing music, meditation or a mindful practice and perhaps taking a bath. Things that aren’t going to stimulate the mind and body. We want to do things that are likely to release helpful chemicals into our bodies, like endorphins, that will help us relax and hopefully, undo any of the effects of stress we experience.
Reading could help, but we need to make sure it’s the right kind of reading. As I’ve mentioned, blue light from our devices can disrupt the chemicals that encourage us to sleep. The wrong type of content is also unhelpful.
A lot of what we consume online is attention engineered. It’s designed to get us hooked and keep coming back. This obviously isn’t good when it comes to sleep. It’s designed to give us a hit of dopamine, a natural high that encourages us to repeat a behaviour to get more.
This isn’t good when it comes to sleep. Going beyond reading, I’d avoid anything on a screen that wants you to get excited and keep coming back. This could include serialised TV shows, games and pretty much all social media. Personally, I think reading a physical book or using a device like a Kindle is perfect.
Exercise a few hours before settling down can also be great for sleep. Just think how you feel after you’ve been moving. You’ll probably be relaxed and your body will feel warm and loose. Chemicals will also be released that should disrupt the effects of stress and help you wind down. It’s a great way to prepare the body for sleep.
Our sleep chemistry lesson isn’t over though. Now we’ve explored what’s going on in our bodies, we need to look at what we’re putting into them that can stop us sleeping well.
Think about things that keep us awake
Caffeine is an obvious place to start. Most people don’t realise It can take up to 6-10 hours for it to be full out of the body. Personally, I try to avoid coffee after 3pm. A lot of people forget that tea contains caffeine as well as soft drinks, like cola. I shouldn’t have to tell you that energy drinks don’t help sleep at all.
As I’m writing this, it’s morning and I have a coffee beside me. I can feel the effects, and it’s what I want when I’m trying to write. I don’t want that buzz when I’m trying to drift off to sleep though. For me, it’s one of the worst feelings when you’re tired but your mind just won’t shut down. It can be hard enough in normal circumstances, but the caffeine just pushes sleep out of reach.
Another thing people forget is that tea and coffee can have a diuretic effect. They make you urinate more frequently. This can obviously disrupt sleep.
Another thing to try and avoid is nicotine before you sleep. Although it feels like it’s soothing those who smoke, it’s another stimulant. In addition to keeping you awake, these stimulants can also affect the quality of the sleep you get. I’ll explore what happens when we sleep later in this post.
We can also naturally overstimulate ourselves by exercising far too late in the evening. Although I’ve mentioned how good movement could be for sleep a few hours or more before settling down, working out too late in the evening could have the opposite effect.
Intense exercise within 90 minutes of settling down will usually act as a stimulant.
It will make you alert, adrenaline is likely to be released and your body will take time to wind down. Gentle movement, like yoga, might be ok though, but I’d always leave it at least an hour until you settle down just to be sure.
So now we’ve explored how we can prepare ourselves for sleep, let’s look at things we can do when it’s time to sleep and we get into bed. Things that should lead to great sleep.
Your sleep environment
The place where we sleep is so important. We need to feel safe, secure and comfortable. There’s something we need to address before we go on though.
When I speak to people about sleep, and particularly their sleep environment, I often get a list of problems that prevent people sleeping. They often include noisy neighbours or people in the house, seagulls and other animals or bright street lights.
While I understand how frustrating these things can be, they often have one thing in common. We can’t do anything about them. I know this sounds harsh, but on some level they often need to be accepted. Resistance against them is likely to make the situation worse in terms of sleep.
Remember what I’ve said about sleep chemicals. If you can, focus on the things you can control.
Think about noise
In terms of noise, do what you can to keep things as quiet as possible. Think hard about things you can do to help with this. Things you can control. A good place to start is any devices that are likely to spring to life in the night. That whooshing sound when you receive a marketing email around 3am is not worth losing sleep over and can be easy to avoid.
Think about light
The less light the better. Dimming, or even turning off the lights before bed can help. All life on Earth has evolved to adapt to circadian rhythms, the difference between night and day. It’s essential to make our sleep environment as dark as we can. Remember, we’re hard wired to start to wake when it gets light.
I remember a time when I kept my old MacBook in sleep mode all the time. This was a model from the mid-2000s though, when they thought it would be helpful to include a light on the charging cable that constantly pulsated. I found out the hard way how that affected the quality of my sleep. It wasn’t good.
One quick tip if you have any electrical items or power supplies that light up is getting blackout stickers to cover them. Trust me, they can help. Blackout curtains can also help you control light levels in the room. Finally, lights that can be dimmed can make a difference.
Think about the temperature
When we’ve looked at all of this, we should then consider the temperature of the room. I’ll leave it to you to work out what you’re comfortable with. Again, focus on what you can control. Heating or cooling the room before you settle down could help. You should also think about what windows you can open. The right sheets for the time of year can also make a huge difference.
