Do you have a sleep bank?

A while ago I wrote about sleep debt its affect on day to day life. This time I want to introduce the idea of a sleep bank, where you can 'deposit' sleep hours before a busy week.

Studies have shown that there are benefits for accumulating sleep - Volunteers were split into two groups and one group slept normally for a week and the other accumulated sleep, both groups then had a week of sleep deprivation and only slept 3 hours a night. Those who had accumulated extra sleep performed better at mental and physical tasks, even towards the end of the week.

This is useful information for those in extreme circumstances such as soldiers before a big military operation but how can we use it in day to day life?

If you know that you are going to have a busy week - exams, traveling abroad for work, a relative with a scheduled operation etc, then you can plan to sleep an extra half hour to an hour each night the week before. You can also bank extra time through naps (but remember to keep them to early afternoon).
Try and keep to a regular routine and accumulate your extra sleep by going to bed early rather than lying in late, as you do not want to disturb your night time sleep. It is better to go to bed half an hour early each night, than have a lie-in for two hours one morning.

If you have children with a busy schedule of exams coming up, then ensure they go to bed early in the days leading up to the exams as anxiety and last minute studying may hinder sleep the night before.

If you are a competitive athlete and have been training for a big run or event then banking your sleep may help give you that edge on race day.

Going away for the weekend but will be sleeping a strange (and possibly uncomfortable) bed or be burning the candle at both ends for a weekend city break? Then planning your sleep ahead will help you make the most of your time away.

However please bear in mind that just like a bank account - if you already have a sleep debt, then trying to bank sleep will not work in your favour as you will still be repaying your debt!

Sweet dreams!

Teenagers and sleep

The other night I did an overnight babysit and the apartment had the heating programmed to be on all night. I found it way to hot to sleep and seemed to spend the entire night adjusting the radiator and opening/closing the window.

I did only get about 2 hours sleep - and it was in two different blocks. I got the children up and took them to school and returned home and straight to bed.
I have not slept that badly for years and when thinking about it I remembered that this was my norm when I was a teenager. In those days I would sleep for about 2 hours one night and then the next night about 5 hours, and kept repeating this two night pattern until I went to the doctor about my sleep.

Seeing how tired I felt the other morning, and how I was incapable of doing anything other than going to bed made me reflect on how this must have affected my studies at school and college. Nowadays if I do an IQ test I'm up around 140, yet my school teachers thought I wasn't coping with the work. Some of this was due my dyslexia (which is fortunately much better understood these days) but I now think that my insomnia severely affected my studies.
When revising for my A levels I would spread all my books around my room, and because my Mum would leave me alone 'to study', I would end up with droopy eyelids and falling asleep. I ended up with average results.

So, what to yo do if you are a teenager, or a parent of a teenager with sleep problems?

Firstly teenagers sleep is naturally different from an adults and they become Night Owls and naturally go to bed later, finding it hard to sleep before 11pm. They need at least 9 hours sleep and some need more. School and college hours mean that they are not getting enough sleep.

In order to help try and establish a good evening routine that means homework is finished earlier in the evening, allowing time to unwind before bed.
Encourage having a shower or bath before bed, to send sleep triggers to the brain.
Have a no screen time guideline for the last hour before bed, this includes ipads, laptops, smart phones etc.
Reduce the amount of caffeine in the diet  remember a lot of soda drinks contain caffeine.
Encourage regular sleeping hours to train the body to sleep but do allow for a small lie-ins at the weekend/holidays for catch up.
Strategic napping can help - as long as it is not for too long nor too close to bedtime.
Make the bedrooms as sleep inducing as possible.
Encourage plenty of exercise - again earlier in the day and at least 3 hours before bedtime.

Discuss sleep with your teenager like an adult. Telling them they need to sleep more and enforcing strict rules may well end in resentment and a lack of co-operation. Give them the facts about sleep and how important it is and what the benefits are. Also point out that getting enough sleep helps with weight control and skin conditions such as acne. Let them come to realise the impotence of sleep themselves. Ask if they want to keep a sleep diary to track the amount that they are getting.

Remember - if you treat sleep and sleep issues with respect, encourage discussion and ask them what they would like to do to improve their sleep, they are far more likely to take it on.

Keep an eye on their sleep patterns and if you suspect that their lack of sleep goes beyond normal teenage patterns then get an appointment with their doctor and discuss the possibility of other sleep problems such as insomnia or sleep apnea.

If you have any concerns and want to discuss them further then please contact me for a free consultation.

Too hot or too cold to sleep?

A sudden dip in the temperatures across Europe and a snowfall last night and it seems like the right time to write this post.

