If you want to change anything about your sleep, where do you start?
Well, it’s really helpful to know where you’re starting from. So, the first thing Sophie recommends keeping a sleep diary.
Simply think about last night and write down the answers to these two questions. They don’t need to be super accurate.
- How many hours were you asleep for last night?
Not counting time you were awake in the middle of the night.
- How many hours were you in bed for? This includes time watching netflix before bed, or snoozing, or checking your phone in the morning
OK, now for the fun part. Maths. Guesstimates are allowed. As is asking your children for help.
You should have two numbers. Say 7 hours of sleep, and 8 hours in bed. What we want to know is your Sleep Efficiency, which is the proportion of time in bed that you were actually asleep…
So, 7 divided by 8, multiplied by 100 provides a percentage… This gives a sleep efficiency of 87.5% - let’s round it up to 88%.
This is pretty good. A healthy sleep efficiency is anything above 85%, and 90% is excellent.
To improve it, think about not going to bed until you actually feel sleepy - and not lingering in bed when you wake up.
You want your brain to associate your bed with sleep and intimacy - and nothing else.