Remember, dark, quiet and cool. That will really help you get great sleep.
Now it’s time to explore the bit most people will need, and hopefully come to rely on. What we can do if we can’t sleep.
Things to do if you can’t sleep
As we touched on at the start. It can be horrible when we just can’t sleep. For some people though, it’s just the way things are. To help everyone, I’d like to share some handy tips that can turn things around in this situation.
Write things down
The first tip I’d like to share is for those horrible nights when we have things on our minds. When we can’t settle. The good news, as I like to remind people, is that we learned to write thousands of years after we learned to talk and of course, think and worry. The process of writing helps us structure our thoughts. When you’re having a sleepless night, it’s usually an emotive mess.
I always keep a notepad close to my bed. I call it my sleep pad. Just writing down the things that are bothering you should help you structure your thoughts and help the mind move on. Better still, you can give yourself a place marker. A time and a place where you’re going to address what’s bothering you. This should help you close the open loops and let the mind move on.
I’ll link to some of my other content that can help you with this at the end.
Remember what’s happening in your body
One thing I always like to remind myself in situations like this, is that we will feel better after sleep. At the end of the day, we’re tired. Unhelpful chemicals have built up in the body and the brain that are naturally flushed out with sleep. We’ve also used up a lot of our energy, particularly the glucose we need to draw on when we need willpower. Sleep helps replenish all of this.
Before I became aware of all of this. I didn’t notice how anxious I was becoming as I prepared for bed. How my mood would lower when I was trying to get to sleep. How I was ruminating. This inevitably led to huge difficulties getting to sleep.
The more I learned about sleep and what goes on in our bodies, the more I understood this process. I gained an understanding. An awareness that I was not in a place where I could feel good and make the best decisions. That it would literarily be different in the morning after I had slept.
I could distance myself from this. Be mindful. Know what was happening and not let it take over. It’s always helped me sleep since then.
Take a break
Another thing we can do is just take a break. If you’ve been lying there for some time, get up. Do some of those relaxing things I mentioned in the last section. The more we push back, get frustrated and start doing all the calculations of how much sleep we’ll get, the more those stress chemicals take hold.
Try to accept what’s happening. Stop fighting and do your best to relax.
Researchers at the University of Glasgow conducted an interesting study. They worked with two groups of people who were struggling to sleep. Half of them were told to do everything they could to stay awake, while in bed and not doing anything else, and the other half were encouraged to go to sleep.
To their surprise, the group who were asked to stay awake had more success sleeping.
If you think about it, it makes sense. It’s actually quite tiring keeping your eyes open, so a lot of people in this group soon fell asleep. Remember this next time you’re tossing and turning.
What happens when we sleep
Now we’ve looked at everything we should think about before we drift off, let’s look at our actual sleep. So many people don’t know what happens as we head through the night. Understanding this is essential though if we want to get the best night’s sleep we can.
As we sleep, we go through cycles. This is a fascinating process that will highlight all the amazing things sleep does for us. It also drives home the importance of great sleep.
Sleep cycles
We start with a brief cycle called N1 sleep, that lasts around 10 mins, where we drift off to sleep. This only happens once. It’s important though, as the body and mind transition into a state of sleep. It’s not uncommon for you to hear things or suddenly be jolted awake without realising you were asleep. Don’t worry if this happens, it’s natural.
We then enter N2 sleep. This is where our bodies start to relax, but the mind will experience sudden bursts of activity. These are called ‘sleep spindles’.
We then enter the N3 stage, or deep sleep. This is where the mind is as inactive as it can be, just doing enough to keep the body going. In this stage, growth hormones are released if we’re young and the body essentially repairs itself if needed. This is where our immune systems go to work.
Deep sleep is so important, as it’s where the body rests and restores itself.
After this period, the mind gets active again. We enter REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. This is where we really start dreaming. Although we actually dream throughout all the stages, the process is more intense here, and we’re likely to remember them when we wake.
The mind is almost as active as when we are awake but the body is paralysed, except for our eyes. This stops us acting out our dreams and hurting ourselves or anyone around us. Our eyes move rapidly as we look at all those amazing things we’re dreaming of, hence the name, Rapid Eye Movement.
This stage is important. Although we don’t fully understand the dreaming process, we know what it does for us. It enhances creativity. Our minds essentially make sense of what we’ve experienced, as emotions are processed. It also helps us consolidate memories. This is all essential.
Eventually, our minds quieten down and we start to move back to N2 sleep and then the deeper N3 stage. Each cycle lasts around 90 mins and they repeat. The time of each cycle will vary though. At the start of our sleep, the restorative, deep cycles are longer and then we dream more in REM towards the end.
