The answer to a sleepless night might lie in the day

As my last blog post looked at the best way to start the day, it seems like a good idea to look at the other end of the day too and think about sleep.

Sleep is a huge topic and I’m only going to focus on a few things here. If you have problems sleeping you are probably already an expert in the subject, and if your sleep is good you may well think this won’t be relevant to you.

But I hope you’ll stick with me because I want to look at it from a different perspective which could help to improve all areas of life.

It’s not all about sleep

When we talk about sleep, we often consider whether we are doing all the right things at bedtime but we need to look at what we do while we are awake during the day too, because that can have an impact on our sleep.

Serotonin

You’ve probably already heard about serotonin which is a neurotransmitter that makes us feel good and helps us to cope with life’s challenges. What many people don’t realise is that serotonin is a precursor for melatonin, a hormone which signals to the brain that it is time to sleep.

Increasing our serotonin levels during the day can elevate our levels of melatonin in the evening, resulting in a better night’s sleep, whilst making us feel good during the day.

Here are just a few ideas of how to boost serotonin:

Purpose

This can be something big or small, but having a purpose gives us drive and fulfils us. Having a purpose can boost serotonin, make us feel good and increase our melatonin. A few ideas of where to start:

·      Make a plan for the next day or month or the next few years. What do you want to achieve and what are the steps you can take to get there?

·      Find ways to help other people. That is a two for one; we feel motivated because it gives us something to do, and we release lots of lovely feel-good chemicals when we help other people.

·      Learn something new, a musical instrument, sport, hobby, or language. It is never too late to try something new. Harriette Thompson took up long distance running at the age of 76 and was the oldest woman to run a marathon at the age of 92. So, take heart if you’d like to try something new, then go for it, it’s never too late!

Connection

Another useful way to generate some more feel-good serotonin is to look at our connections with other people. We know how important connection is to our well-being. It makes perfect sense; in primitive times if we weren’t connected with a tribe then we wouldn’t survive. Since connection is so important to our survival, we are encouraged to do more of it by getting a lovely reward of serotonin as a result.

It might mean seeing friends regularly, talking to family on the phone, or maybe starting a new hobby, perhaps joining a club and meeting new people.

It’s good to look at what we already do and see if there are ways we can tweak it to increase our feeling of connection.

Alcohol and overeating

In a very popular Ted Talk, Johann Hari said “connection is the opposite of addiction”. We know that when we don’t feel connected, we look for other ways to feel good, such as alcohol, food, nicotine and drugs which can all be detrimental to our sleep.

Alcohol is known to interfere with sleep, even if we feel like we’ve slept all night our quality of sleep isn’t as good if we have too much alcohol.

Overeating can be another disruptor to our sleep, especially if we turn to sugary foods which overstimulate us.

If you feel you drink more alcohol than you want to, or find you overeat and they negatively impact sleep, looking for more ways to feel connected might be helpful.

Movement

Choosing any activity which gets us moving is going to help with serotonin levels, even more so if we enjoy it.

It doesn’t have to be three sessions a week at the gym, it can be a walk in the park. When we think of movement it’s helpful to not feel it’s all or nothing. Getting up and walking around every half an hour, especially when we feel chained to our desks can be good for little boosts of serotonin throughout the day.

If you find the idea of moving off-putting maybe try to tie it to something else that you enjoy; walking with a friend (more connection!), cycling somewhere you’ll enjoy when you get there, going dancing on a night out. Think about what you do enjoy doing and see how you can add in some movement.

Meditation

Regular meditation has been shown to improve insomnia. You can do it at any time of day. Maybe experiment for a week trying it in the morning and then before bed and see which is best for you. As well as boosting serotonin, Meditation has been shown to shrink the amygdala, which is responsible for those feelings of stress or low mood that can inhibit sleep.

It can also help you to feel better during the day, especially if you’re able to fit it in at that low point after lunch, it can help with greater clarity of thought and a calmer nervous system.

It is suggested that doing it just before bed can help you to fall asleep twice as quickly.

Sunlight

It is important to get exposure to sunlight each day because it also stimulates serotonin, leading to the production of melatonin. It also feels good getting out for some fresh air.

