Can't Sleep - A Sleep Expert On How To Improve Sleep Quality

9/26/2019 Can't sleep?
A sleep expert on how to improve sleep quality
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10 steps to improve poor sleep, according to a

sleep expert
Insomniacs, take note
by S O P H I E B O Y D E N SEP 25, 2019
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a29075088/how-to-sleep-better-insomnia-expert/ 1/15
9/26/2019 Can't sleep? A sleep expert on how to improve sleep quality
CAIAIMAGE/PAUL BRADBURY / GETTY IMAGES 
Sleep is precious. It’s normal for a change in circumstances - noisy housemates, an

upcoming work presentation or an overowing to-do list – to affect your sleep
quality. We all occasionally struggle to drift off, or drift off without a problem, only to
keep waking up in the middle of the night.
But what if a couple of nights turns into weeks, months, and even years of insomnia?
The more you worry about not catching enough Z's, the worse your sleeping habits
become and the more it starts to impact on your mental and physical health.
According to sleep expert Kathryn Pinkham, “insomnia affects a surprisingly large
number of people, in fact around 15 to 30 percent of us can expect to suffer with
insomnia at some point in our lives".
It's never too late to regain control of your sleeping habits, and there are some steps
you can take to increase the quality of your sleep in the long term. Kathryn is a sleep
specialist who founded The Insomnia Clinic - the UK’s largest insomnia specialist
service. Here's what we learnt from her evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i) programme, an NHS-recommended method for long-
term treatment of sleep problems that doesn't involve taking medication.
1. Keep a sleep diary, but don’t obsessively track

Banish sleep trackers and avoid using your phone/watch/Fitbit to monitor your
sleep. “They are often inaccurate and only serve to increase anxiety around sleep”,
Kathryn says.
Instead, she recommends noting down the approximate time you’re getting into bed,
how many hours of sleep you’re getting and what time you’re getting up in the
morning. A diary may help you better evaluate common patterns you may see
with your sleep or sleeping habits.
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GETTY IMAGES
2. Introduce sleep restriction

You can train your body to fall asleep at a certain time – with practice. “We are born
with the ability to sleep. We just aren’t necessarily born with the ability to know
when and how. In order to sleep well, our body clock has to be set to fall asleep at
the same time our drive is high. Our body needs to understand how long we want to
sleep for, so that clock needs to be set correctly,” Kathryn reveals.
Introducing sleep restriction: limiting the number of hours spent in bed to closely
match the time we can sleep for, which creates a stronger drive to fall asleep and
improves sleep quality, rather than quantity. “Without that drive, it’s very difficult
to sleep well and to fall asleep because essentially there isn’t enough appetite there
for it”, she says.
How to calculate your sleep restriction window:
⬥ First, work out your sleep efficiency - how long you’re asleep for vs how long you spend in
bed in total – by dividing your sleep time by the amount of time you spend in bed in total and
times by 100. For example, 6 hours of sleep / 8 hours in bed x 100 = 75%.
⬥ This gives you the percentage of time you’re actually asleep, and the remaining 25% is how
much you will reduce your sleep window by. For example, your new sleep window would be
12am – 6am, spending 6 hours in bed for 6-hour sleep, rather than 8 hours in bed for a 6-hour
sleep.
“Sleep restriction is creating a much stronger drive to actually fall asleep simply by
creating a mild sleep deprivation”, Kathryn adds. The insomnia expert notes that this
is only a short-term step: “It’s a way of xing the problem that has been created, and
in the long term, things will get much better.
3. Don’t waste time in bed not sleeping

Kathryn recommends being super strict with your sleep window - however tired you
are, stay awake until your new bedtime when your sleep drive should be high.
Use the extra hours you’d usually spend in bed tossing and turning for productivity,
whether that’s meal prepping, doing your laundry or reading a book (as long as it
doesn’t involve your phones and laptops close to bedtime!). "You should think, 'now I
have this time, what can I use it for?', rather than wasting time trying to sleep or
sitting in bed because you think you should go to bed earlier”, Kathryn suggests,
adding that you will be able to stretch your sleep window over time.
4. Dissociate your bedroom from wakeful activities

