How is your sleep? Research shows that in the UK, many people get fewer than the recommended 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. Some even survive on fewer than 5 hours of slumber. In the USA, studies show most people sleep for around 7 hours, whilst further research suggest those getting the best sleep live in Finland and the Netherlands. Wherever you live in the world, one thing’s for sure; your sleep is probably not as good as it could be.
From how to get to sleep faster and improve your deep sleep, to the best yoga and pranayama practices to calm your nervous system and optimise your sleep time, find out how to make simple changes today, to improve your sleep tonight.
What is sleep, and why is it important?
For a long time, sleep was considered a dormant state of nothing-ness, when the brain and body were simply set to ‘off’, and nothing much was happening. More recent research however, suggests that when we’re sleeping, some parts of the brain are actually up to 30% more active than when we’re awake. Our sleep consists of four stages (which we’ll explore in a moment), and these stages repeat themselves roughly every 90 minutes. Exactly why we sleep is still somewhat of a mystery, but there are vital processes that happen when we’re asleep that are necessary in order for us to survive and thrive, here’s a few of them:
- In the second stage of sleep, the brain processes information and consolidates memories
- In the third stage of sleep, known as ‘deep sleep’, the brain releases a large pulse of growth hormone. This is vital for repairing and strengthening the body’s muscles and tissue, maintaining a healthy immune system, and ensuring a healthy brain.
- Whilst in deep sleep, breathing and pulse rate slow down. This gives the blood vessels and heart an opportunity to recover from the day’s activities.
- In the fourth stage of sleep, brain activity increases even more. This stage is thought to be important for neuroplasticity and learning ability.
- Whilst we’re sleeping, the glymphatic system ‘sweeps’ through the brain to clear away old damaged cells and debris. This has come to be thought of as one of the key factors in preventing Alzheimer’s.
- When we’re asleep, key hormones are released that control how we feel when we’re awake. The stress hormone cortisol lowers, helping to calm the nervous system. Hormones called leptin and ghrelin which control hunger and fullness signals are rebalanced, which helps prevent cravings the next day.
What happens when we get poor sleep?
As you can see, there’s a lot happening whilst we’re asleep. So if we don’t get the necessary quality or quantity of sleep we need, everything else suffers. Sleep is the foundation of our overall wellbeing. When disrupted, this can cause serious issues such as:
- Blood sugar imbalances
- Mood swings
- Sugar cravings
- Decreased stress tolerance
- Poor immune health
- Slower injury healing
- Inability to focus
- Increased risk of: of injuring yourself whilst exercising; obesity; cardiovascular disease; depression; Alzheimer’s.
Thankfully, improving your sleep is one of the ways to help reduce and reverse many of these issues. Using some of tips below can work wonders to improve not only your health when you’re sleeping, but in overall life too.
The 4 sleep cycles
As mentioned above, there are 4 stages of sleep, which when put together, lasts roughly 90 minutes. This is called a ‘sleep cycle’. Throughout the night, we move through several sleep cycles. This may explain why you feel more refreshed when waking up naturally, than to a noisy alarm clock – it could be that your body hasn’t quite finished cycling through all the stages of sleep. Here’s a look at the 4 sleep stages, and the brainwaves that dominate each state:
NREM1 sleep (non-rapid-eye-movement-sleep): 1-5 minutes
This is the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep, when the brain is in a ‘hypnogogic state’. This is when you’ll feel like you’re dozing off. The body hasn’t completely relaxed, and you may experience twitching or the sensation of falling. It’s usually easy for someone to wake up at this stage. It also happens to be a brain that is most conducive to hypnosis, and produces Alpha brainwaves of 8-13hz. Alpha brainwaves are also related to the ‘flow state’, when the brain is calm, creative, and able to more readily absorb new information.
NREM2 sleep: 10-60 minutes
The second stage of sleep sees the body more subdued and relaxed. Our temperature drops and brain activity slows, though there are short bursts of activity – called ‘sleep spindles’ – that help prevent us from being woken up by external stimuli. Theta waves are the dominant brainwave present, between 4-8hz, and experts believe they help with processing information and consolidating memories.
