Seven to nine hours of sleep is the optimum for good all-round health. But for many of us, this isn’t always possible. Photo / 123rf
Those who can’t fit in the recommended eight hours will be pleased to hear you can survive on five hours of sleep. Experts share their tips
It’s common knowledge that between seven and nine hours of shut-eye is the optimum for good all-round health. But for many of us, this isn’t always possible. High stress, shift work and parenting all conspire to mean the average person gets less than that, with studies frequently finding the average is near six hours and 20 minutes. The UK’s new Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, a long-term sufferer of insomnia, admitted to British Vogue she gets about four to five hours a night, sometimes less.
Historically, many high achievers survived on a similar amount, from Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher, Newton to Napoleon. While some people do need only five hours a night, such chronotypes are rare, says sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley. In most cases, he says: “It’s the classic self-aggrandising, ‘I’m better than you because I sleep less’.” Napoleon reputedly spread the rumour because sleep was incompatible with greatness.
Fortunately, leaders are starting to show a different approach to rest and relaxation.
Dr Guy Meadows, a sleep physiologist and the founder of The Sleep School, was pleased when new UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he wanted to spend Friday evening with his family.
“I think actually we’re now in a place where we don’t think rest is cheating, it’s saying in order to turn up every single day and give our very best, then we need to take basic steps towards getting the best possible sleep.”
In the short term, says Stanley: “We know if you go one night with poor sleep, the next day you are four times more likely to catch the common cold.”
Sleep deprivation also affects mental capacity.
“It’s not just focus and concentration,” says Meadows. “We know that when people are sleep deprived they take riskier decisions.”
Even more concerning, long-term sleep deprivation over many years has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke depression, suicide, some cancers, obesity and diabetes.
The good news is that in the short term, we can generally balance out the effects of poor sleep, notes Stanley.
“Sleep is relatively flexible and good at self-correcting, so if we regularly only get five hours’ sleep, then your body will prioritise getting the good stuff, deep sleep or what we call N3 sleep, over other types of sleep.”
Here’s how you can survive and even thrive on five hours of sleep a night.
Stress can take many forms — environmental, work, nutritional, emotional.
The more stress there is in the system, the lighter your sleep is going to be. “It means you will be bouncing around in stage 1 and 2 sleep rather than getting into stage 3 sleep where you get all those lovely delta waves,” explains Meadows.
Giving yourself the best possible day — good food, a little exercise, daylight — will increase the likelihood of reaching restorative sleep stages at night.
Bath, book, bed. It’s the routine we know works for children, yet how many adults do the same? “That’s the biggest problem that most of us have, we don’t have a wind-down,” says Stanley.
Most people’s bedtime routine is to switch the television off, brush their teeth and flop into bed and expect sleep to magically happen.
Bedtime wind-down should last at least 30 minutes. Switch off devices, dim the lights. “This helps to train the body clock so that we can release melatonin to help us to sleep,” says Meadows.
Having a routine is valuable because when you do have to work late and hit the pillow at 1am, doing a short routine will give the brain cues to recognise sleep is on its way.
The ultimate prerequisite for getting a good night’s sleep is a quiet mind.
A past research paper of Stanley’s looked at job stress and teachers. “It’s not rocket science,” he says. “We found that those who worked in the last hour before bed had worse sleep.”
If you get into bed and the mind is still racing, Stanley recommends trying thought blocking. Subtract seven from 1000 repeatedly, go through the alphabet naming an animal with each letter. “A favourite from an old sleep book is to list alphabetically all the operas you’ve seen,” says Stanley.
Listen to a podcast or read a book. “Anything that stops your brain thinking about what’s stopping your sleeping.”
If you’re a member of the new government with the coffers empty, maybe subtracting won’t help!
A casualty of lack of sleep is our ability to make good decisions. Opting for a sugary breakfast or trying to wake ourselves up with a coffee is a classic misstep.
“The quick energy burst of a caffeine or sugar rollercoaster will just undermine the whole system that makes sleep good,” says Meadows. “The quality of sleep you’re going to get is worse because of the caffeine and sugar in the system and the arousal that causes.”
As a rule, you want at least a minimum of six hours without caffeine in the system to avoid disturbing sleep.
