Just One Thing - Sleep Well Facts By Dr Michael Mosley (re-edit)

[Music] sleep is an Elixir a good night's rest can reset and boost your mood your energy it can in the long term transform your health but sleep can also be illusive a third of us struggle with it myself included so for all of you who crave better sleep help is at hand i'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is sleep well this is a podcast series with a difference we've designed it to help you get more rest I'm going to guide you through some simple scientifically proven ways to make it easier to drift off and tools for getting a better nights sleep so please get yourself comfortable and let's begin we all do it every day in out most of the time it's automatic along with our heartbeat it's a rhythmic backdrop to all of our lives but it can also be the key to getting your brain and body ready to doze off by slowing your breath you can initiate a huge range of physical changes which will help usher in sleep more on that shortly [Music] first though let's relax whatever is on your mind let it go at the start of every episode we're going to unwind so let's breathe [Music] in and out and melt away the cares of the day [Music] notice how it feels as you breathe in and out if you can breathe in through your nose and out whichever way is more comfortable notice how the air feels as it passes the inside of the nostrils try to breathe out for a little longer than you breathe in but don't overthink it just be comfortable let go of everything else just be here with your breath allow yourself to get into a rhythm in out taking control of your breathing like this gently slowing the rate you inhale and exhale is one of the simplest scientifically backed ways to help you sleep a recent study showed that simply slowing their breathing like this enabled participants to nod off around 20 minutes sooner not only that they slept better for longer and woke up less often during the night so take a breath in and [Music] out this simple technique which you can use anywhere at any time works because it has a powerful effect on the body and brain it triggers a Cascade of changes from from shifting your brain chemistry to calming a worrying mind to slowing your heart rate and initiating deep relaxation how it does all this has been uncovered by Ian Robertson professor at triny College Dublin this thing we discovered is more precise more side effect free and more effective than any chemical you could be prescribed by your doctor or bu in the pharmacy it's all to do with a tiny bit of the brain called the Locust culus there is probably no more important little part of the brain than the locus cerus in determining whether or not we get to sleep if sleep isn't coming and your mind is racing it's the Locust cilus that's active releasing a hormone that's also a neurotransmitter called noradrenaline noradrenaline is the wakeup chemical of the brain whenever anything new interesting challenging happens whenever that memory that worry comes into your mind this little part of your brain increases activity and sprays this noradrenaline to every part of your brain our lab discovered that a process that all of us do all of the time actually changes the firing of the locus cerus and therefore the levels of noradrenaline in the brain and that is our breath the way we breathe we showed that the firing of the neurons in Locus cerus went up and down as we breathed in and out actually by changing the breath you can change these critical components of the figh ORF flight system you can think of sleep as a bit like an orchestra being coaxed into the slow Movement by the conductor so you're in the slow movement going into sleep and suddenly you remember that email you didn't send or that difficult conversation you had and suddenly the orchestra goes back into the fast movement your brain and your body start to respond to this but the good news is you just slow your breathing and if you do that you can take the orchestra back into the slow movement as the breath slows nor adrenaline levels fall and start a Cascade of powerful responses from what's called your parasympathetic nervous system that slows your heart rate relaxes your muscles and enables you to enter a deep Repose all from breathing in and [Music] out so what's the best technique there are lots to choose from the NHS recommends 4 seconds in hold for 2 seconds 4 seconds out that's the one I do ERS 4 seconds in 6 seconds out see which works for you what matters is slowing your breath right down and finding your own Rhythm scientists have found about six breaths a minute that's six in and six out is the most effective this matches the rate achieved by many meditation and religious breathing practices from the rosary prayer to meditation mantras they all home in on the same thing what can also help is to do more belly breathing put one hand on your chest and the other on your tummy just below the rib cage as you breathe in you should feel that hand rise as your belly expands the hand on your chest should remain relatively still so just sink in calmly notice the sensations of the breath and let everything else fall away now as we go further and you're finding your own flow