We have all had late nights and lie-ins, yawned our way through lectures, maybe pulled an all-nighter, or even dozed off listening to fossil descriptions because, well, last night’s party was a long one. We’ve all been there. BUT, this probably means we all need to start prioritising our sleep just a little bit more. As Ffion Jenkins is about to explain, sleep is vital, our daily habits might be undermining its clever patterns, and she knows some simple ways we can make our sleep better.

The information contained in this post represents the views and opinions of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views or the opinions of UCL.

The most common causes of persistent tiredness are burnout (or overtraining syndrome), viral illness, inadequate diet and insufficient sleep. It’s also not just about how long you sleep for, but also sleep quality and timing. This article breaks down why sleep is important, highlights where you may be going wrong, and offers advice on what we can do to make it better!

The Importance Sleep

Sleep is a vital human function as much as eating, drinking and breathing. It’s a time for your body to recover; healing and repairing not just muscles you’ve exercised, but also your kidneys, brain, lungs etc., and so getting enough sleep helps protect your mental and physical health. 

Health elements affected by your sleep:

• Formation of brain pathways: sleep allows for increased learning, attention, creativity, information retention and problem solving, as well as emotional and behavioural control. 
• Immunity: Lack of sleep can change the way your immune system functions, making it more difficult to fight off illnesses such as common colds.
• Balance of Hormones: 
  • Levels of ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and leptin (fullness hormone) are influenced by sleep, with lack of sleep causing an increase in ghrelin and decrease in leptin, which makes you feel hungrier and has a significant link with obesity. 
  • Insulin (controls blood sugar levels) is also impacted by lack of sleep and can lead to higher than normal blood sugar levels, which can increase your risk of diabetes.
  • Growth hormones are released during deep sleep and are key for boosting muscle mass as well as helping repair cells and tissues. 

Sleep deficiency is related to a difficulty in controlling behaviour and emotions as well as coping with change, which can make changes such as moving into uni halls/new accommodation, starting a new job or going through a breakup even more difficult. Associations have been shown between sleep deprivation, depression and risk-taking behaviour. 

The recommended amount of sleep for adults is 7-8 quality hours of sleep per night, however a third of British people are ‘getting by’ with only 5-6 hours, and similar statistics are seen in America, Japan, and Germany. Whilst some of us might be tempted to use napping as a way to ‘catch up’ on sleep, naps only provide a short-term boost to our alertness and performance, without the other benefits associated with night-time sleep. Similarly, having a lie-in the day after a night of poor sleep can help you catch up a bit, but making a routine of lying in or staying up much later on weekends or days off will upset your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, and make it more difficult to get to sleep or get up to work. 

How do we sleep?

Before we move onto understanding what might be disrupting our sleep, it’s worth talking about sleep cycles, and how they can help us calculate bedtime and alarms, instead of relying on a set number of hours. 

To give you a brief overview of the science: in one sleep cycle we pass through stages 1 to 4 (deepest sleep), then back through to 1, before we enter REM sleep, with an increasing amount of time spent in the REM stage the longer we sleep. During REM stages in sleep, the brain is more active than the awake state, but the body is paralysed- this is the stage where we dream. In non-REM stages, energy used by the brain, muscle tension and temperature is reduced. Deprivation of REM sleep is what causes physiological and cognitive disturbance. 

The mistake we make is that a sleeping cycle is longer than 1 hour. Therefore, aiming to get a certain number of hours sleep can lead you to set an alarm for when you are in the middle of deeper, non-REM sleep, making you feel more tired. 

Under clinical conditions, it takes 90 minutes to go through a full sleep cycle. Working in full sleep cycles, and taking into account the 7-8 hour recommendation, the aim should be 5 sleep cycles or 7 hours and 30 minutes sleep per night. Adding on the 15 minutes it takes the average person to fall asleep means you can calculate what time to set you’re alarm to wake up feeling refreshed (or just use an online sleep calculator). It’s also worth highlighting that if you miss your usual bedtime, you’re better off waiting until the beginning of the next 90 minute segment, rather than jumping into bed and causing your alarm to fall within the deep sleep portion. Your sleep time is flexible, just work back in 90 minute cycles from when you need to wake up.

What might be wrong with your sleep?

Your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle is part of the 24-hour internal cycle controlled by our body clock (our circadian rhythm). This clock is a product of millions of years of evolution and controls all sorts of body functions, from sleep, to temperature, digestion and alertness. This rhythm is set based on light and dark to match the day-night cycle, as our early ancestors slept outside.

Unfortunately, the invention of artificial light came only in the last 150 years, and it has significantly impacted the way we sleep. The biggest problem is blue light from phone and laptop screens, which confuses the brain. Although the ‘night-time’ screen filters help with this, it doesn’t address the additional problem of technology before bed- impacting on our stress levels and alertness, so the real solution is just avoid tech for the last 30 mins before bed (ideal time to do a skin care routine, read a few book chapters or do some relaxing stretches instead!).

