How to share a bed WITHOUT keeping each other awake

The concept of insomnia means different things to different people. For some it’s the irritation of waking up with hot sweats. For others it is a persistent difficulty dropping off, or lying awake in the early hours.

But for all too many, it is simply the crushing exhaustion of night after night of poor and unrefreshing sleep.

However it affects you, insomnia is deeply unpleasant and can be very unhealthy. Even though it strikes as much as half the world’s population at some point, there is very little that modern medicine can do to help.

If you are very lucky you might be referred to a sleep specialist like me.

Small changes in your bedroom decor, like thickening the carpets and de-cluttering the room, can make a huge differences

But there are very few centres in the UK, and most GPs are ill-equipped to know how to support patients with long-term insomnia.

The key is a form of ‘talking therapy’ called CBT-I, or cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, which has been created specifically to help people with insomnia. Studies have shown it can be extremely effective, but with huge waiting lists for an appointment with a specialist, it is very hard to get. 

Yesterday I outlined the most likely causes of insomnia, helping you identify your risk. Today I’ll guide you through powerful steps to ending your insomnia for ever.

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Self-induced sleep problems are bad enough, but if your perfectly good night’s rest is regularly shattered by your bed partner’s wriggling, duvet-hogging, snoring, early morning alarm or too-frequent trips to the lavatory, the frustration can be maddening.

As most couples spend nearly a third of their lives in bed, it is shocking how little time and attention ‘couples insomnia’ receives.

It can take a big chunk of tough love to realise that although the two of you might be compatible in many areas, you could be completely incompatible in bed — when it comes to sleep, anyway!

Any attempt to try to sort out insomnia must take a couple’s sleeping arrangements into consideration. But before you join the estimated 12 per cent of married couples who sleep in separate bedrooms, rest assured there is much you can do to bring your sleep patterns closer into sync.

TRY ‘COUPLE TIME’  

One of the greatest sources of incompatibility is when a morning person meets an evening person — and the character entrenchment of middle age accentuates the difference. It is very common for one of you to be a morning type (a ‘lark’) who likes to be up and active early, but tucked into bed just after (or even before) the 10 o’clock news, while the other is an ‘owl’ who can happily channel-hop until gone midnight, but loves a lie-in.

If a couple is made up a morning person (a ‘lark) and a evening type (an ‘owl’) it can lead to serious incompatibility

However, the lark/owl combination can create sleep disturbance, that becomes a form of insomnia.

If both of you go to bed early, the owl is very likely to find it difficult to fall asleep. This can lead to stress, anxiety and a long-standing difficulty getting off to sleep.

Evening people tend to be at greater risk of developing insomnia, particularly if they struggle to sandwich a biological preference for going to bed late and getting up late with the demands of a high-pressure job and an early alarm.

Studies show owls have a greater tendency for irregular sleep schedules, shorter sleep durations, less physical activity, increased alcohol, caffeine consumption and also smoking — so when it comes to vulnerability to insomnia, many have the full hand.

A good tip is to try establishing what I call ‘cuddle time’. It really can help, not only with sleep, but by extension, their relationship.

First the couple must decide on a set bedtime — it is often easier to set this by the morning-oriented person’s usual bedtime.

The evening person should join their partner in bed for a set time — 15 to 20 minutes seems to work best. For the evening-oriented person there should be no intention to sleep, just to be there.

When cuddle time is over, the owl can slip out of bed and get on with their evening, as long as they agree to creep into bed later in a way that won’t wake their sleeping partner.

GET A BIGGER BED

Some sleep experts argue that couples who share an ordinary sized double bed are setting themselves up for sleep problems.

When one partner moves there is a 50 per cent chance that the other will change position (without even realising) and if you share an ordinary double bed it gives you just 2ft 3in of bed each. Even a king size bed (5ft wide) gives you 2ft 6in of wiggle room. But a superking — if you can afford it and find room for it — would provide 3ft each.

It might be worth considering pushing two single beds together — you can customise your side with your choice of mattress pad.

And some new double beds are constructed to dampen any movement from your partner so he or she doesn’t wake you by tossing and turning or getting out of bed.

Working with your partner, and offering them physical and emotional support, can work wonders curing their insomnia

DOUBLE-UP DUVETS

If you share your bed — and your duvet —your unwitting nightly wrestles with the covers can affect the quality of your sleep.

Try switching your one big duvet for two smaller ones. Just ensure each duvet is one size larger than the space it needs to be.

For example, if you have a king size bed, consider having two double size duvets so you can ‘steal’ as much of your duvet as you want and cocoon yourself if necessary without leaving your partner out in the cold.

If you get too hot, you can throw off your duvet without waking your partner.