with the breathing using sound and because the pictures are better on radio it's time to dive deeper to reveal what's going on inside as you breathe in notice how your belly moves out as your diaphragm moves down there's more space in the lungs now as they inflate with the air that's passing in to tiny air sacs in the lungs called alvioli they fill as we breathe in and deflate as we breathe breathe out the inhaled air rich in oxygen seep through their thin moist walls into the surrounding blood supply from there the oxygen travels through a vast network of arteries and Tiny capillaries reaching every organ in the body muscles in the shoulders arms chest legs feel them relaxing as cells use oxygen they release carbon dioxide into the blood and that carbon dioxide traveling with blood reaches the brain in the brain stem deep under the cortex there's that tiny cluster of cells the Locust cilus which translates from the Latin as blue spot as the change in breath Alters the level of carbon dioxide the firing of the lucus cilus slows lowering your nor adrenaline levels allowing peacefulness to descend as your thoughts drift away the more you practice slow deep breathing the more comfortable you'll get and you'll soon find yourself automatically heading towards that six breaths a minute and when that happens there's a positive feedback loop that kicks in between the lungs the brain and the Heart remarkably when that happens they all start to [Music] synchronize and that activates the parasympathetic nervous system bringing about a deeper level of relaxation feel the muscles in the legs relax the muscles in the hands and arms deeply relax up through the Torso neck head and as the muscles relax the body becomes heavier and heavier the heart rate slows the blood pressure lowers a sense of peacefulness is building washing over the Mind Paving the way to a state of deep relaxation I hope you've enjoyed this journey into the breath there are lots of good things that have been shown to genuinely help us with sleep and and I'll be looking into more of those in other episodes next up the power of Morning Light why not subscribe on BBC [Music] sounds rest well [Music] sleep is an Elixir a good night's rest can reset and boost your mood your energy it can in the long term transform your health but sleep can also be elusive a third of us struggle with it myself included so for all of you who crave better sleep help is at hand I'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is sleep well this is a podcast series with a difference we've designed it to help you get more rest I'm going to guide you through some simple scientifically proven ways to make it easier to drift off and tools for getting a better night's sleep so please get yourself comfortable and let's begin whatever your sleep experience it's likely that time is going to be on your mind so it may be comforting to know that one of the best things you can do if you struggle to doze off at night and fixate on the clock is set your alarm and then turn the clock away leave everything else till the [Music] morning in this episode we're going to focus not on what you do just before bed but what you do at the beginning of the day because one of the best things you can do to help you sleep in the evening is to get up at the same time each day and then to head outside into the Morning Light [Music] it's all about setting a rhythm and working with the Sleep related signals which are operating inside your body we'll dive into all this in a moment but first we're going to unwind whatever has gone on in the day let's breathe and Let It All Fall Away Breathe In and Out Slow your breath comfortably with each breath feel your arms and legs getting heavier as I showed in the first episode taking more control over your breath is one of the best things you can do to switch off from the day it has a profound effect on the body and mind moving us to a state of deeper relaxation just notice the sensations as you breathe in and out as you breathe slowly deeply comfortably relax let go just be here so our breath has a rhythm and there's another Rhythm that is hard wide into all of us our Cadian Rhythm driven by internal clocks this Rhythm follows a cycle of roughly 24 hours and helps determine when your body wants to naturally fall asleep researchers have found one of the most important things that can affect this sleep cycle is what time you get up and this the time you wake affects your Cadian Rhythm More than the time you go to bed it's thought that a big part of the story is exposure to Daylight Dr Christine Bloom is from the center for chronobiology in barel Switzerland when we talk about factors that are relevant for our sleep one of the most underestimated factors is actually daylight since we live on a planet that alternates between day and night it's not surprising that light plays a critical role in setting our body clock or rather our body clocks in each cell whether that's in the hearts or the liver even in the skin each cell has a tiny clock that is ticking inside it there is one central body clock located in the brain that keeps all of them in sync the cental body clock communicates the time of day to each cell in this way it