We’re all guilty of using our laptops to watch Netix in bed or having a cheeky
midnight scroll through Instagram, but Kathryn believes that “the more we
associate our bed with wakeful activities, the poorer the connection we have to
sleep”.
Instead, she recommends correcting our drive by associating our bed with its sole
purpose – getting some shut eye. To do so, we need to disconnect our bedroom from
activities like watching TV, using our phones, working or lying awake for hours
feeling frustrated or anxious.
“If you are wide awake and feeling frustrated, leave the bedroom and do something
unstimulating until you feel tired,” Kathryn suggests. Have a warm bath, read a book
or listen to some calming music, only going back to bed when you feel sleepy. “The
more times we fall asleep quickly and sleep through, the less anxiety we have about
sleeping, and the more we connect our bed to sleeping and the better our sleep
pattern becomes”, explains Kathryn.
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HERO IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES
5. Find ways to manage anxious thoughts

Sleep = a drop in core temperature + a drop in heart rate, so anxiety is sleep's
enemy because it sends a ‘ght or ight’ message and makes you feel hotter and
more vigilant with a faster heart rate. “You are creating an environment which would
be impossible to sleep in”, Kathryn says.
De-stressing before bedtime is easier said than done, particularly if you worry a lot
about getting a good night's sleep. However, the insomnia specialist suggests trying
this experiment to ‘postpone’ anxious thoughts rather than trying (and failing) to
suppress them: “Every day for 20 minutes, write down your thoughts around sleep
or anything else you’re worried about. Close your notepad and go do something else
– watch TV, read a book, do something you enjoy. Whenever something pops into
your head, acknowledge it, make a note of it, and when you come to your allotted
20-minute time slot that night, write it down and start looking at it and working out
how you feel about it. This is all about getting it out of your head and onto paper to
get a different perspective. We’re not suppressing worries; we’re just deciding when
to think about it.”
If you think that your anxious thoughts are affecting your quality of life and may be a
sign of a mental health issue, speak to your doctor.
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GETTY IMAGES
6. Avoid looking at the clock

Are you guilty of checking the time if you wake in the middle of the night to calculate
how many hours you have before you have to get up? Us too, but it's important to
resist this temptation.
“There’s very little to be gained by looking at the clock in terms of anxiety levels",
Kathryn says. "It makes your heart and brain start racing because you’re thinking of
all the things you need to do and how you’re not going to be refreshed enough.”
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TETRA IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES
7. Have a healthy, active daytime routine

Kathryn’s motto? “Leave the daytime for living and the night time for sleeping”.
It's important to get lots of sunlight early on in the day, as well as fresh air, exercise
and water – the more routine you have in your daytime, the better your routine is
going to work at night. She also recommends sticking to eating and drinking during
the day as you don’t want to be in the routine of eating close to bedtime or waking
up and eating during the night.
If you're desperate for a daytime nap, Kathryn suggests resting for “no longer than 20
minutes and no later than 3pm.” A consistent routine also means no marathon lie-ins
on the weekend... sorry!
8. Practice good sleep hygiene

Creating a nice environment for a good night’s sleep is often overlooked but
denitely important – an uncluttered room, a comfy mattress, low lighting, a cool
temperature, and yep, even earplugs for snoring partners or noisy neighbours.
Kathryn also recommends avoiding caffeine after 4pm and trying not to use your
phone and laptop for 2 hours before bedtime, as they will stimulate the hormones
that keep you awake (maybe pick up a copy of Cosmo instead, eh?). Although it’s
important to be mindful of these things, they “will improve sleep but the reality is
that they are not cures for a sleep problem”, Kathryn adds. If you obey the strictest
sleep hygiene but still sleep poorly, it could be that “you’re thinking too much about
it and doing too many things to try and make it work”.
9. Realise that a good night’s sleep is important, but it isn’t

