Good morning and happy Wednesday, I’ve got something slightly different today, some information about one of my favourite subjects; sleep. If you’ve been reading my Couch to Half Marathon weekly updates you will have probably noticed that I’m a fan of a nap. Since starting my new job in June, I’ve been struggling waking up and getting out of bed at 5:30am. Although I try to go to bed no later than 10:30pm, I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep. I’ve definitely been averaging less than seven hours’ sleep a night.

The 10 Commandments of Good Sleep, drawn up by one of Britain’s top sleep gurus – Professor Jason Ellis of Northumbria University – were recently released by The Sleep Council. The move comes as a recent survey showed that more than two-thirds of people (67%)* think more education and public health initiatives from the government are needed to promote good sleep health.

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Professor Ellis recently conducted a study on behalf of The Sleep Council with the first phase of the project looking at the link between falling asleep and sleep health. Professor Ellis has reviewed the latest evidence to come up with the ultimate advice for achieving a good night’s sleep.

 The guide is easy to follow and shows how making a few changes to your routine over a 24 hour period can make a large difference to your wellbeing.

These are Professor Ellis’ definitive tips for getting a good night’s sleep:

1. Keep a regular sleep routine. Keeping a regular sleep wake schedule helps the body’s sleep system stay in harmony and promotes feelings of sleepiness and drowsiness when your body is ready for sleep.

2. Get out into natural light. Natural light (even on cloudy days), helps reset our internal body clock. It helps us get over feeling groggy when we have just woken up and makes us more alert. Get out into the natural light as soon as you can after waking up, and preferably around the same time every day.

3. Exercise regularly. Exercise promotes the quantity and quality of your sleep, making it deeper and more refreshing. However, a few studies have shown that exercising too close to bedtime can prevent sleep so we suggest leaving a window of at least two hours before bedtime without exercise.

4. Avoid stimulants eight hours before bedtime. Although there are significant individual differences in how caffeine affects each of us, give yourself enough time between your last caffeine intake and your sleep time to make sure that it does not interfere with your ability to get off to sleep.

5. Don’t go to bed full, hungry or thirsty. Eating at regular times helps strengthen our internal body clock. However, eating a heavy meal before bedtime can make it challenging to sleep at night. Drinking lots of liquid before bed will also increase the chances that we have to go to the bathroom during the night. Conversely, being hungry or thirsty at night can increase the chances of waking up. A balance should be struck between being sated but not full up before we go to bed.

6. Be screen savvy. Using electronic screens just before bed and in the bedroom can keep us awake for longer as the blue light from these devices has the capacity to prevent the hormones that make us sleepy from being produced. Importantly, it is not just the light that can affect our sleep, but most activities that we use our devices for can keep us awake and alert.

7. Don’t use alcohol to sleep. Although alcohol is a sedative, it can have a significant impact on the quality and quantity of your sleep. Our sleep tends to become fragile and light when we have a lot of alcohol in the evening and can lead to lots of awakenings in the latter part of the night and feelings of being unrefreshed during the day.

8. Avoid nicotine before bed. Nicotine is a short-acting stimulant that can keep you awake and so should be avoided in the later part of the evening and during the night if you happen to wake up.

9. Keep your bedroom cool, dark and quiet. Heat, light and noise can impact on our ability to get off to sleep and increase the chances that we wake in the night. Making sure the bedroom is cool, dark and quiet can improve the quality of our sleep as can sleeping on a comfortable, supportive bed.

10. Hide the clock. It is common to watch the clock when we are awake at night. For some of us, this can increase our anxiety levels and further prevent us from being able to fall asleep. It is not necessary to remove the clock altogether as many people rely upon their alarm clocks to get them up in the morning. However, having the clock face out of sight will help reduce any sleep anxiety.

So, I’ve just about nailed numbers 3 and 8, the rest are what I’d describe as a bit a fail and there’s definitely room for improvement. I hope that number 4 is a typo; there’s no way I could stop drinking caffeine eight hours before bedtime i.e. at lunchtime, I love my post-work cup of tea. Finally, I’m not sure how I can achieve number 2. At the moment, I walk to the train station in the dark, and don’t see any natural light until an hour after I’ve woken up.

I hope that you found the information in this blog useful. After reading these tips for getting a good night’s sleep, I can see why I’m feeling tired the vast majority of the time.

* An online survey was conducted by Atomik Research among 2,001 respondents. The research fieldwork took place between the 8th and the 12th of August 2019. Atomik Research is an independent creative market research agency that employs MRS-certified researchers and abides to MRS code. 

**Full disclosure: I didn’t receive any payment for writing this post; I personally found the ‘Ten Commandments of Sleep’ useful and wanted to share them on my blog. For more information about The Sleep Council please check out www.sleepcouncil.org.uk**