I woke up in the middle of the night the other night and couldn't get back to sleep for a while. I then realised that I was slightly cold. I didn't feel cold in that I was shivering, or my hands and feet were like ice blocks, but just slightly cold. I pulled a blanket on top of my duvet and was asleep within 10 minutes, just that little bit of extra warmth making the difference.

There is a very narrow range for an optimum temperature in the sleep environment for humans, which is between 18 and 22°c (65 - 72°F). The body temperature dips at night to allow sleep and so being in a cooler environment helps the body achieve this. However if it is too cold, then your body is working to warm you up and therefore makes it difficult to sleep.
I was brought up in a home were central heating was sparsely used, so prefer a cooler sleep environment. I find it difficult sleeping in houses were there is 24 hour heating (which happens a lot in Europe with communal heating for a block of flats).
Of course if you were brought up or live in a warmer environment/climate you become used to higher temperatures, but when temperatures fluctuate over the year, you need to try and keep the bedroom temperature as steady as possible.

Here are some good sleep hygiene practices for the different seasons -

In Winter
- keep the thermostat cooler in the bedrooms (radiator thermostats help with this) or turn the temperature down half an hour before going to bed.
- try experimenting with layering - using different tog duvets and blankets as well as warmer bedclothes, pyjamas and bedsocks!
- when your partner has different needs, try using separate duvets or perhaps sharing a duvet and one partner having a light blanket over them as well.

In Summer
- keep the room as cool as possible during the day, closing the curtains to keep out the sun, blackout blinds etc.
- use a fan to keep the air circulating and put a container of frozen water in front of a fan
- avoid memory foam pillows as these can heat up the body.
- turn off or remove all unnecessary equipment, as these can heat up a room, even incandescent lightbulbs can heat up a room!
- if you use it, check the air-con is not too low, as too much of a drop can make it too cold to sleep.

Here in France the temperature can fluctuate between overnight lows of -12°C to overnight highs of 35°C, so over the year I employ many different techniques to try and maintain the best sleeping environment, in winter I have a fleecy undersheet, high tog duvet, blanket and sometimes a hot water bottle. This all gradually reduces to a sheet and fan in the high Summer.

If you're not sleeping too well then take a look at the temperature in your sleep environment and see if there anything you can change to get a better night's sleep.

Sweet dreams!

Night time activities

What do you do when you wake in the night?

Seems like a strange question and I am guessing that most people would say that they lie in bed, tossing and turning and trying to get back to sleep - all the while stressing about not sleeping.

I had a new client recently and she wanted to find the final piece of the puzzle to help her sleep through the night. She had had insomnia for years and done a lot of work in improving it, but would still wake in the night. During this time she would play on-line games and work with clients on the other side of the world. that combined with exercising late at night meant that she was doing 3 activities that were stimulating her brain and not helping herself to get into a relaxed state in which to fall asleep.

My initial reaction was to encourage her to stop these activities and go through new ideas to help her relax and start sleeping through the night. However the more I listened to her, the more I realised that actually she had worked out a lifestyle that suited her.

I have mentioned in a previous post that in the past we had segmented sleep and this idea is still a big talking point in the sleep community and are we going against nature to try and sleep through the night? While we know it is possible to sleep in 8 hours blocks, most people actually do wake in the night and then fall straight back to sleep again and have no recollection of waking, therefore believe they have slept through. For some people, waking in the night means waking in the night and staying awake a while (for some a long while!)

What this girl had done was to build a lifestyle round segmented sleep. She would sleep for a while, then wake - do some work, play games etc then go back to sleep again - her second sleep. Luckily for her, she is self employed and has international clients, so actually this lifestyle works well for her.

I have also found that a some barworkers and 'graveyard' shift workers have insomnia and difficulty going to sleep - now this could be a reflection on their lifestyle, but could it also be that they have found a lifestyle that suits their sleeping patterns. When I have talked with them, they often say that they had poor sleeping habits before they started their work and again, when you talk to them of ways to change it, they don't really want to as it doesn't really bother them that much; they know that if they go to sleep late that they can sleep in during the morning.

In the end I only had a couple of sessions with this client and she left feeling more confident that actually her seep pattern, though strange, did actually work. When totaling up her sleep hours she was getting enough sleep and was not feeling tired or exhausted (common complaints of insomnia). By allowing her to have this pattern also meant that she stopped worrying about sleep and therefore slept better, she also allowed herself to sleep later in the mornings and restructured her day slightly to allow herself enough time to sleep in these two blocks.

So what do you get up to in the night? Are you like my client and can use your insomnia constructively? Or do you prefer to be able to sleep through the night? Rest assured that whatever your sleep style preferences there are ways available to help you achieve them!

Sweet dreams.