regulates bodily processes in accordance with the time of day it for instance makes you tired at night and it also choreographs of release of hormones at appropriate times a key hormone in the sleep wake cycle is melatonin which rises in the evening and plays an important role in making us feel sleepy at night but for most people the internal melatonin cycle isn't exactly 24 hours there is actually a mismatch between the external suntime and the internal body time we need to reset and resynchronize our internal biological clock every single day it requires constant adjustment and how is this done by the Light of the day we have receptors at the back of our eyes that are not used for seeing their purpose is to detect light and send signals to a region of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus the scn this is one of your body's most important internal biological clocks in the morning when sunlight shines into our Open Eyes The receptors start signaling to the internal biological clock that it is now daytime and then this triggers a Cascade of subsequent processes in the body these receptors are specifically designed to extract important information about the time of day from daylight and then communicate this information to the internal biological clock located deep in the brain the earlier the Morning Light meets the eyes the earlier the next biological light will begin early daily exposure to Daylight has the effect of resetting our central body clock bringing forward the secretion of the hormone melatonin later that evening and so helping you get into a regular sleep cycle so even on Gray and overcast days I would encourage you to go outside and enjoy the natural daylight because it has characteristics that are extremely hard to reproduce with artificial light Solutions and on top it's for free [Music] [Music] so what's the best way to get the benefits of more morning light into your day first things first because when we wake each day help set our Cadian Rhythm so try to be consistent and set your alarm for the same time every day of the week including weekends and when you do wake up well the earlier you can get Outdoors into the daylight the better if you are not a natural early riser don't worry just try to get out into the daylight within 2 hours of waking now it's time to die deeper to reveal what's going on [Music] inside imagine it's morning and your body is being dazed bathed by a beam of sunlight it's a delight lightfully warm beam your whole body is surrounded by Golden glowing light a liquid glow as light enters the eye it hit senses special senses that have nothing to do with vision color shape sensing anything like that they exist to pick up light from outside the body and when they do they send a signal all the way from the back of the eye to a part of the brain that's key to this story containing about 20,000 neurons and less than 2 millim wide that's smaller than a grain of rice is the Supra chiasmatic nucleus the scn the signals from the eye sensors with the marvelous name of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells arrive at the scn where the cells are keeping time across the daily Rhythm the light impacts upon molecules which are responsible for the timing of the clock one of them is an enzyme that creates a Cascade of chemical changes so that about 12 hours later in the pineal gland deep in your brain melatonin is produced melatonin is the signal to the entire brain and the body that night is approaching as it is released into your blood it travels all around the body binding to receptors on the cells and helps to make us feel sleepy so the body can prepare for a wonderful deep rest the early morning light brings melatonin production forward in the evening imagine the glow of this early morning light and picture again that glow surrounding you infusing you as you breathe deeply and relax more and more and when the morning comes if you can do see take out that light I hope you've enjoyed this exploration of light and The rhythms of the body all the episodes are waiting for you to listen to in your own time on BBC [Music] sounds next up making friends with your [Music] bed rest [Music] well sleep is an Elixir a good night's rest can reset and boost your mood your energy it can in the long term transform your health but sleep can also be elusive a third of us struggle with it myself included so for all of you who crave better sleep help is at hand i'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is sleep well this is a podcast series with a difference we've designed it to help you get more rest I'm going to guide you through some simple scientifically proven ways to make it easier to drift off and tools for getting a better night's sleep so please get yourself comfortable and let's begin bed is where it all happens it's the backdrop for our sleep stories and if you struggle sometimes to fall or stay asleep then you'll know all too well that your sleep story can quickly become a Psycho Drama and that's never going to help you to drift off but there's one simple thing you can do to change that story it's one of the most effective and well-used methods in Sleep Therapy if sleep isn't coming then just get