Caffeine is another offender which impacts our sleep. Caffeine is a neurostimulant that improves alertness, reaction time, concentration and endurance. Although a number of sports use caffeine for performance enhancement, this is done through individualised doses and at specific times to minimise development of tolerance. It’s best results in athletes are seen with 3-6 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (e.g. if you’re 65kg, that would be 195-390 milligrams), with the UK food standards agency recommending 400 milligrams as a total daily caffeine intake. Regularly overusing caffeine will cause you to build up a tolerance, meaning you will need more to build up the same effect.

Once overstimulation becomes your ‘normal’, rather than enhancing your performance, you need caffeine just to get to the point of being able to perform at all! In addition, caffeine has a half-life (the time it takes for concentration in the body to half) of up to 6 hours. So even if you do avoid having caffeine in the evenings, that 4pm coffee will still be in your system when you’re trying to go to bed at 10!

Tips for improving your sleep

1. Try to keep a fairly regular sleep routine: Not the easiest thing to do as a student but if you’re struggling with sleep, trying to get yourself into a regular bedtime and wake-up routine should help set your body clock. 
2. Open your curtains when you wake up: This exposure to natural light allows you’re internal clock to be set for the day. If you work shifts it can be useful to invest in a light alarm clock that replicates a sunrise for the time you need to get up.
3. Wind down before bed: A warm (not hot) bath, reading, relaxation exercises like yoga, meditation and avoiding screens can help you relax and get ready for bed. If you struggle with racing thoughts, it might help you to write them down into a to-do list for tomorrow so you can tackle them (or realise they were silly) when you get up. 
4.  Make your room sleep-friendly: Ideally, your room needs to be dark, quiet, tidy, and be kept at a temperature between 18C and 24C. 
5. Slow down your mornings: In the same way that missing sleep disrupts your sleep, getting up too fast also doesn’t fit in with your natural rhythm, and your body needs tilme to wake up and be ready to digest breakfast etc.
6. Try and get moving: Move during the day to tire yourself out!
7. Avoid activities like watching TV or uni work on your bed: If possible, avoid these activities on your bed, as they will stop your mind associating your bed with sleep, even if it means sitting on the floor or leaning against your bed.
8. Don’t just lie awake for hours: If you find yourself lying awake at night, don’t just stay there for hours as you’ll begin to associate lying in bed with being awake. Try getting up, walking around your flat, take a trip to the toilet or the kitchen, maybe read a book (avoid technology!) and then head back back to bed. Try again if you’re still not feeling sleepy.

US Military technique for falling asleep in two minutes

My GP recommended this once, and apparently it works for 96% of people who try it for 6 weeks. The idea is you focus on relaxing, by first squeezing muscles and then actively feeling them relax. I’ll talk through working in big areas but if you want to you, can break it down into hands, wrists etc.

1. First, set any alarms and turn your phone on silent. Seat yourself on the edge of your bed. Slowly, take deep breaths in and out, and listen to the sound of each breath.  
2. Start with your facial muscles. First, tighten the muscles by making a wincing facial expression, then let your muscles slowly relax, including your tongue and eyelids. 
3. Then, tense the muscles in your shoulders, bringing them close to your ears, and clench your hands into fists. Let gravity relax the muscles and bring them down so they’re hanging relaxed by your sides. Keep breathing as you do this, letting your chest relax as you relax your arms.
4. Now move onto the legs. Tense the muscles in your thighs and calves, and slowly let gravity relax the muscles until they’re loose.
5. When you are feeling physically relaxed, start working on calming and clearing your mind. Try this for 10 seconds. When a thought enters your head, try and let go of it. Meanwhile, keep your body relaxed. Repeat this a few times, until your mind begins to feel relaxed . 
6. Next, picture yourself in one of the two following scenarios. You can imagine yourself lying in a canoe on a still lake, looking up at a calm and clear sky, or, imagine yourself in pitch black room, swaying gently in a velvet hammock. If these visualisations aren’t working, try a with your own scenario, of repeat to yourself ‘Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think’ for a few seconds.  
7. Finally, turn of the light and get into bed. Close your eyes, hopefully you should fall asleep within a few minutes. 

Written by: Ffion Jenkins 

Sources:

• ‘The Stress Solution, 4 steps to reset your body, mind, relationships & purpose’ by Dr Rangan Chatterjee  
• ‘Relax and Win: Championship Performance’ by Lloyd Bud Winter 
• Hirshkowitz, M., Whiton, K., Albert, S.M., Alessi, C., Bruni, O., DonCarlos, L., Hazen, N., Herman, J., Katz, E.S., Kheirandish-Gozal, L., Neubauer, D.N., O’Donnell, A.E., Ohayon, M., Peever, J., Rawding, R., Sachdeva, R.C., Setters, B., Vitiello, M.V., Ware, J.C. and Adams Hillard, P.J. (2015). National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health, [online] 1(1), pp.40–43. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352721815000157.
• Foley, L. (2021). Caffeine & Sleep Problems. [online] Sleep Foundation. Available at: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/caffeine-and-sleep.
• Patel, A.K. and Araujo, J.F. (2018). Physiology, Sleep Stages. [online] Nih.gov. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526132/.