Cortisol

Cortisol is a stress hormone which is helpful in motivating us to get things done but if it gets too high for too long it can suppress our serotonin. Meditation or focusing on breathing to stay calm, (breathing out longer than breathing in) and taking some time to relax can all help to reduce our levels of cortisol and boost our serotonin as a result.

Limiting alcohol, sugary foods, caffeine, and nicotine can also help to keep cortisol at a lower level, it's important to be mindful of these because they can be our easy go-to feel-good solutions when we feel stressed, exacerbating the problem.

There are lots of ways to increase serotonin so experimenting by mixing things up a bit and seeing what works for you is a good idea.

Perception of sleep

There have been experiments which suggest that our perception of sleep can impact our cognitive ability.

From the Journal of Psychosomatic Research volume 132, May 2020 a study found that;

“when people perceived that they had slept only 5 hours, having actually received 8 hours’ time in bed, their cognitive performance was significantly worse than those who slept 8 hours and were ‘informed’ that it was 8 hours. Consistent with this finding, we also found that those who slept 5 hours but perceived that it was 8 hours performed significantly better than those who slept 5 hours and thought it was 5 hours.”

What this tells us is that just believing we have had enough sleep can improve how we feel and perform the next day. What we think really does determine how we feel.

Changing our sleep story

When we are lying awake at 3am and we tell ourselves we can’t sleep, we will never sleep, the day ahead is ruined; then we pave the way to a difficult day ahead. Instead, we can take control, and change our story.

Resting our body is beneficial and if we can lie in bed and focus on breathing out longer than we breathe in, or listen to a meditation or sleep story, these have a calming effect on the nervous system, reassuring our body and mind that we aren’t under threat. This helps by putting us into a state known as the “rest and digest” state in which the body is able to repair itself and our mind can calmly process the events of the day. It also increases the chances of falling asleep.

If we take control and change our breathing or listen to something calming when we can’t sleep, we can then reassure ourselves that we are talking positive action and doing something that helps our body to repair itself and our mind to unwind. We are doing something positive which is good for us and this can become our new story, replacing the worry of being awake that makes us feel stressed and  inhibits sleep.

When we wake up if we focus on how little sleep we have had and how we won’t make it through the day then we are going to find the day harder.

Instead, telling ourselves what we can achieve in our day and acknowledging how we have coped in the past can be helpful. Also starting the day by thinking of things that we are grateful for can also help to change the story we tell ourselves by focusing positively on the day ahead rather than on lack of sleep.

It may take some effort to change the story, but it is possible and it can make a big difference.  

Sleep trackers

If you have a sleep tracker and you check it in the morning and it says you’ve not had enough sleep how does that make you feel?

I’m not suggesting you ditch it, but if it makes you feel stressed it might be worth experimenting with what time of day you actually check on your sleep for the previous night. By waiting until the end of the day to look at it, you can prevent it from having an impact on your day.

Clocks

If you wake up in the night, do you check the time? I haven’t for quite a while now and it has stopped me from lying awake worrying about how long I’ve slept and how long I have left available to sleep.

If you wake up and it’s 3am, do you then worry that you won’t be able to go back to sleep and you’ve only had three hours so far and you won’t be able to function tomorrow? Then it may be worth trying without for a few nights and see if it makes any difference.

Maybe you love checking the time – wonderful you’ve another lovely four hours of sleep ahead. If so, keep doing what you’re doing!

Paradoxical insomnia

If you feel like you lie wide awake all night and don’t sleep a wink, you may be experiencing something called paradoxical insomnia. It causes people to think they are awake when they are actually asleep. Research is ongoing but some estimates consider about 5% of people with insomnia experience paradoxical insomnia, whilst other estimates are considerably higher.

It is interesting to consider that things aren’t always what they seem and we can actually have slept without realising it. So it is helpful to keep an open mind that we may actually have had more sleep than we thought.

I hope that you have found something in this blog that may help to improve sleep or other areas of life.

There is also so much information on Google, including looking at room temperature, trying to keep a consistent sleep schedule, avoiding screens before bed that you won't run out of things to try.

I'd love to hear what works for you when it comes to sleep so please do get in touch and share your ideas!