up it may sound counterintuitive but it's all about making bed a place of Solace so your brain Associates being in bed with sleep and not with trying to get to sleep I'm going to explore how best to make friends with your bed and look at this surprising idea of getting up in more detail but first let's breathe and melt away the day Breathe In and Out notice how the air feels as it passes the inside of the nostrils as you sit or lie there just observe your body become aention spotter notice how things feel starting at your toes and moving up observe and notice how sometimes just spotting that part of your body makes it change a little as you breathe just observe the tension can start to unwind just by passing your tension over so let's turn our attention back towards where we sleep think about your bed and your bedroom it's an important place you will probably spend at least a third of your life there most of us do a lot of things in the bedroom watch TV check our phones plan our futures 40% of homeworkers in lockdown said they worked from bed at some point but this is not a great idea if you really want to sleep well then you need to spend your time in bed doing mostly one thing teaching your brain to connect your bed with sleep is part of highly effective sleep treatment called stimulus control therapy a recent study found that insomniacs who used this approach fell asleep faster and their sleep efficiency the proportion of time they spent in bed asleep improved all you have to do is follow a simple set of rules or steps designed to reassociate your bed with sleep Dr Colleen Carney is director of the sleep and depression laboratory at Toronto metropolitan University in Canada stimulus control is one of those treatments that's going to help no matter if you have difficulty falling asleep you have difficulty staying asleep or you have both although there are many different types of insomnia at the heart of stimulus control is the idea that you shouldn't struggle to make sleep happen when your brain and body just aren't ready if you do then an association forms making your bed a Battleground a place where you don't sleep you could think back to a famous scientist you probably heard of Pavlov who would train dogs to drool when they heard bells and the way they did that is they paired meat with the sound of a bell over and over and over again and each time the dog drooled until finally they could take the meat away and just ring a bell and the dog would drool and unfortunately what happens with us is that the bed has become associated with wakefulness over and over again and so getting rid of that Association and replacing it with an association with sleep again is really the core of what we're doing no matter what you do no matter what medication you take if your bed is the place where you become wide awake then there needs to be a strategy to get rid of that and that strategy as long as you're able to do things consistently it's actually a pretty quick uncrossing of those wires or reassociation of the bed with sleep so the first step of stimulus control is really to be able to recognize when you are are sleepy enough for sleep don't go to bed until you're actually literally falling asleep so determining this moment of your eyes closing your head sort of cracking forward or backward or you're reading the same page of the same novel over again or losing the plot in something you're watching or listening to which is different than a lot of people think they want to go to bed when they feel tired and they want to go to bed early to give themselves this larger opportunity of sleep but this will backfire so wait until you're actively falling asleep the secret is to stop trying to fall asleep and instead allow your body to decide when it is ready for bed you will be surprised how quickly things turn around for most people following these steps is going to produce fairly quick results so we tend to see some benefits within the first week and certainly by the second week we see quite a lot of [Music] improvement so if you want to improve your sleep with stimulus control there are five simple rules or steps First Step stay up and until you feel sleepy you should only head to bed when you feel like sleep is near not just because it's your usual bedtime or you're feeling a bit tired but when you're genuinely sleepy when you can feel yourself just nodding off second step if you go to bed and you can't get to sleep or you wake up in the middle of the night and you can't get back to sleep if it feels like 15 minutes or so has gone by and you aren't ready to drift off then get out of bed find somewhere warm and quiet and do something which is not terribly stimulating something like reading listening to music or even knitting all this helps to build sleep pressure so that when you go back to bed you are ready to drift off when you first start doing this you may have to get up more than once that doesn't mean the approach isn't work working it just means you are trying to change a deeply ingrained habit do be patient step three try to avoid napping during the day we're trying to build up your sleep pressure so sleep becomes [Music] inevitable step four get up at the same time every