Sleep Advice - Sleep Tips
Clubbers kip tips
- If you know you have a long weekend of partying ahead, you can help keep your biological clock tuned in to your sleep with anchor sleep. Aim to have at least four hours sleep at the same time every night/morning (e.g. 3-7am). This seems to help keep your sleep clock regular.
- As most clubs don’t even begin to get going until well past midnight, try a couple of hours of pre-club snoozing before hitting the town. You’ll feel more alert and ready to party, BUT – allow at least 20 minutes after waking up before you do anything important. It takes that long for the brain to wake up.
- After a heavy weekend, you can use the early part of the week to get in some extra “recovery” sleep. Younger people don’t need many extra hours to catch up on what they lost out on over the weekend.
- You can also “store up” extra sleep before a weekend of serious clubbing. By getting some extra snooze over the couple of nights prior to your big night out, your body will be slightly more resilient to any sleep deprivation.
- What’s your bed like? A good bed really does make a difference to how well you sleep. Grotty second hand ones are frankly disgusting (other peoples’ sweat and skin cells in the mattress). So get yourself a bed that’s the business for post club crash-outs.
- Alcohol may allow you to go to sleep if it relaxes you, or it may make you unconscious, but it’s seriously unhelpful to a good night’s kip. You don’t breathe as well and the sleep is more broken because your brain reacts against being unconscious. Alcohol will also dehydrate you, so drink plenty of water before going to bed.
- Coffee, tea and chocolate all contain caffeine and related chemicals which promote wakefulness. But don’t think coffee counteracts the effects of alcohol. Experiments show that you are as badly impaired by the alcohol, even though the coffee makes you feel more alert.
- Lavender, passion flower, hops, orange blossom, Scot’s pine, camomile and peppermint all claim to promote sleep. And milky night time drinks really do help bring on the Zzzs
- The Romans thought that lettuce was good for sleep, but the crème-de-la-crème “sleep sandwich” has to be a banana, marmite and lettuce buttie: the banana and marmite contain natural substances that help induce sleep.
- Over-the-counter sleep aids (containing promethazine, diphenhydramine, etc) may help you get drowsy, but be aware that they stay in the blood stream for eight hours and longer. You may get to sleep, but you might not feel well when you try to get up.
- Remember that recreational drugs can seriously effect the quality of your sleep. You may experience “speed sleep” - a restless and sweaty, post-club kip which may lead to vivid dreams and nightmares.
- Lark or Owl? If you’re an owl, you usually go to bed late and get up late, so parties don’t tend to be a problem. Larks who get up early and go to bed early have a tougher time of it. Bright light in the evening and avoiding the dawn light by wearing sunglasses can help.
- Don’t forget water! When you’re feeling wrecked, just plain water can be an energy source. Dehydration caused by dancing and drinking causes a loss in efficiency because the body has to work harder to cool itself, burning glycogen stores in the process.
- Maximum sleepiness occurs when your biological clock temperature is at its lowest – usually around 4am. Your personal level of alertness is controlled by your biological clock and by how much sleep you have had. Remember sleeplessness leads to poor concentration, thinking, memory, increased irritability and hostility. Alcohol magnifies these effects.