NREM3 sleep: 20-40 minutes
This is the ‘deep sleep’ phase, when muscle tone, pulse and breathing all soften and slow. It’s harder for someone to wake up in this stage. Brainwaves are dominated by the Delta waves or ‘slow waves’, between 1-4hz. The Delta phase of sleep is the part of sleep when healing, recovery and repair primarily take place. Growth hormone is released during deep sleep, which is important for maintaining, building and repairing healthy tissue in our brain and other organs. It is also vital for speeding up healing of injuries and repairing muscles after exercise. This phase can also help strengthen the immune system, and contributes to insightful thinking, creativity and memory.
REM sleep: 10-60 minutes
In the 4th stage of sleep, brain activity picks up, preparing for wakefulness. At this time, the body also experiences ‘atonia’ – a natural temporary muscle paralysis (other than the eyes and respiratory muscles). REM sleep is essential for cognitive functions like memory, learning and creativity. Dreams can occur in any sleep stage, but they’re most vivid and intense in the REM phase due to the sharp increase in brain activity. Usually, REM sleep doesn’t occur until around 90 minutes of a sleep cycle. However, newborns spend around 50% of their sleep in the REM state, which is between 4-8hz.
4 ways to improve to improve your sleep
Now you know a little more about why we sleep, what happens when we’re sleeping, and the four sleep cycles, here are four ways to improve your sleep using yoga, pranayama and lifestyle practices:
1. Get plenty of light in the morning, and not too much at night
Perhaps one of the biggest factors that influences our sleep is light and darkness. Within our brains there is a receptor known as the Suprachiasmaticnucleus (SCN), which senses light and darkness. When it senses light, the SCN signals to the brain and body that it’s daytime, and releases a cascade of hormones we need to feel awake and alert. When the SCN senses darkness, it stimulates a release of hormones we need in order to feel sleepy and ready for bed. Sounds simple, right?
One of the biggest problems with modern life if that it is pretty much guaranteed to disrupt our sleep. That is, unless we’re aware of how powerful light and darkness are, and we’re able to make small changes to shift how much of each we’re getting. Our brains and bodies run on a circadian rhythm, also known as the ‘body clock’ or ‘sleep-wale cycle’. Our circadian rhythm is designed to help us feel awake and alert when it’s light outside, and helps us feel tired enough to go to bed at night. When our rhythms are aligned to the rhythms of nature, we tend to feel well and experience good sleep. When our circadian rhythms are disrupted, however, this can cause low energy in the daytime and sleep disturbances at night.
Here’s how to use light and darkness to aid sleep:
Upon waking, aim to get outside into natural light as soon as possible. This will help re-set your circadian rhythms, and signal to your SCN that it’s daytime. Sleep hormones like melatonin start to disperse and hormones like dopamine and adrenaline that help us feel motivated and alert in the daytime are released. Research has linked a lack of morning light exposure to low mood and depression. Therefore, this is a vital time of day to look after your mental health. You could pair morning sunlight exposure with a few rounds of Sun salutations, a brief walk, or simply by sitting outside drinking your tea. On bright sunny days, you’ll only need around 5 minutes to signal to your brain that it is daytime. But on cloudy days, it may be necessary to spend 30-40 minutes outside to re-set your body clock.
In the evening, try to dim the lights in your home, or use lamps instead of bright overhead lights. Screens give off a lot of blue light waves – known to severely disrupt sleep. If you can, read a book, meditate, or chat with family, rather than watching a screen. If you do enjoy screen time in the evening, you can use apps such as f-lux or Nightshift. These dim the screen or turn the screen’s ‘colour temperature’ to warmer tones with less blue light in them. You could also try using blue light- blocking glasses. These effectively block sleep-disrupting blue light waves from entering your eyes, so they may be a good option if you spend time on screens in the evening.
2. Calm your nervous system at the end of the day
As well as circadian rhythms, we also have a natural cortisol rhythm. This helps us feel alert and focused in the morning, and relaxed in the evening. Cortisol is known as the ‘stress hormone’, but in the right dose it is, in fact, necessary for our wellbeing. Our bodies naturally produce a spike of cortisol in the morning to help kick start the day and get us out of bed. For the first 30 minutes of waking, cortisol levels stay relatively high. Then they gradually decline throughout the day, dropping right down at night.