morning this creates a pattern for the day but it also has an impact of when you feel sleepy in the evening and finally step five save the bed for sleep if you want to try this approach and it certainly works really well for me give it at least a couple of weeks most people start to get positive results and see a lot of improvement in that kind of time now it's time to dive deeper to look at what's going on inside when our brain is forging these positive [Music] connections as your breathing slows relax and start to imagine the beautiful fizzing complexity of the brain the brain contains around 85 billion neurons these neurons give rise to everything you know about the world they send chemical and electrical signals through a vast and intricate Network each neuron has hundreds of thousands of branches that connect to other neurons as we live our lives new connections are constantly being made and and unmade new neural Pathways form as you strengthen the connection between your bed and sleep the neural Pathways associated with this become stronger and more powerful imagine making a new Trail in deep fresh snow the more it's walked the clearer it becomes this this is what happens when we consciously change our conditioned responses and make new associations now imagine that these new Pathways these connections between your bed and sleepiness are creating a chemical that promotes sleep a chemical that builds up through the day and makes us drowsy it's called adenosine and is found in every cell in the body it accumulates in an area at the bottom of the brain that controls sleep called the basil forbrain here it acts as a q to make us feel drowsy it inhibits activity in the arzal centers of the brain things start to drift away from a waking State bringing pure sleepiness closer and bit by bit this new connection this track in the snow one that leads to better and deeper sleep take shape [Music] I hope you've enjoyed this journey into the bed and the Brain all the episodes are waiting for you to listen to in your own time on BBC sounds next up the temperature of sleep [Music] rest [Music] well sleep is an Elixir a good night's rest can reset and boost your mood your energy it can in the long term transform your health but sleep can also be elusive a third of us struggle with it myself included so for all of you who crave better sleep help is at hand i'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is sleep well this is a podcast series with a difference we've designed it to help you get more rest I'm going to guide you through some simple scientifically proven ways to make it easier to drift off and tools for getting a better night's sleep so please get yourself comfortable and let's begin there are many things that determine when and how we sleep but one of the most surprising is temperature if sleep is proving elusive it might be comforting and useful to know that we can essentially hack this process because there are a few simple things you can do to bring on the great flow of chemicals that initiate sleep and I do mean simple like running a bath having a hot shower or even just putting some warm socks on it's all to do with warming up your extremities and then letting them cool we'll explore all of this but first let's take a moment to unwind whatever's gone on today let it all go it's time to breathe and melt away the cares of the day notice how it feels as you breathe in and out start to become mindful of the temperature on your skin your legs and feet feet and Toes as you relax just notice what it feels like your arms hands fingers what does it feel like warmth or coolness just observe the Sens stions and relax into it there's a long history of claims that warming and cooling the body can promote Health the ancient Greeks found that bathing in hot water Springs was a great way to relax the muscles while in 17th century Spain heating parts of the Torso was promoted as a way to help with sleep and now we know why the latest research around hot bars warming and sleep is impressive a recent Roundup of 13 studies found those who had had a hot bath before bed fell asleep 36% quicker had better a quality sleep and felt better rested the next day another study found that warming the feet could do the same so what's going on Anna VZ Justice is a professor at the center for chronobiology at the University of Basel in order to fall asleep we we have a whole Orchestra of biological psychological and behavioral processes that enable us to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night one of the critical factors in this nightly cycle is a drop in body temperature what typically happens in the evening is that the Core Body temperature declines and this is important for us to be able to fall asleep rather quickly and have a good night's sleep your core body temperature is the temperature of your internal organs like your heart or liver we don't know why the loss of heat is important sleep still has many Mysteries but Anna and her team have shown that you can hack this complex process and paradoxically by warming your hands and feet you are more likely to fall asleep these Studies have shown that anything that will increase blood flow to the hands and feet