The idea that everyone needs exactly the same amount of sleep, in the same way, all the time, is one of the biggest misunderstandings we have created around sleep.
We have become completely obsessed with the idea that there is some magical number we need to hit every night or our health is going to collapse.
Usually that number is eight hours. And if we don’t get it, we start to panic.
In my work as a sleep physiologist, I see people who sleep six and a half hours and function brilliantly. I also see people sleeping nine hours who feel dreadful.
For most of us, even if we really do need eight hours, it’s an average, not something you will achieve every night just because you deem it so.
In fact, the key to better sleep has much less to do with the number of hours you sleep, and more to do with a completely counter-intuitive habit most of us ignore.
First ask yourself if your sleep is serving you. Are you functioning? Recovering? Coping emotionally? Concentrating? Feeling reasonably OK most of the time? Because sleep need is incredibly individual and changes across life too.
As for feeling OK 100 percent of the time… well now we are just asking our sleep to perform miracles. And unfortunately, despite it being an incredible skill, it is not and never will be, magic.
The key to better sleep has much less to do with the number of hours you sleep, and more to do with a completely counter-intuitive habit most of us ignore
Ask yourself if your sleep is serving you. Are you functioning? Recovering? Coping emotionally? Concentrating? Feeling reasonably OK most of the time?
The frustrating thing is that the more people chase this perfect number, the worse their sleep often becomes. I cannot tell you how many people lie in bed calculating: ‘If I fall asleep now, I’ll get six hours and 43 minutes.’
Then the anxiety kicks in. ‘That is not enough. Tomorrow will be ruined.’
Suddenly sleep becomes a performance review instead of a natural process.
We have also become very bad at understanding what normal sleep actually looks like. Most people think good sleep means falling asleep instantly, sleeping solidly all night and waking up feeling like a Disney character opening the curtains with birds singing outside, but this is not real life.
Humans naturally wake in the night. We always have. In sleep studies, everybody wakes. The difference is that good sleepers do not catastrophize it. They wake briefly, roll over and drift back off again.
People with sleep anxiety wake and immediately start analyzing. ‘Why am I awake? How long have I been awake? What if I cannot get back to sleep?’ That panic is often far more disruptive than the waking itself.
There is also this belief that one bad night has catastrophic consequences.
Of course sleep matters. But the messaging has become so extreme that people now fear sleep loss in a way that is deeply unhealthy.
Most people think good sleep means waking up feeling like a Disney character opening the curtains with birds singing outside, but this is not real life
The panic associated with sleep anxiety is often far more disruptive than the waking itself
The fact is your body is far cleverer – and a lot less fragile – than you think. If you have had a shorter night, your brain adapts. It can rebalance sleep stages. It can prioritize recovery, sometimes without increasing sleep duration.
The healthiest sleepers I know are not those with perfect sleep routines and flawless trackers. They are the people who trust sleep a little more and fear it a little less.
Why sleep apps and ‘perfect’ night routines can make sleep worse
I think we genuinely started with good intentions here. People wanted to understand their sleep better, and they wanted to improve their health. But somewhere along the way, sleep became another thing to optimize and track and ultimately, control.
For many people, it’s becoming a disaster. I now regularly see people developing anxiety because of their sleep trackers. They wake up feeling absolutely fine, check their app and suddenly decide they are exhausted because their ‘sleep score’ was bad or their REM percentage dropped.
The technology has completely overridden their own lived experience. Most consumer sleep trackers are not even particularly good at measuring sleep accurately.
They are estimating based on movement, heart rate and algorithms. They are not conducting full clinical sleep studies in your bedroom. Yet people treat the data as fact.
I have had patients tell me: ‘My tracker says I was awake for three hours.’ But when we look properly at their sleep, they were likely drifting in and out of lighter sleep stages and simply perceiving themselves as awake.
Humans are actually very poor at estimating sleep and so, it seems, are some of the tools we use to perfect it.
The problem is not just the inaccuracy, it’s the mindset it creates.
Sleep is one of the only biological processes we try to force by monitoring it harder. I mean, imagine tracking your breathing every second of the day and panicking every time it varied slightly – you would probably end up with breathing problems.
