If you have trouble falling asleep or maintaining a good night’s sleep, you’re among a third of the population.
A 2016 survey by the US Centers for Disease Control found that one in three American adults regularly did not get enough sleep, using the parameter of at least seven hours a night.
Doctor Michael Mosley, presenter of BBC health series Just One Thing, is part of this statistic. So he set out to investigate simple, scientifically proven techniques that would help him and other insomniacs sleep better.
The result is the podcast “Sleep Well” with the following tips:
1. Slow your breathing
A simple but incredibly powerful way to relax is to breathe slowly and deeply. Let your breath get into rhythm. Exhale a little longer than you inhaled.
Research cited by Mosley indicates that participants who managed to reduce their breathing rate fell asleep an average of 20 minutes sooner — and slept better and woke up less at night.
Slow breathing has a ripple positive effect: from changing your brain chemistry to calming your body and heartbeat.
The key to understanding these effects lies in a small group of cells in a region of the brain called the locus coeruleus.
“When you don’t sleep and your mind is racing, the locus coeruleus is active,” says Mosley.
Active, it shoots norepinephrine (a chemical that awakens) through the brain.
Professor Ian Robertson of Trinity College (Ireland) and his team discovered that reducing the rate of breathing has a direct impact on this brain system.
The recommendation is to breathe in a 424 rhythm (inspire, count to four, hold your breath for two seconds and exhale, count to four), and also abdominal breathing: put one hand on your chest and the other directly under the rib cage.
As you inhale, you should feel your lower hand rise while the hand on your chest remains relatively still.
It’s a way to calm down when you wake up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts.
2. Use the morning light
Mosley says that one of the best pieces of advice he received when dealing with chronic insomnia was to wake up at the same time every morning and take advantage of the morning light.
Because, based on scientific research, it is believed that the time a person wakes up has a greater impact on the biological clock than the time they go to sleep.
And a large part of that is due to daylight.
When light reaches the eye, it excites receptors at the back of the eye, which send signals to a region of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
Morning light stops the production of the sleep hormone melatonin and signals the body that the day has begun.
This starts a series of events in the body so that about 12 hours later, melatonin starts to rise again, preparing the body for a deep recovery.
3. Enjoy the bed
According to Mosley, the best thing to do when you can’t sleep is get up.
It might sound contradictory, but it’s about making sure the bed is a space that the mind associates with sleep and rest, not the impossibility of sleeping.
According to Colleen Carney, director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory at the Metropolitan University of Toronto, Canada, the basic idea is that if your body and mind aren’t ready, you shouldn’t be struggling to sleep. This, according to her, forges an association that turns her bed into a battlefield.
Getting up when you can’t sleep and lying down when you feel sleepy can break that negative association.
If this association is very ingrained, you may initially have to get out of bed several times and go somewhere warm and quiet to do something unstimulating.
With that in mind, another recommendation is to avoid naps and avoid using your bed for activities like watching TV, using your cell phone, writing in a notebook, etc.
4. Warm up to cool down
A warm bath or shower before bed can also help you fall asleep faster.
A recent summary of 13 studies found that people who took a hot shower before bed fell asleep 36% faster than others, had better sleep quality, and felt more rested the next day.
When parts of the body are heated, especially hands and feet, the heatemitting blood vessels begin to dilate.
This brings more blood to the surface of the skin, which accelerates heat loss, lowering body temperature and serving as a signal to sleep.
If you don’t feel like taking a hot shower, you can achieve the same effect with, for example, a hot water bottle or warm socks, which start the first flow of blood to your hands and feet to signal the body.
5. Listen to your body
We’re used to being told we need eight hours of sleep — but the pressure to hit that goal can be stressful and pointless.
Adults typically need 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night, but that’s an average. Some people do well with less, others with a little more. It is also something that changes throughout life.
It is also known that the 8hour moving average is relatively new. In preindustrial times, it was common for people to go to bed a few hours after dark and then wake up — then engage in activities like talking to neighbors, study, sex — and then go back to bed for a second shift of sleep.
That said, waking up in the middle of the night is normal.
Professor Nicole Tang from the University of Warwick (UK) advises people with insomnia to stop looking at the clock at night and start worrying about the number of hours they sleep.
The best thing, she says, is to listen to your body: If sleep comes during daytime activities, it’s a sign that you probably need a little more sleep.
This report was originally published here.