will increase the propensity to get sleepy and fall asleep quickly we instinctively do things before sleep sleep to increase skin temperature the most obvious of all which is creating a warm microclimate when we curl up in a cozy bed but we can help the process Along by specifically increasing the skin temperature of our extremities and I can give you a list of simple AIDS a hot bath or shower a foot bath bed socks and of course the hot water bottle what we're doing when we have a hot bath in the evening before sleep or use bed socks or a hot water bottle is that we are supporting the biological clock in its Preparatory efforts to help us fall asleep so why does warming our extremities help to cool our cool temperature well when we warm the surface of our skin the body senses this change and tries to cool itself down warming the hands and feet causes something called phaso dilation the blood vessels on the surface of your skin widen expand and heat is quickly lost this in turn leads to a drop in core temperature all these things can can help to prepare the body for the decline in core body temperature that's important and remember heat loss from the skin is fastest when the ambient temperature is relatively low so you want your bedroom to be cool often the bed socks are kicked off after a while and Toes put outside the blanket to help lose heat which quickly lowers core temperature and there we are happily in Dreamland [Music] so what's the best way to hack into our sleep cycle if you're going to have a hot bath or shower do so one or two hours before bed study suggests that 10 minutes are warming may be all you need but do add some bubble bath and stay in as long as you like a warm show followed by 1 to two hours of cooling can have a similar sleep inducing effect heating up your feet with bed socks or a hot water bottle can also work with bed socks Studies have looked at a range of different types but they really don't have to be any anything special if it's a very hot night less bedding will help so your body can still cool itself now it's time to dive deeper to look at what's going on inside as the surface of the skin warms up this activates changes in our blood vessels that pull the core body temperature downwards the main changes happen at points where small arteries and veins meet the arterior Venus and asmosis they're found in parts of the body without significant amounts of hair like the hands and feet when activated these vessels start to shape shift this is their superpower as they increase in size dilating widening they allow considerably more heat to radiate out of the body via the [Music] skin imagine the skin acting like a radiator the radiator surface is getting warm and heat flows out heat is Flowing from the body and out from the skin as the body cools electric signals travel from the surface of the skin relaying information to an almond shaped structure deep within the brain the hypothalamus this Reg of the brain keeps watch over the body's temperature it's also critical for the onset of sleep when the hypothalamus detects that the feet and hands are warm special neurons activate spraying chemicals right across the brain that switch off inhibit areas to do with waking activities and soon enough sleep has [Music] come and much later as morning approaches the body's temperature will start to rise slowly and gently preparing for the day to [Music] come but let's just linger a while here amidst a deep and peaceful slumber [Music] I hope you've enjoyed this Voyage into the temperature of sleep if you want to hear more of this series why not subscribe on BBC sounds next up it's all about listening to what your body is telling you [Music] rest [Music] well sleep is an Elixir a good night's rest can reset and boost your mood your energy it can in the long term transform your health but sleep can also be elusive a third of us struggle with it myself included so for all of you who crave better sleep help is at hand i'm Dr Michael Mosley and this is sleep well this is a podcast series with a difference we've designed it to help you get more rest I'm going to guide you some simple scientifically proven ways to make it easier to drift off and tools for getting a better night's sleep so please get yourself comfortable and let's begin in this final episode I want to explore how much sleep we actually need these days there's a lot of pressure to get a perfect eight hours with apps SmartWatches and other Tech to Monitor and track our sleeping lives in high level detail it can all get a bit intense but the reality is you may need less sleep than you think so I want you to ditch the clock watching and counting the hours I want to take you back to Basics by tuning you into what your body is already telling you but first let's unwind whatever has gone on today let everything just fade away notice how it feels as you breathe [Music] in and out slow your breath with each breath just notice the sensations in your body and feel your arms and legs start to get heavier don't try to do anything else relax let go just be here it's a widespread Health goal to aim for a nightly 8 Hour dose of solid uninterrupted sleep but it hasn't always been like that our ancestors