Do you know how to sleep well?

Is poor sleep a bad thing?

Whether it’s due to sleep pathologies, sleep debt or sleep apnea, poor sleep may lead to other disorders such as depression – and the reverse is also true. Indeed, there’s a vicious circle: poor sleep puts us in a bad mood; having a bad day leads in turn to a bad night’s sleep, and so on. Simply identifying poor sleep as the main cause of depression can often make sufferers feel better and give them the energy they need to enjoy a good day.

Everyone has their own internal clock

Research has shown that everybody has their own inner schedule. Nobody has exactly the same body clock; each of us is different. When they return from the other side of the world, some globetrotters cope with jetlag better than others who may take several days to recover. We can adjust our internal clocks to our professional environment or exceptional circumstances, but we can’t change them altogether; we need to listen to our bodies.

Get in step with the world around you

If your journey involves a time difference, the recommendation is to use light and meals as a way of adjusting your body clock: putting yourself on destination time before departure makes it easier to cope with jet lag, for instance. You shouldn’t use sunglasses in the morning; they block out the natural light that’s so important when it comes to waking up properly. Before going to bed in the evening, the best thing to do to achieve a good night’s sleep is to stay well away from screens, especially computers and smartphones: these give off the notorious blue light that excites the brain.

Early bird or night owl?

To find out which of these you are, you need to start by working out how much sleep you need. Once you’re sure of that, do your best to get that much. Those who naturally want to go to sleep at around 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning are ‘night owls’. They face an especially difficult challenge, because as we all know ‘the early bird catches the worm’! Night owls have to make an extra effort to adjust to the schedules adopted by most other people and in the world of work, where getting up early is a must. On the other hand, things appear to be simpler for ‘early birds’: they have no problem going to bed early – or in getting up at 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning.

Forty winks or not?

Taking a nap after lunch can help you stay in good shape and do you a lot of good. The length of the nap is important, though: it shouldn’t be any longer than ten to fifteen minutes, a short sleep known as a power nap. They’re a good way of recharging your batteries and feeling in better shape for the rest of the day, but if you nod off for more than an hour you can enter a deeper phase of sleep, making it much harder to recover when you wake up. In short, the length of your nap plays a determining role in how good it is and how much good it will do you for the rest of the day – and the following night.

Love your bedroom

It’s very important to feel good about your bedroom, your bed and everything in your sleeping environment. Being able to rest your gaze on peaceful, minimalistic surroundings is vital to a good night’s sleep. One key recommendation is not to clutter your bedroom with clothes, other items, or elaborate decorations, all of which are detrimental to the process of falling asleep; on the contrary, this kind of disruption can create stress and lead to insomnia. A lack of comfort is a threat to the Land of Nod too, so it’s important to be able to really enjoy where you sleep, allowing you to drift away in complete and undisturbed peace of mind.

For a good night’s sleep, avoid...

• Physical exercise for one hour beforehand
• Eating too much
• Taking a shower that’s too hot or too cold (doing so disrupts body heat, making you uncomfortable just when you want to go to sleep)
• Drinking alcohol: a nightcap is not in fact your best friend. It does tend to relax you and knock you out a bit, but after that, alcohol acts as a stimulant that may result in periods of wakefulness or even insomnia.