Sleep tips for shift workers

• You can help keep your biological clock tuned in to your sleep with anchor sleep. Aim to have at least four hours sleep at the same time every night/morning (e.g. 3-7am). This seems to help keep your sleep clock regular.

• Use the weekend or days off to get in some extra “recovery” sleep.

• Make sure the sleeping environment is as conducive to rest as possible. A comfortable bed in a dark, well-ventilated room, is essential. And when we say dark, we mean dark – invest in some black out curtains. If you work shoft, you really need to re-set that biological clock. Also, aim to cut out as much extraneous noise if possible: install double glazing; use ear plugs.

• Avoid stimulants (eg caffeine), large meals or vigorous exercise for at least 3-4 hours before going to bed. Also, avoid over- the counter sleeping aids which may make you over sleepy when you need to be alert (driving home, for example)

• If you have trouble getting to sleep, lavender, passion flower, hops, orange blossom, Scot’s pine, camomile and peppermint all claim to promote sleep. And milky night time drinks really do help bring on the Zzzs.

• The Romans thought that lettuce was good for sleep, but the crème-de-la-crème “sleep sandwich” has to be a banana, marmite and lettuce buttie: the banana and marmite contain natural substances that help induce sleep.

• If you’re an owl, you usually go to bed late and get up late, so shift work will be less of a problem than it is for larks, who prefer to get up early and go to bed early. Bright light in the evening ( you can get light bulbs with a much higher lux value than ordinary, domestic bulbs) and avoiding the dawn light by wearing sunglasses can help.

• Maximum sleepiness occurs when your biological clock temperature is at its lowest – usually around 4am. Your personal level of alertness is controlled by your biological clock and by how much sleep you have had. Remember sleeplessness leads to poor concentration, thinking, memory, increased irritability and hostility. Alcohol magnifies these effects.

If You Snooze You Lose…Weight!

“You snooze you lose” is a common expression that we tend to use to imply that if you’re not paying enough attention, you’ll lose out!

However in this case ‘snooze to lose’ is actually a good thing. If you want to whittle your waistline then getting enough sleep is just as important as regular exercise when it comes to shifting those stubborn pounds! This is because your hormones are affected by sleep patterns which, in turn, affect appetite and wellbeing.

A bad night’s sleep causes Leptin (a hormone produced by fat cells levels) to drop, which signals insufficient metabolic reserves and the need to eat more calories. It also increases the hormone Ghrelin (produced in the stomach) which triggers appetite. It is this imbalance in hormone levels that upsets your metabolism, leading to over-eating and steady weight gain.

A study* found that people who sleep only two to four hours a night were 73% more likely to be obese than normal sleepers and researchers believe that sleep loss impacts on the appetite control hormones – Ghrelin and Leptin. In those consistently sleeping five hours compared with those sleeping eight, there was a 14.9% increase in Ghrelin and a 15.5% decrease in Leptin.

Research by Eastern Ontario Research Institute and Laval University in Quebec (Sept 2012) also found that those people who shifted their sleeping pattern from less than six hours to between seven and eight hours a night put on 2.4kg less weight over a six year period.

When we’re tired we’re more likely to crave sugary snacks and stodgy carbohydrates to keep us going and because our energy levels are low, we’re less motivated to work out and burn off those calories. Researchers** believe that activity in the brain’s frontal lobe (which governs impulse control, judgement, emotional responses and complex decision making) is diminished after a poor night’s sleep making us more susceptible to these poor food choices.

This was backed up by further research*** which found that when people were short on sleep, exposure to images of unhealthy food activated reward centres in the brain that were not activated by healthy foods. This only happened when people were sleep-deprived.

So should we be swapping our gym kit for a new mattress and sleeping our way to diet success? Well not just yet. But I think it’s safe to say that a combination of good sleep and exercise will result in weight loss. Dieters should aim to get seven to eight hours of quality snoozing a night and combine this with an exercise plan and sensible eating.

So if you struggle to sleep then treat bedtime like a workout – create a sleep regime that is regular, steady and an important part of everyday routine.

Stress and worry

Scientists have found a direct link between anxiety and rhythm of sleep. When a person has anxious thoughts, their heart rate goes up and in turn the mind starts to ‘race’. This causes the brain to become alert and stimulated and start producing beta waves. This happens to someone who worries about something when they’re trying to get to sleep – instead of being calm and subdued; their brains are too aroused to sleep. And to make matters worse, once their brain is stimulated in this way, other worries are activated, making sleep even harder to achieve. As a pattern sets in, sleep becomes a thing of anxiety.