The problem? Many of us experience chronic stress, or we feel depleted and groggy upon waking and ‘wired and tired’ at night. These are all signs of disrupted cortisol, which in turn can disrupt sleep. In order to help lower your cortisol at the end of the day and help your body wind down for bed, it’s important to reduce your cortisol at the right time.
Here’s how to reduce your cortisol levels:
At the end of your working day, plan to spend a few minutes intentionally calming your nervous system. This is vital, as jumping straight from work-mode to busy family life means you may still be carrying some of the stress of the day with you. A very simple practice of coherent breathing is a wonderful way to rebalance your nervous system. It enables you to feel calm, but not lethargic, and you’re still able to go about your activities in the evening.
To practice coherent breathing, find a timer or a watch that shows the seconds passing. Inhale for 6 seconds, and exhale for 6 seconds. Coherent breathing apps and timers are also available online. A consistent coherent breathing practice can improve HRV (heart rate variability) – a key signal of good overall health and a resilient nervous system.
Another way to calm your nervous system as you wind down from your day is, of course, with a yoga practice! Restorative and yin practices are perfect to help bring peace to the body and mind in the evening. Try A quiet acceptance: Yin practice with David Lurey, A restorative reset with Paula Hines or the The super-sleeper practice (Yoga Nidra practice) with James Reeves.
You could also try our Yoga for Better Sleep program – a series of 10 short classes with a mix of Hatha and Restorative yoga, plus breathing exercises to help you unwind before bed.
3. Yoga postures for better sleep
Two key yoga postures for improving your sleep are Viparita Karani (Legs up the wall pose) and Child’s pose. Practicing legs up the wall for around 10 to 20 minutes can be a powerful way to calm the nervous system if you feel physically fatigued but mentally stimulated. It also helps relieve tired legs, reduces compression that can cause back pain, lowers inflammation and slows the heart rate. Child’s pose is a great way to provide the body with an introverted, calming posture, especially after a busy day. Use a bolster and blanket to support your body and cocoon yourself in softness. Perhaps play some relaxing music whilst you practice. Aim to practice legs up the wall pose for 10 to 15 minutes, and a supported restorative child’s pose for 5 minutes before bed.
4. Create a cool and calming bedroom environment
As well as optimising our bodies for sleep, improving our environment is important too. Research shows the best temperature for good quality sleep is around 18.3 decrees celsius. It also shows that a cool environment is much more conducive to getting better deep sleep. Feeling too hot at night can cause disrupted sleep, so try these tips to cool your body and your bedroom to improve your sleep:
- Try to finish your last meal around 3 hours before bed, as eating increases body temperature and can cause disturbed sleep. However, if you do often wake up between 1am and 3am, try having a light bedtime snack to help you stay asleep.
- Avoid strenuous exercise at least 2 hours before bed, as this causes a rise in both cortisol and body temperature.
- Taking a warm bath around 90 minutes before bed can actually cool the body down. When you step out of the bath, a part of the brain called the hypothalamus triggers the body to cool down rapidly. This also stimulates the release of the sleep hormone melatonin.
- Keep your bedroom cool by opening a window, using a fan or setting your air conditioning to 18.3C
- Choose natural fibres such as wool, cotton or linen for your bedding, which are cooling and breathable.
- Ensure your bedroom is dark. Light exposure between 10am and 4am can cause disrupted sleep, and is linked to a higher likelihood of experiencing depression. Invest in blackout curtains or an eye mask, and tape over any small light sources.
- Use calming pranayama practices like coherent breathing, left-nostril breathing or 4-7-8 breathing to help you drift off to sleep.
- Stick to a routine – remember that just as nature works in cycles and rhythms, so do we! We are much more likely to sleep well and wake up refreshed when we’re able to do so on a regular basis. Try to go to bed at the same time each night (ideally before 10pm) and wake up at the same time each morning.
We’re all unique, so choose the sleep tips that most resonate with you, and start your journey to a peaceful night’s rest from there. Give yourself several weeks to adapt to the changes, and let us know what works for you. I’d love to know how you get on, or if you have any questions about improving your sleep.
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