“It’s a completely free energy source,” says Meadows.
Wakefulness is governed by our exposure to daylight through our circadian rhythms. “If you can get light in your eyes that’s going to help release cortisol, give you that natural get up and go, release serotonin, which will help elevate your mood and help boost deep sleep later on.”
Even if you are sleeping only five hours a night, try having regular habits. In an ideal world, we’d go to bed at the same time every day. “But we live in a world where evenings are vastly more exciting than early mornings,” says Stanley.
Instead, fix your wake-up time. “That way your brain and body know when you’re going to wake up, so it’s got an idea of how much time it’s got to get a good sleep.”
Chopping and changing your routine will confuse the brain: “Regularity is more important than the amount in terms of health risk,” says Stanley.
Consistency is key across all aspects of life, if you’re going to improve sleep.
“The body likes regularity,” says Meadows. “You want to eat at roughly the same time every day. If you are at work, move at the same time as well. That’s going to help feed into the body’s master clock.”
Napoleon reportedly compensated for getting five hours a night with frequent naps. He was known to take a quick catnap on the battlefield, resting on a bear skin.
“A 20-minute power nap will increase your mental performance by up to 20% for three or four hours,” says Stanley.
Don’t make it too long. “If you go into deep sleep, that’s when you feel like you’ve been hit by a bus. It usually takes 20 minutes after you go to sleep, although if you are sleep deprived that will be shorter.”
Napping should be more acceptable in British society, like it is in Japan, says Stanley.
“People think it’s fine to have a cigarette break or a cup of coffee to manage fatigue, but if you put your head down on your desk for 20 minutes people would say that’s bad.”
Napping is essentially the ability to switch off from your environment, and some people are better at it than others. Fortunately, says Stanley: “There’s data that shows that even just closing your eyes is beneficial.” If you can’t nap, just relaxing, looking out the window will help.
Shift workers don’t need to be told how bad it is to get too little sleep. “It’s not helpful,” says Meadows, who works with organisations like the NHS to help them deal with the reality of shift patterns.
“Just because you do shift work doesn’t mean you have to live a sleep-deprived life.” Try focusing on the positive actions you can take to help you get better sleep. “There are ways even with a really demanding work schedule to ensure you are getting enough sleep or rest.”
Routine building will be harder. Prioritise having a lie-in when you can, even if it’s rest rather than sleep. Take a full-cycle (an hour and a half) nap in the evening before a shift. Get light therapy or exercise in a break that will help you get better-quality sleep in the long term.
Exercise helps reduce overall stress. However, adds Meadows, “whoever made us think exercise needed to take an hour has a lot to answer for”. Fitting movement into your day, where you can, is preferable to none at all. And if you can get daylight at the same time it’s even better.
But beware sacrificing sleep in order to exercise. “If you’re already stressed and you’re going to the gym to lose weight, depriving yourself of sleep is simply going to add more stress,” says Meadows. “You’re better off getting that extra step and weaving in the exercise when you’re in a well-slept state.”
When working with corporate clients, Meadows often suggests diarising sleep. What have you got on for the next week or month? Plan where there are lulls and the opportunity to pay off your sleep debt.
“Get eight hours and add half an hour in at the beginning or the end. Or schedule in a power nap in the afternoon.”
The crucial thing when repaying your sleep debt is not going over 12 hours at a time. “That causes all kinds of circadian disruption. What we want are little bits of catch-up.”
If you are working late, resist the temptation to snack. Meadows recommends making your evening meal as light and healthy as possible. “Ideally, leave at least four hours between eating and sleeping.”
For most of us that means stopping consuming calories from 7pm. “No hot chocolate, switch to water and herbal teas and then go through to 7am,” advises Meadows. “Research shows that a 12-hour fast is beneficial to all our biological systems, not just sleep.”
Doing our hobbies and spending time with our families is more likely to put our brain on charge and help us get better sleep and perform better the next day.
“Every day we need to be floating these little boats in our life,” says Meadows. “A little bit of activity, light, self-compassion and kindness, present-moment awareness and movement, will all help us to arrive at the bedroom in a calmer and more relaxed state, so that when we put our head on the pillow we get the best possible sleep in the time that we have.”
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