Sophie Bostock 2

How much sleep do i need?

Sleep is a biological characteristic, just like your height or your shoe size. So everyone is different. Now, experts recommend that adults need between seven and nine hours sleep for optimal health and functioning, but it's kind of a bell-shaped curve. So most people are going to fit squarely in that seven to nine hour bracket. But there are a number of people at extremes who can get by and thrive on a little bit less, whereas there are others who are going to need a little bit more. So, for example, if you are an extreme athlete, you might find that you need more than nine hours sleep on a regular basis. You really need enough sleep so that you can wake up feeling refreshed and you have enough energy to get through the day without relying on caffeine or sugar to keep you going and without having to have a lion at the weekends to catch up.

What happens if I don't get enough sleep?

Everyone knows the feeling when you haven't had enough sleep, and in the short term, it's nothing serious. We get a bit more irritable, maybe a bit more forgetful. We might have difficulty focusing during the day, and we just lack energy. Now, for most people, you're going to bounce back pretty quickly after a couple of nights of recovery sleep. But I think the real problem with not getting enough sleep is when that persists over weeks or months at a time. And then lack of sleep can influence absolutely everything in your life. It influences your mental function, your emotional health, your physical health. Sleep is absolutely fundamental to life. So you can think of any area of your life, and if you are persistently not getting enough sleep, that thing is going to become harder. Whether it's focusing at work, being kind and empathetic to your family, whether it's being sort of fit and healthy and speedy on the sports field, whether it's just staying well and having a healthy immune function, or whether it's managing your diet and making sensible choices about your health, sleep helps us to get the best out of life.

How can I get a better nights sleep?

How can you get a bed night's sleep? That is a big question. There are so many ways that you can improve your sleep, and some of them are so small and subtle and simple. It really doesn't have to be hard. But if I had to pick a few quick and easy things that you can do to sleep better tomorrow, for example, first one would be waking up at the same time each morning. That really helps to regulate your body clocks. As soon as you have the same sleep wake routine, your body learns to anticipate when you're going to wake up, when you're going to feel sleepy, and your hormonal patterns will support that. So for example, two hours before your usual bedtime, your brain will start to produce melatonin that makes you feel sleepy. But if there's a lot of bright light around, that's going to interfere with the melatonin and it's going to interfere with the process of going to sleep. So in addition to having a regular sleep and wake routine, think about your exposure to light dimm the lights before bed, but conversely in the morning, get loads of natural light. If you can get outside so much, the better. Outside natural light is so much more intense, has a much more positive alerting signal than interior artificial light. Okay, so sleep weight rhythms, managing your exposure to light. And then I guess an important part as well as limiting light before bed is just to think about what you are doing. Winding down is not just something that's for kids. Most adults rush around at 300 miles an hour all day, and then they switch out the light and wonder why they can't sleep. And there is so much sort of processing that your brain needs to do to be able to switch off. So think about slowing down. Think about having a wind down routine. Just a few simple things that you repeat in the same order each night that queue up your brain and your body that it's going to be time to sleep. Soon they'll do for a stop. They'll.

What is insomnia?

What can cause insomnia?