The hugely profitable sleep industry includes trackers, gummies, supplements and more
Then there is the billion dollar bedtime routine industry, where we have been sold the idea that sleep only happens if we create the perfect conditions.
Magnesium sprays, sleep gummies, brown noise, red light glasses, silk pillowcases, expensive supplements, lavender pillow mist… the list goes on and on.
That is how sleep anxiety grows. I always say to patients that good sleep should be robust and it should be able to survive normal life, even if it looks a little different.
A late dinner, a stressful day, a hotel room, a noisy night, a crying baby, a glass of wine… human sleep evolved through wars, parenting, shift work, stress and survival. It is not defeated by forgetting your magnesium glycinate.
The irony is that many people are now spending so much time trying to perfect sleep that they are constantly thinking about it, and that hyper focus itself becomes activating.
Why your morning routine matters more than your evening routine
This is probably the biggest shift I wish people understood.
Most sleep advice focuses almost entirely on the evening: The perfect wind down, the perfect bath, the perfect herbal tea…
Biologically, your morning is often far more important for setting up good sleep – because sleep actually starts the moment you wake up.
One of the strongest drivers of sleep is your circadian rhythm (your internal body clock) and your homeostatic sleep drive (the ability to build up sleepiness and use it).
The single most powerful way to regulate that clock is light exposure in the morning. Your brain needs a strong signal the day has started.
In order to have a strong sleep drive – which not only helps you feel sleepy at the right times, but helps keep you sleeping through the night – you can’t keep moving the goal posts. When you wake up at wildly different times every day, stay indoors in dim lighting all morning, then expect your brain to suddenly feel sleepy at night, it becomes much harder for your sleep system to know what it is doing.
I often explain it to patients like this: You cannot just focus on ‘being sleepy enough’ at night. You also need to be awake enough during the day.
Morning light exposure, movement, getting up consistently and anchoring your day properly all help strengthen your sleep rhythm. They help build what I call a stronger sleep baseline – keep your ‘sleep muscle’ strong and all the other variables in life like age, menopause, illness, work, stress etc won’t be able to wreak as much havoc as if you didn’t take care of your sleep in this way.
This does not mean you need some ridiculous 5am wellness routine involving ice baths and journaling while staring at the sunrise.
It means simple things:
Get up at a reasonably consistent time most days. Get some natural light into your eyes early, or bright artificial light when you can’t.
Move your body. It doesn’t have to be all your exercise for the day but you need to switch the fatigue off and the wakefulness on. That’s not going to happen by lying in bed.
Eat at consistent times no matter what diet or lifestyle nutrition you like to follow. Most importantly, these things signal to your brain that daytime has started.
Get up at a reasonably consistent time most days. Get some natural light into your eyes early, or bright artificial light when you can’t
Move your body. It doesn’t have to be all your exercise for the day but you need to switch the fatigue off and the wakefulness on
Eating at consistent times also helps signal to your brain that the day has begun
Consistency in these things builds sleep pressure naturally across the day, which makes sleep come more easily later on. It allows your internal clock to keep to time, making your sleep, appetite and mood far more consistent. It keeps your mindset sleep-positive, rather than overthinking normal biological processes.
Ironically, people often do the opposite when sleep becomes difficult. They sleep in after bad nights, spend more time in bed, nap unpredictably and become less active because they feel tired, all while over-thinking how everything they do will impact their sleep later.
It’s completely understandable according to our flawed sense of logic, but really it weakens the very systems that help sleep regulate itself.
Sleep is not supposed to be perfect, the fact that it can adapt is what gets us through life changes, illness and jet lag.
The goal for us should be to build a consistent support system – our sleep behaviors – mostly the morning ones.
Sleep variation is normal, and is needed. Let’s stop blaming it for everything. Sleep has your back, and it’s not going anywhere.
Stephanie Romiszewski is a sleep physiologist and founder of Sleepyhead Clinics. She has a BSc Hons degree in Psychology and an MSc degree in Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Her first book, Think Less, Sleep More is on sale July 7 from St. Martin’s Essentials.
