How to Sleep Well: Tips from an Expert

From idler.co.uk

By Tom Hodgkinson

Though I’ve never really been much good at anything in particular, I do have one skill of which I am very proud, and that is sleeping. I’m really very good at it. I’m an expert dozer.

I found a talent for sleeping from a very young age. My parents called me a dormouse as I was always dropping off and found it very difficult to get out of bed in the morning. At school I would enjoy the nectar of oblivion after lunch during lessons, and teachers would whack the desk to wake me up. At my first job in journalism, I perfected a technique for napping where I would doze while cradling my head in my hands.

Most nights I sleep for nine and a half hours. In general I go to bed at around 10, read for an hour, and wake at around 8.30am. At weekends I lie in bed till ten or eleven.

Socrates reckoned that if you wanted to do something well, then you should get advice from someone who was very good at it. Hence in the Oeconomicus, he gets householding advice from a young man who is known for running an efficient household. (Socrates was suspicious of democracy, because he felt that he was entrusting the running of the city to a bunch of amateurs and chancers.)

In the same spirit, I’d like to pass my sleep expertise on to you. Of course I’m aware that some people have serious insomnia, and those people, I cannot help. It’s one for the doctors. 

But here for what it’s worth are my utterly unscientific top tips. 

1. Be tired in the first place. This means plenty of mental and physical exercise during the day. I cycle six to ten miles each day, and aim to play tennis three or four times a week.
2. Drink lots of beer. Three pints of good ale each evening guarantees me a good night’s sleep.  Good beer is a sleeping draught. I’m always surprised by sleep guides which say “avoid alcohol”.
3. When you cannot get to sleep, lie on your back staring at the ceiling, and attempt to think nice thoughts. For example, imagine friends and family smiling at you.
4. Read for an hour before attempting to sleep.
5. Absolutely no screens.
6. Go to bed early, some time around 10pm.
7. Aim for nine hours.
8. Don’t be a farmer or work for Clifford Chance or Goldman Sachs.
9. Be happy. Clearly stress and worry interrupt sleep.
10. Avoid sleeping pills. The drugs don’t work, they just make it worse.
11. Absolutely no coffee after noon. Coffee hangs around in your system for eight hours or more. Author Michael Pollan calls caffeine “the enemy of good sleep”. After weaning himself off coffee, he said he “was sleeping like a teenager again.”
12. If you can’t sleep, consider doing something useful rather than worrying. When struck by insomnia, Lewis Carroll would put the light on and work on a maths problem. “I believe that an hour of calculation for me is better than an hour of worry,” he said.

Live well,

Tom