WORK AS A TEAM

If you are keen to try this in a bid to end your insomnia, don’t think you’ll have a better chance of tackling the challenges if you move into the spare room. If you start there, there’s every chance you’ll end up there.

Instead, work with your partner to maximise the chance of success.

From physical support (buying fruit teas to replace coffee), to emotional support (telling them how well they are doing, how much better their moods have been), even small things make a big impact.

Seven steps to sleep heaven  

 Ask a sleep specialist to try to help fix your insomnia and one of the most effective weapons they will reach for is ‘stimulus control’.

This is the scientific term to explain how you break the unconscious connection you might have between your bed and the pain and stress of not being able to sleep.

Taking this one step alone is effective enough to clear up many cases of insomnia completely. But it’s not suitable for everyone. Read the box below to find out if it will work for you.

If you have insomnia it’s essential to always set an alarm to help your body create a natural ‘sleep/wake’ cycle

If you’ve been struggling with sleep for many months, even years, you can very easily find your subconscious starting to associate your bedroom with not sleeping.

The connection might not be obvious to you, but there could be sub-conscious reactions bubbling away beneath the surface which raise your body’s stress levels and make good, deep sleep impossible.

The classic scenario is when you limp through the day feeling exhausted, and get home so tired you struggle to overcome the urge to drop off in front of the TV. But the minute you start heading for bed, something shifts.

The chemistry changes, your brain fires up and sleep eludes you.

It’s not your fault. Your subconscious is making connections between getting ready for bed — rituals like putting on pyjamas and brushing your teeth — and the agonies of night after night of poor sleep. Without you realising it, this association can trigger a stress response, making you suddenly alert and no longer sleepy at all.

In some cases, even just thinking about the bedroom can be enough to trigger a negative response.

Interestingly, it does not end there. The more ‘activities’ (reading, watching TV, listening to the radio) you might find yourself doing in the bedroom, in order to ‘help’ you sleep or to compensate for the time spent awake in the night, the more likely it is that those activities will become ‘conditioned stimuli’ which trigger the stress response that keeps you awake.

It is infuriating and completely counter-intuitive, but it happens to tens of thousands of patients — and I know how to fix it.

The key is using the CBT-I technique of ‘stimulus control’ to help train your brain to stay calm and quiet at bedtime, to break the stressful link between bedtime and insomnia, and to help you form good, strong, positive connections between your bed and sleep.

Here’s how to go about it:

The vital questions you should ask yourself 

Insomnia comes in many forms — and some are more easily fixed than others.

For many people, the sleep hygiene tips on the next page will help make a big impact. But for those who’ve suffered insomnia for months, or even years, more powerful techniques may be needed — such as ‘stimulus control’, as explained on these pages.

The technique, however, is not suitable for everyone. Try it if you answer ‘yes’ to ALL of the following:

•  Do you experience difficulty in getting off to sleep, or difficulty in staying asleep, or do you find yourself waking earlier than required in the morning and then you’re unable to go back to sleep?

•  Do you have sleep problems even though you get a good eight hours in bed each night?

•  Does your sleep problem occur three or more nights a week?

•  Has your sleep problem lasted for two weeks or more? (If it’s a short-term problem, it could be a sleep disturbance, which is a normal biological reaction to a period of stress and should just pass.)

•  Is lack of sleep disrupting your ability to function during the day?

•  Are you sure your sleep isn’t affected by illness, disease, substance or an existing sleep disorder? If you suspect it is, ask your GP to investigate.

MEDICAL NOTE – This stimulus control course is NOT appropriate for people with: bipolar disorder, psychosis, epilepsy, or if you have a history of seizures, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), migraine or head injury.

1 – The first rule of stimulus control is to try to wipe out all the negative associations you might have between your bed and being awake, and set up a healthy new ‘conditioned response’ whereby your brain thinks ‘sleep’ whenever you are in bed. To do this, you need to commit to a new rule: from now on, only use the bedroom for sleep or sex (which is good for sleep).

No reading, email-checking or TV-watching in the bedroom. Clear the room of clutter and ensure you aren’t falling foul of any of the very common sleep saboteurs. It won’t take long, but to help your subconscious make strong positive connections between bed and sleep, you have to be very strict about not giving your brain any opportunity to unwittingly link being in bed with being awake.

2 – The second rule is no sleeping anywhere else at all but bed. Not on the sofa, in a car or on the train. The rationale for this is to intensify the ‘bed equals sleep’ message.

Being strict with this rule removes the chance of diluting the strength of that association with mixed messages about where you can and cannot sleep.

Anyway, napping disrupts your sleep patterns, so just don’t do it.

You might feel desperately tired, but I promise you, if you don’t nap you really will be better able to sleep at night. You might find this difficult at first, but stimulus control can work swiftly, and your nights will soon be your own.