Understanding these cycles can really make a difference. The first thing that’s clear is that we need to get a full night’s sleep if we can. We need to go through multiple cycles.
How much sleep you need
You’re probably expecting me to tell you how much sleep you need now, but I can’t do that.
While most people will need between 7-8 hours, we’re all different. Some people will get by on less. I always like to remind people of a study conducted by the researcher Ray Meddis. He found that one lady he studied appeared to only need around an hour of sleep to get by.
While his team assumed she was just very chatty during the first night of their study, it turned out that she didn’t appear to need more sleep. They of course conducted tests that didn’t reveal any obvious problems.
This was by far a very rare case, but I think it shows you why some people can get by on less sleep. Just don’t expect the same thing to apply to you.
A great way to get an idea of how much you need is to experiment at a time when you don’t have to get up for anything. Stay up until you’re tired and then see when you wake over the course of a couple of days. This could also give you an indication of whether you are a lark, preferring the mornings, or a night owl. Again, we’re all different.
Understanding your sleep cycles
The key thing for me is trying to work out where your natural sleep cycles are. If you’re waking up really groggy and struggle to arise, your alarm might be going off in the deep N3 phase. If this happens, it’s going to take some time to shake it off and be fully awake.
Similarly, if you wake up during vivid dreams and don’t really know where you are, your alarm is probably going off during REM sleep. The perfect time to wake is just after this phase has ended and we’re starting to enter the N2 cycle again. You should feel so much better if you can wake up at this point,
Try to work out where you are based on this, and counting down the roughly 90 minute cycles.
Top performers, like solo rowers and endurance racing drivers will use this technique to be as refreshed as they can with significantly less sleep. Just be aware that this is only for short-term use though. A long-term lack of sleep will catch up with you and create a lot of problems.
Things that disrupt sleep cycles
Another thing we need to consider is how these sleep cycles can be disrupted. You may think this is about waking up, but even sound asleep we can do things that reduce the quality of our sleep.
Alcohol is the perfect example. If we’ve had a lot to drink, we’re likely to become dehydrated. This will make us uncomfortable and will probably prevent us from going as deep as we normally do in N3 sleep. Alcohol will also affect REM sleep and generally give us a lighter and less comfortable night’s sleep.
Eating a lot late in the evening can also affect these cycles. Your body will need to devote resources to digesting all that food, so it wont be able to fully enter the deep N3 stages. Too much liquid will obviously disrupt sleep cycles as well, as we’ll have to wake up for obvious reasons.
I’m not saying you have to avoid these things, just that you need to be aware that you’re unlikely to feel good the next day if you’ve overindulged. It’s definitely worth remembering if there are things you need to do.
So, we’ve explored what to do before sleep and as we settle down. We’ve also looked at what happens while we sleep. But what if we wake up during the night.
Things to do if you wake up in the night
It can be horrible when you wake up in the night. It’s even worse when you’re woken up by something or someone. You’ll be frustrated, and that’s going to make things worse.
Remember what we’ve discovered about stress chemicals and sleep.
We should also remember that thing about acceptance. One of the big mistakes people make when they wake in the night is to look at their clock. This will probably lead them to count down the hours until they have to wake, and that starts a whole cycle of negative thoughts.
My advice is to keep your eyes closed. Opening them up combined with the light you’ll need to look at the time will probably start waking you up. Just accept that your alarm will go off at the right time and relax back into sleep. You’ll find this really works well.
I think we can draw on this when we’re struggling to sleep as well. Stop trying to work out the hours, stop resisting it and stop producing stress chemicals.
If you wake up and it takes time to go back to sleep though, just take a break in the same way we spoke about earlier.
So that’s it, you can sleep now. You have some things you can do before settling down, tips to improve your sleep environment and a sound understanding of what happens when we sleep and what to do if you wake up.
After learning all of this myself, there are two things that have really helped me.
Firstly, understanding what’s going on in my body has not only transformed the way I look at sleep, but the way I look at mental health. I hadn’t realised how I was ruminating just before bed. Letting all those negative thoughts take over. I’d then find myself lying awake worrying about things.
Just that awareness of what was happening made a difference. I came to see that in many respects, it didn’t represent my reality. Just a tired brain and body that couldn’t fight back at that time.
I knew things would be different in the morning, when I’d slept and my brain and body were fresh. I also learned to respect sleep. I saw how important it was and why we need to go through those cycles. They would help me feel better. They would help me be better.
So now, to get great sleep just do these three easy things:
Create a pre-sleep ritual that suits you
Carefully consider your sleep environment
Work out how much sleep you’re likely to need each night
Thanks so much for reading this and I hope it helps. I’m sure you’ll soon see what great sleep can do for you. If you’d like to take it further though, the links below will take you to more of my content that relates to what we’ve explored here:
Remember to follow using the form below. There’s a lot more on the way.