To overcome this various techniques can be used to stop these thoughts and calm the heart rate, cognitive behavioural therapy being one of them. This is a psychological treatment that helps people ‘unlearn’ the thought processes that block a good night’s sleep.

One way to manage and slow your heart rate is to place your hand on your heart and quiet yourself so that you can hear it beating. Then breathe in deeply and slowly for three or four –seconds, then breathe out for three or four seconds. Repeat this until you feel your heart rate slowing down. This will then slow the busy brain activity.

A technique to stop the worrying thoughts that cause your heart to race in the first place is to speak positive thoughts instead. Speaking overrides thinking and will stop the negative thoughts in their tracks. To explain how to do this, start thinking the alphabet in your head. When you reach ‘J’ start counting out loud.

What happened to the alphabet? You stopped thinking it in your head because your speaking overrode your thoughts. Do this when you start worrying about something when you’re trying to sleep. Instead of thinking ’the mortgage is due and I don’t have the money to pay it’, say aloud ‘I don’t know where it will come from but I’ll need to get creative to find the money for the mortgage and I will find it.’

Children’s Bedrooms A Technology Danger Area

Latest research on kids bedtime habits has resulted in advice that parents should take televisions, computers and mobile phones out of children’s bedrooms as they prevent sleep and harm their performance at school.

And at The Sleep Council, we’re behind this advice. Distractions in the bedroom are at the root of many sleep related problems and with around two million children and young people suffering from sleep disorders in the UK, technology has become a modern day problem and only now are we seeing the impact that it is having on children’s sleep habits.

While a complete ban on electronic devices in the child’s bedroom may not always be feasible, it is possible to zone the areas of room so that there is an ‘entertainment’ zone for fun and play and a ‘sleeping’ zone for quiet and rest.

It’s not about depriving children of these activities but limiting excessive use, in particular in the hours before bed. Children don’t always understand the importance of sleep which is why it is particularly important for parents to set parameters for switching off gadgets and be stricter about enforcing appropriate bed times.

Sleep deprivation causes increased hyperactivity and other behavioural problems, as well as damaging their physical and mental development. Poor sleep habits from an early age can lead to long term sleep problems.

Here’s our top sleep advice:

- Set aside time before bed to wind down properly. This is a perfect opportunity to read with your child, or talk to them about their day.

- Limit the use of the TV, computers, gaming machines etc before bed.

- The bedroom should be free from distractions such as TVs etc and clear out clutter. Make sure it’s cool, quiet and dark.

- Keep regular bedtime hours. A good sleep routine will work wonders.

- Know how much sleep your child needs. As a general rule of thumb toddlers need around 12 hours of sleep a night; children aged four to six – 10.5-11.5 hours; six-12 years olds – 10 hours; and teenagers – around eight to nine hours.

The Sleep Cycle-Sleep Advice

Sleep is the mysterious shift in consciousness that our bodies require every day. It’s vital for our health and wellbeing, and not only do we function less well when we don’t get enough quality sleep, but it can lead to long-term health problems. That’s why we need to do all that we can to ensure that we enjoy quality sleep and deal with any sleep problems.

The Sleep Cycle

During sleep our heart rate drops, our body temperature falls and we experience complex changes in brain activity. An EEG (electroencephalogram) gives us an insight into the brains electrical activity when we sleep:

• When we first fall asleep we enter non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. NREM is divided into three stages:
  - NREM1
  - NREM2 and
  - NREM3, each stage becoming progressively ‘deeper’.
• Stages 1 and 2 are light stages of sleep from which we can be easily roused.
• Stage 3 is a deeper stage of sleep from which we’re more difficult to rouse, and some may feel disorientated if woken from this stage of sleep.
• Generally, after going through the NREM stages, we enter stage 4 which is known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which the EEG shows as being similar to wakefulness or drowsiness. It is during the REM stage of sleep that we dream.
• Each cycle lasts around 1½ hours and we need to experience all four stages in order to wake up rested.
• A good night’s sleep consists of five or six cycles, whereas disturbed sleep consists of far fewer.

Sleep is largely controlled by sleep pressure, and the circadian rhythm, or our body clock, which is a 24 hour cycle that regulates all our biological and physiological processes. It anticipates environmental changes around us so that our bodies can adapt to them.

