Sleep Rules From An Ex-Insomniac

Support Your Happy Hormones

“To cancel out daily stress, you need to encourage healthy levels of your four happy hormones: dopamine, serotonin, endorphin and oxytocin. If you can get these up and running, they’ll feed into each other, keeping you happy and content, and in turn optimising your sleep. In fact, research suggests depression can lead to insomnia and insomnia can lead to depression, with 97% of those who are depressed reporting sleep difficulties. Being outdoors is a big one for me, surrounded by trees and open green spaces. Also great are family chats in front of the fire, an evening with a friend, a new book, a wander round an art gallery or a funny film. These will all reduce your stress chemicals, making it easier for you to sleep well at night.”

Try Listening To A Sleep Script

“This is a powerful sleep habit cue that can shift your sleep pattern for the better. Sleep scripts run through what should be happening in your mind and body as you prepare for sleep. When first sorting out my sleep, I recorded myself reading a short sleep script, and I now set a daily reminder to listen to this at 5pm. A sleep script helps change your thought habits in relation to sleep, but also how you feel, triggering physical and behavioural changes. Even a brief sleep script can become instantly relaxing and the repeated suggestions powerful.”

Read A Book

“Even something as simple as reading a paper book can cut stress by up to 68%, giving your stress chemicals time to subside. A six-minute read is enough to slow the heart rate and relax muscle tension. Reading is also an effective sleep-habit cue and a perfect stepping stone between day and night, helping you to unwind from, and draw a line between, a hectic day and your countdown to sleep.”

Ditch The Nightcap

“Alcohol is often seen as a sleep aid, but it decreases the quality of your sleep. It fragments sleep, meaning you wake up more often during the night, reducing the amount of deep sleep you have, which you need to repair your body from the wear and tear of the day. Alcohol can also block REM dream sleep. Dream sleep is not an add-on luxury that you can take or leave – your dreams are vital for your emotional health and for processing the day’s events. If you want to drink alcohol, your best bet is to drink moderately, earlier in the evening, leaving time for your body to process some of this alcohol and rehydrate with water before sleep. It’s also good to give yourself some nights off from alcohol every week to get the best sleep possible.”

Understand Your Sleep Cycles

“Once you know what goes into creating your sleep-wake cycle and what’s going on specifically with your sleep pattern, you can better understand why things happen. For example, waking in the middle of the night, often around 3am, is a very common sleep issue. The problem is this can become a habit that your brain and body locks into. Knowing the basic biology of sleep is crucial, so you can work with this. It’s perfectly natural to wake up between sleep cycles and being aware of this removes some of the stress that can otherwise make you even more awake. There’s lots that you can do during the day and in the moment that will weaken this pattern. One of the things you can do in the moment is to breathe deeply, as this will strengthen your sleep-promoting neurons.”

If You Can’t Sleep, Stay In Bed

“There are two schools of thought on whether you should get up or stay in bed if you can’t fall asleep. One argues that you should get out of bed and into another room, then return when you feel tired. The other argues that you should stay put. I am in the second camp. Resting in a dark room can be good for us if we relax into it. There’s a blurred line between rest and sleep, and we can use biology-based self-talk to actively help our mind and body get back to sleep.”

Have An ‘Armchair Offload’

“My biggest problem as an insomniac was that my head would be spinning with thoughts the minute I hit the pillow. My mind would start thinking about anything and everything, overriding any exhaustion, leaving me tired but increasingly wired. Try to instil what I call an ‘armchair offload’ before you go to bed – this will empty your mind of unwanted thoughts and help break the bed-is-my-time-to-think association.”

Take A Nap If You Need One

“If you’re someone who can happily nap during the day, it’s no bad thing. See it as a siesta to top up the sleep you had the night before, especially if it was less than seven hours. The general rule is don’t nap for too long or too late. A sleep cycle lasts for around 90 minutes, so if you’ve only managed to have four sleep cycles in the night, you could have another in the day, which would give you a total of seven and a half hours. Alternatively, you might just want a short power nap to keep you going. Either way, try not to nap beyond early/mid-afternoon, as this will weaken your sleep drive too close to bed, so you aren’t tired enough to sleep easily come night-time.” 

Eat The Right Foods At The Right Time

“Chrono-nutrition – which is all about the ideal time to eat certain foods – makes perfect sense in the sleep equation. The consensus is that breakfast should be eaten within two hours of waking, followed by a nutritious, sit-down lunch and an early-ish dinner (7-8pm, if you’re going to bed at 11pm) with a late-night snack at least 30 minutes before bed, if needed. If you can include foods rich in the amino acid tryptophan (found in protein-based foods), this will give you the ingredients you need to create serotonin, which is essential to create sleep-inducing melatonin. Tryptophan foods include meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese and yogurt, and plant foods high in protein such as oats, nuts, chickpeas, soya, beans and lentils. Plus, lunch and dinner need to include protein, vitamins, a small amount of fats, and ideally slow-release carbohydrates. If you want to go one step further, there are also functional foods that are said to carry a sleep-promoting punch. These include wholegrains, kiwi fruit, cherries, maca, walnuts and lettuce.”

Stick To A Routine

“The body relies on routine, as it’s made up of biological clocks that are hard-wired to keep time with the sun and each other, to keep the body running to a 24-hour pattern that includes your sleep-wake cycle. The stronger your routine, the easier it is for those clocks to stay in sync. The more chaotic your routine, the more confused and out of sync the clocks become. In an ideal world, we’d all go to bed and wake up at the exact same time seven days a week. In the real world, if we can try to keep as smooth a routine as we can, without having a dramatically different timetable at the weekend, this will help keep your sleep cycle on track.”

 
Teach Yourself To Sleep by Kate Mikhail is available to buy now. For more information, visit KateMikhail.com
 

DISCLAIMER: Features published by SheerLuxe are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. Always seek the advice of your GP or another qualified healthcare provider for any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health-related programme.