often slept in two distinct chunks which they call called the first and second sleep in between a Time known as the watch people would do household jawes socialize or perhaps have sex the idea we all need 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a recent one this8 hour Target is also encouraged by activity trackers and apps which some find useful but which can also make us preoccupied with sleep there's even a term orthosomnia to describe an unhealthy obsession with trying to optimize sleep so how much sleep do we really need and how can we learn to listen to our body Professor Nicole Tang is director of the sleep and pain Lab at the University of w [Laughter] as long as we get an amount of sleep that is sufficient to drive us through the next day's demand help us to function at a good level I don't think we should necessarily be obsessed about the amount of sleep that we're getting there are people who are just naturally long sleepers and there are people who are naturally short sleeper people can perform at the highest level with different sleep patterns the important thing to understand about sleep is one size definitely does not fit all your body will tell you if you're getting enough in fact we often think our sleep is worse than it actually is the danger of holding on to the idea that you need to get eight hours sleep very tightly is that it will give you anxiety if you find yourself sweating over are not sleeping enough that is a good reason why you may be experiencing insomnia because insomnia by definition is when you are worried about not sleeping very well on top of the Sleep disturbances so there is two layers of problems one is you're experiencing the Sleep disturbances the second layer is that you're worrying about you experiencing sleep disruptions so let's dig into that a bit adults tend to need around 7 to 9 hours a night but that's an average some people do perfectly well with 6 hours and some might need as much as nine but we don't need to obsess about the numbers certainly not in a rigid way it might be helpful to think of sleep needs as a more fluid concept that would evolve and develop over time a good way to spot whether or not you are sleep deprived is to notice for any occasions where you experience excessive sleepiness during the day when you're not supposed to be falling asleep for example when you're driving when you are sitting down watching TV doing some quiet activity if you find yourself having a very high chance of dozing off when you're doing things then it may be a good time to think about okay maybe I'm not sleeping [Music] enough ask yourself how you feel during the day do you feel sleepy or rested do you find yourself dozing off while watching the TV these are all signs you might beep sleep deprived there's also a simple test you can try at home during the afternoon lie down in a darkened room and set an alarm for 15 minutes now close your eyes if you are woken by the alarm you may need more sleep to avoid obsessing over how much sleep you are getting you could try putting your bedroom clock where you can't see it Professor Tang did a study where people were given clocks with nonsensical numbers to put by their beds they worried less during the night and were able to more accurately talk about how quickly they fell asleep so you can really help things by letting go of expectations loosening your thinking about numbers hiding your clock also having a good wind down routine and do please try the other things we've explored in this series so much of this is finding what works for you we are all individuals when it comes to sleep it's time to dive deeper into what happens throughout our body as we transition from wakefulness into sleep [Music] as we fall asleep our brains don't simply go offline imagine sleep not like turning off a light switch but something more like a PL at a theater with a whole cast of characters working together to gently usher in [Music] sleep as day becomes evening the hormone of Darkness melatonin Rises floods the body signaling that night is approaching parts of the brain and body that are connected to daytime activities are gradually Switched Off [Music] body temperature Falls with each breath the firing of The lucus cilus Works to inhibit nor drenin the wake up chemical muscles all over the body from the feet to the Head relax levels of and Denine a sleep inducing chemical have been rising all day bringing on drowsiness wake related activities in the brain slow if you wait calmly comfortably for everything to go quiet then sure enough the lights will go down the curtains will open and the play sleep will begin I hope you'll listen more to what your body is telling you and that doing this helps you get a better and deeper night sleep there are lots of good things that have been shown to genuinely help us with sleep and I've looked at several in this series all the episodes are waiting for you to listen to in your own time on BBC sounds rest well relax and unwind on BBC sounds journey into Sonic Tranquility with olifer Arnold's ultimate cam relax into the space you're in wherever you are make it your nest discover the secrets to a perfect slumber in sleep well with Michael Mosley let's relax