“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.
Deal with stress
Stress can take many different 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 Dr Meadows.
Giving yourself the best possible day – good food, a little exercise, daylight – will increase the likelihood of reaching restorative sleep stages at night.
Always wind down
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 Dr 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.
Bed time 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,” adds Dr 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.
Root out the ruminations
The ultimate prerequisite for getting a good night’s sleep is a quiet mind.
A past research paper of Dr 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, Dr Stanley recommends trying thought blocking. Subtract seven from 1,000 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 Dr 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!
Dodge cheat energy boosts
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 Dr 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.
Get morning daylight in your eyes
“It’s a completely free energy source,” says Dr 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.”
Keep timings regular
Even if you are only sleeping five hours a night, try having regular habits. In an ideal world, we’d go to bed at the same time everyday. “But we live in a world where evenings are vastly more exciting than early mornings,” says Dr Stanley.
Instead fix your wake up time. “That way your brain and body knows 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 Dr Stanley.
Consistency is key across all aspects of life, if you’re going to improve sleep.
“The body likes regularity,” says Dr 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.”
Top up your sleep
Napoleon reportedly compensated for getting five hours a night with frequent naps. He was known to take a quick cat nap directly on the battlefield, resting on a bear skin.
“A 20-minute power nap will increase your mental performance by up to 20 per cent for three or four hours,” says Dr Stanley.
Just 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.”