everything
Your quality of sleep isn’t in control of your life. “Everyone out there who sleeps 8
hours a night doesn’t have a perfect life, they don’t perform perfectly at work, they
don’t ever not make a mistake. Sleep is not going to x all of those things”, Kathryn
says.
We have to acknowledge that if our lifestyle is stressful and makes us anxious, this is
going to make us tired, even if we’ve had enough sleep. “The worry is exhausting. So,
even if you’re sleeping better but you still feel tired all the time during the day, that is
because stress is exhausting. If I get 10 hours sleep a night but I’m stressed during
the day, then I’ll still feel exhausted. That’s because it’s my body’s way of letting me
know I’m not ok and I need to do something about it,” she says.
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10. Don’t think negatively about sleep

Don’t turn sleep into something you’re 'succeeding' or 'failing' at. “Most of us are
blaming sleep for all the things we’re not feeling, achieving or doing”, Kathryn says.
“People who aren’t sleeping well have this idea that ‘if I could sleep well, everything
would change, and I’d be a better person’. The reality is that people who sleep well
don’t always wake up bounding with energy, never make mistakes and are better
versions of themselves. That’s not the case.”
Kathryn adds that while good quality sleep is important (for memory, productivity
and concentration), it isn’t as important as people who aren’t sleeping well think:
“We put lots of emphasis on how we would be if we slept more when in reality, sleep
really only makes us tired. All these other worries we have are actually the result of
worrying about sleep”.
Kathryn Pinkham is a sleep expert at The Insomnia Clinic.
The Insomnia Clinic provides an online step-by-step programme to take control

over your sleep with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). The
Sleep Well Live Better Online Course is £189 and includes online materials, videos
and personal support. Use the code COSMO30 for £30 off the online course until
31st October.
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SOPHIE BOYDEN snapchat editor

Sophie Boyden is Cosmopolitan UK's Snapchat Editor, who spends her time creating daily Snapchat Discover editions, making
Instagram memes and writing occasionally for Cosmopolitan.com/UK.
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9/26/2019 Can't sleep?

A sleep expert on how to improve sleep quality

10 steps to improve poor sleep, according to a

by S O P H I E B O Y D E N SEP 25, 2019

CAIAIMAGE/PAUL BRADBURY / GETTY IMAGES 

Sleep is precious. It’s normal for a change in circumstances - noisy housemates, an

1. Keep a sleep diary, but don’t obsessively track

2. Introduce sleep restriction

How to calculate your sleep restriction window:

3. Don’t waste time in bed not sleeping

4. Dissociate your bedroom from wakeful activities

5. Find ways to manage anxious thoughts

6. Avoid looking at the clock

7. Have a healthy, active daytime routine

8. Practice good sleep hygiene

9. Realise that a good night’s sleep is important, but it isn’t

10. Don’t think negatively about sleep

Kathryn Pinkham is a sleep expert at The Insomnia Clinic.

The Insomnia Clinic provides an online step-by-step programme to take control

10 books to read when you can't sleep

7 surprising side effects of insomnia

SOPHIE BOYDEN snapchat editor

The most common STI 9 doggy style secrets guys will

Kate Middleton is reportedly An interiors influencer on the

HOW THE ANTIDEPRESSANT SERTRALINE TWITTER USERS SHARE WHAT "VAGINA"

DISCHARGE: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO COULD YOU BE SUFFERING FROM SOCIAL

THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO BE SUFFERING FROM HOW NORMAL IS IT TO GAIN WEIGHT ON

BRB just drooling over 15 glitter eyeshadow palettes for

Meghan Markle had a savage

Women with large labia share Customers are complaining

WEBCHAT WITH NAIL EXPERT JESSICA HOFFMAN

Love Island 2019 Beauty

Body News & politics

Hearst Magazines UK - Cosmopolitan, Part of the Hearst UK Fashion & Beauty

Registered in England 112955. All rights reserved.

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