A bad night’s sleep is one of the most common health concerns of modern life, but what can you do about it? Instead of reaching for your sleeping pills, try enhancing your night-time wellness with these top tips:
1. Dealing with noise: If noise is keeping you awake, David Neubauer, MD, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Centre, in Baltimore, recommends adding white noise. ‘Background noise is good for two reasons,’ he says. ‘It helps block outside noises, like road-repair workers and your neighbour’s stereo. Beyond that, psychologically, it’s soothing.’ Try anything that drones continuously, such as a fan or air conditioner. You can also get sound machines if you’d rather hear chirps, croaks, or rushing water.
If that sounds a little too dull for your liking, James B. Maas, PhD, a professor of psychology at Cornell University and a co-author of Power Sleep: The Revolutionary Program That Prepares Your Mind for Peak Performance, advises playing music or talk radio, as long as you use a device with a timer so that the noise shuts off within an hour or so and doesn’t wake you later, when you’re in a lighter phase of sleep. Other than that, good old-fashioned ear plugs are a great option, as they enable you to hear enough to have a conversation if need be, but the sound is muffled and unlikely to dampen your night-time wellbeing.
2. Dealing with light: If light keeps you awake, ‘Limiting your light exposure in the evening tends to transition you into sleep,’ asserts Helene Emsellem, MD, an associate clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University and the director of the Centre for Sleep and Wake Disorders, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. If you like to read in bed before you go to sleep, for example, don’t use a bright bedside lamp but, instead, encourage your brain’s shift to sleep by using a low-power book light. ‘I recommend the kind that clips onto books,’ says Emsellem.
During the night itself, make sure you’re not exposed to any niggly LED lights around the room. You may not realise it, but even the little light on your TV or alarm clock can be a big issue when you’re trying to fall asleep. Maas points out, ‘If you have a clock with an LED dial, you should turn it around so that the light, however dim, doesn’t get through your eyelids and interrupt sleep.’ This will also help you to stop checking the time every time you wake up, which will reduce the anxiety you feel about the sleep you’re not getting. Maas adds that sealing off the windows can rid your room of early-morning sun or streelights: ‘the best thing you can do is get darkening drapes or blackout shades.’
3. Dealing with Agitation: If you can’t seem to relax, a study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, found that background music seems to do the trick. The researchers gave senior citizen calming music to listen to for 45 minutes before bedtime, and these participants ended up having a longer and more deep sleep than those who didn’t hear the music. The study used harp music by Georgia Kelly, quiet jazz by Paul Desmond, and synthesized sounds by Steven Halpern, but you should try whatever music you find soothing and relaxing.
There’s also the classic option of warm drinks, such as chamomile tea and hot milk. Emsellem explains, ‘Some teas have mild soporific effects. When you warm milk, it releases tryptophan [which is an amino acid your body uses to make sleep-promoting neurotransmitter serotonin]. But over time the body can develop an immunity to tryptophan, and its sleep-promoting properties dissipate.’ Still, when warm milk stops working there’s always caffeine-free herbal tea, or hot water with lemon and honey.
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