In ideal situations, the circadian rhythm will naturally rise in the early morning, promoting wakefulness and alertness, and will reach a peak in the evening. After a waking period of around 15 hours the pressure to sleep becomes greater and greater, in other words, we get tired. With the onset of darkness, the circadian rhythm drops to the lowest level and helps to maintain sleep.

To ensure you experience good sleep it’s essential to follow good lifestyle habits and to eliminate the factors that are causing you disturbed sleep. For example making sure that your bedroom is the right environment, looking at the lighting in your home, and avoiding foods and drinks that can hinder sleep.

Sleeping Tips For Early Bird Entrepreneurs

By Lisa Artis on October 16, 2013 in Press Releases, Sleep

A new breed of ‘crack of dawn’ entrepreneurs is turning the working day on its head.

Said to include the Obamas, Apple CEO Tim Cook and US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the uber early risers leave their beds as early as 4.30am to get ahead of their day and make the most of the calm before the working day storm.

Generally thought to be planners and forward thinkers, larks are often more studious than their late night counterparts, the owls. These late night birds tend to be more creative types – innovative, extrovert and flexible.

Said Jessica Alexander of The Sleep Council: “People have always tended to fall into two camps when it comes to sleeping habits but we’re hearing about a growing number of high profile business leaders who start their day while the rest of us are still buried under the duvet.

“But whether you are a night or morning person, stealing too much sleep from either end of the day will ultimately take its toll. Most of us need a good seven to eight hours of solid sleep a night to really perform at our best – start scrimping on that and people are in danger of becoming too tired to be truly effective.”

Here then are The Sleep Council’s tips for joining the ranks of the early bird entrepreneurs:

• If you’re determined to make an early assault on the day, make the transition gradually. Set the alarm 10 minutes earlier every two or three days and phase in the early starts over the course of a few weeks.

• If you’re going to rise early, then go to bed at a correspondingly early hour. As your alarm time creeps forward, so must your bedtime. To make the early morning adjustment, set three different alarms – each timed to go off about a minute apart. Place the final alarm in a spot in the bedroom where you will have to get out of bed to turn it off.

• Use light to boost your early morning alertness. In winter, use of wake-up lights stimulates the production of hormones to help us get up and go and will also help with resetting your body clock.

• Sleep Council research shows that high flyers tend to recognise the importance of sleeping in a comfortable and supportive bed – and are more likely to invest in buying a really good quality mattress. Spend as much as you can afford on a new bed – and buy as big a one as your bedroom allows.

• Don’t be tempted to lie-in for too long at weekends to make up for all the early starts. Keeping regular hours is important to maintaining body clock routine – and straying too far from it will just leave you feeling tired and lethargic come Monday morning.

• Remember, to effect change, you have to change your behavior. And once you’ve successfully made the transition to early morning riser, make the most of the extra time you’ve gained by doing all your important planning and thinking while you feel at your freshest and the day is at its quietist.

Can’t Sleep On A Sunday?

A recent survey has found that more than a third of Americans find Sunday the toughest night to fall asleep.

This certainly backs up our survey research which found more than half of those questioned thought Mondays were the toughest day to tear themselves away from the might of their mattress. Not surprising if we’ve been kept up all night on Sunday dreading the coming week.

So what stops us sleeping on a Sunday? Is it what lies ahead for the working week, a barrage of emails sat waiting for us, too many late nights or over-indulgence of food and alcohol?

According to sleep expert Dr Chris Idzikowski there is some scientific justification too. We go to bed later on Fridays and Saturdays and lie in longer meaning that we start to reset the internal body clock – and some of us are a lot more sensitive to such changes! By Sunday night we’re finding it harder to get to sleep earlier and get up earlier on Monday morning. The solution is, of course, to keep to regular bedtimes and consistent get up times.

Other tips to help you fall asleep easier on a Sunday night are:

• Limit caffeine early afternoon and avoid alcohol.

• Enjoy a Sunday stroll – exercise can help relieve the day’s stresses and strains. But not too close too bedtime or it may keep you awake!

• Write down any worries. Getting your concerns out on paper before trying to sleep may help.

• Sunlight can reset your body’s internal clock, so try to get 15 minutes of sunlight in the morning.

• Your environment can make a big difference. A cool, dark, comfortable room can help you fall asleep.

• Make sure your bed is up to scratch – not sure if it is? Take our Bed MOT here.

• Natural sleep supplements may help some people relax and fall asleep.