Follow these 10 rules to get a perfect night’s sleep

Follow our 10 rules for a blissful night’s sleep and reap the many health benefits, says Peta Bee.

Sleep is essential to health and wellness. It revives and heals us, yet many of us believe we are deprived of our nightly shut-eye to the extent that it is affecting our health.

A recent study by the cross-border agency Safefood showed that almost eight in 10 shift workers — that’s anyone who works outside the traditional 9am to 5pm day — said they weren’t getting enough sleep.

Regardless of the time you work, we all need to get good quality sleep to thrive. Here, we present the new sleep rules:

Rule 1: Ignore the 8-hour myth

If you failed to get the eight-hours, widely held up as the gold standard of sleep accumulation, it doesn’t matter. “It’s both a myth and unhelpful misinformation,” says Professor Kevin Morgan, director of the clinical sleep research unit at Loughborough University in Britain.

“Sleep durations vary widely among individuals and large population surveys show over 70% of adults report they ‘typically’ sleep 6.5 to 8.4 hours a night. But sleep durations outside of this range could also be regarded as ‘normal’.”

Rule 2: If you wake up refreshed you’ve had enough sleep

Around half of people who think they have sleep problems are actually amassing a “perfectly adequate” six or more hours a night.

“Unfortunately, people are really quite bad at identifying if they’ve had enough sleep,” says Elise Facer-Childs, a sleep researcher at the University of Birmingham’s school of biosciences.

“They are also quite poor at judging whether they have a performance deficit because of a lack of sleep.”

Activity monitors with sleep-tracking modes (like FitBit and Jawbone) claim to provide a tally of the hours you spend asleep, but in reality they only measure lack of motion, assuming you are asleep when you are still.

“Ultimately, the best way to tell you are getting enough sleep is if you wake up feeling refreshed every morning and don’t need an alarm clock,” says Morgan.

Rule 3: Teenagers do need more sleep

The flux of sleep-needs across our lifespan sees the requirement generally drop from early childhood, but spike again during the teens. “Despite the common label of being ‘lazy’ placed on teenagers, there is in fact a biological need for more sleep during puberty,” says Andrew Bagshaw, a researcher in imaging neuroscience and sleep at the University of Birmingham.

“Growth hormones are released overnight which means there does seem to be this bump of extra sleep needed around adolescence.”

Studies suggest that the average teenager needs eight-and-a-half to nine-and- a-half hours of sleep each night. However, few actually get that amount. A study by the US National Sleep Foundation a couple of years ago revealed that two in three teens were severely sleep-deprived, losing two or more hours of sleep every night.

Rule 4: No electronic gadgets allowed

A lack of sleep can be biological, but also down to lifestyle habits, particularly the use of electronic gadgets like computers or mobile phones just before bedtime.

Not only is the use of electronics at night eating into sleep time, but it is thought that bright light from screens can interfere with the body’s natural rhythms, confusing the brain about when to sleep and when to wake.

A Norwegian study of 10,000 young people published in the British Medical Journal Open last year found those with screen time of more than four hours a day were three-and-a-half times more likely to sleep fewer than five hours at night.

Rule 5: Have a weekend lie-in 

After a hectic week of working, commuting and ferrying the kids there is nothing more appealing than the weekend lie-in. Is it a bad thing?

“If you’ve accumulated a sleep-debt during the week, then it’s natural, and probably beneficial, to catch up at weekends,” says Bagshaw. Up to a point. Surviving on very little sleep from Monday to Friday, only to stay in bed until 12pm on Saturday is not advisable.

“If we change our sleep patterns too much between week days and weekends, we create more problems for ourselves,” says Facer-Childs. “We desynchronize our body clocks through ‘social jet-lag’ which leads to those familiar Monday-morning blues when we face work again.” A few extra hours in the leaba is fine, just don’t overdo it.

Rule 6: Power nap

Catching up on sleep with naps during the day is helpful for many people — the elderly, obese people whose sleep apnoea keeps them awake, exhausted new mothers, the overly tired and stressed — who miss out on getting enough sleep at night.

However, the advice is to restrict them to no longer than 30 minutes duration. Longer than that and you risk entering ‘slow wave sleep’ or even rapid-eye-movement sleep from which it will be difficult to arouse. Nap for an hour and you are likely to feel groggy when you wake up.

Rule 7: Avoid alcohol

Drinking is something to avoid if you struggle with sleep — even a couple of drinks can send you straight into deep sleep, missing out on the usual first stage of rapid eye movement sleep. It’s why you can wake up feeling exhausted after a night out.

Rule 8: Eat a sleep-friendly diet

In 2016, a study from Purdue University in Louisiana reported how dieters who changed their eating habits not only lost weight, but found the duration and quality of their sleep also got better. It seems that the increased protein was significant, as dieters who lost the same amount of weight on other plans during the 16-week trial did not experience sleep improvements. Not all carbs are bad.

The Sleep Council (UK), a trade association, recommends a ‘sleep sandwich’ of banana (rich in magnesium and potassium which helps relax muscles), marmite (rich in B vitamins which assist the release of tryptophan in the brain) and lettuce.

Or try two kiwi fruit, rich in the relaxing hormone serotonin, an hour before bedtime — a practice found to help people fall asleep 35% faster after four weeks.

Rule 9: Perfect your sleep posture

Sammy Margo, author of The Good Sleep Guide, says that back ache, neck and shoulder stiffness and poor standing posture can all be a result of a less than optimal sleep position.

“A healthy spine has a natural S-shape when you are standing up,” Margo says. “And that is also the best shape for your spine when you’re asleep.”

More than 40% of us tend to sleep on our sides which is fine as long as your hips and neck are supported by appropriate bedding. Choose a supportive mattress that enhances good spine alignment and distributes pressure evenly throughout your body.

Rule 10: Change your pillow

Old, floppy pillows should be discarded. “If you sleep on your back, your spine is forced into an unnatural position,” says Margo. “A good tip is to place a pillow under your knees to maintain the natural curves of your spine.”