However, if you do find a daytime snooze absolutely impossible to resist, discuss this with your GP as it could indicate other health problems that are worth investigating.

And be warned, you may feel extra tired for a few days, until your body and brain adjust. In this case, you should be careful about driving when tired, and avoid long-distance driving for a few days.

3 – The third rule is this: if you can’t fall asleep or you wake up during the night and you know that you are not going to be able to drift back off, get out of bed and leave the bedroom.

This seems harsh, and it may take some getting used to, but this is the best possible way to generate a whole new positive association between your bed, your bedroom and sleep.

The idea is if you leave the bedroom before the anger, frustration and misery of insomnia can bubble up, and return only when you are calm and ready to fall asleep, your brain will stop making stressful associations that could be keeping you awake.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that resting in bed, even if you are awake, has got to be a healthier nocturnal activity than sitting in the kitchen, but trust me and stick with the plan. I promise it will be worth it.

When you spend great chunks of time lying in bed, you might think you are awake, but sleep studies show many people with insomnia spend this time drifting in and out of sleep.

This is no better than napping, and it weakens your body’s drive to sleep properly and makes nodding off again a tougher challenge. It won’t be easy to get out of a nice, cosy bed in the middle of the night, but it is vital that you give this powerful CBT-I technique a try.

Picking the best bedding for you 

 FIRM VERUS SOFT FOR THE BEST MATTRESS

Finding the right mattress is crucial to sleeping welll

There is a huge amount of money spent on advertising campaigns that try to persuade you that one type of mattress will guarantee better sleep than another. But the best choice is the mattress that works for you.

When shopping for a new mattress, start by getting a feel for it in the shop. You are going to spend many hours on your mattress so it is important to take your time. If possible, lie down on it for at least ten minutes.

Check the tension is right for your weight: softer mattresses might be best for lighter women, while a heavier built man may prefer firmness.

Shop with your partner, and look out for a zip and link (available from most bed retailers). These have different tensions on each side to suit both your needs.

PERK UP PILLOWS

There’s no such thing as the perfect pillow — the type and number you use is simply down to personal preference.

It is important to know when a pillow needs replacing if you want to avoid waking up with a sore or twisted neck.

To test if you need a new one, hold your current one out in front of you length-ways. If it bends in half, it should be replaced.

If it holds its shape, it may still need washing. Follow any instructions and launder pillows periodically to avoid bugs that might trigger allergies and breathing problems.

SORTING YOUR SHEETS

When it comes to choosing the best bedding, cotton is a good choice because it is lightweight and allows air circulation.

Silk — if you can afford it — may help to regulate your body temperature by cooling you when you are warm and warming you when you are cold.

Investing in the finest Egyptian cotton with a giddily high thread count — and an eye-watering price — as found in five-star hotels may not cure your insomnia, but it could help you look forward to going to bed and feel positive about sleeping.

ARE YOU A SUPER SENSITIVE SLEEPER

Some people can’t tolerate any noise in the bedroom during the night when they are trying to go asleep.

It is a sign of a phenomenon we call ‘heightened cortical arousal’, which indicates your fight or flight stress messages are super-alert.

This makes it harder to relax and drift off to sleep. Your best medicine to overcome this could be an electric fan, which gives off a steady humming sound that can calm the stress response and hide other noises.

However, for the super-sensitive, the background hum of a fan could still be too much and will sabotage sleep.

However, you can ‘normalise’ that sound through a process of desensitisation:

• USE your phone to record 20 to 30 minutes of noise from a fan.

• PLAY the fan noise back to yourself repeatedly during the day for a week, at a time when you are feeling most awake and alert.

• GIVEN enough playbacks, this process should teach your subconscious that the sound is ‘safe’ so you don’t react when you hear it at night

4 – Before your first night of ‘stimulus control’, spend the evening getting everything ready so you aren’t scrabbling around in the dark. First, find a suitable space you can use during your times awake at night. This will be your ‘wake zone’.

It needs to be warm (but not hot), so have a hot water bottle ready to fill if your central heating is likely to be off in the night, and have a blanket on hand to throw over your knees — just don’t get too comfy.

If you plan to read, have your book ready, your reading glasses if necessary and a lamp which gives enough light for you to read without having to put all the room lights on (it’s better to keep everything calm and quiet).

If you prefer to watch television, set up a dining room chair (the sofa or a reclining chair will be too comfortable and you may not be able to resist falling asleep), and get a DVD or missed episode of a favourite TV programme lined up ready to watch.

5 – Each period spent in your ‘wake zone’ should last a set amount of time — either 30 or 45 minutes. Stick it out no matter how sleepy you feel and only return to your bed when your time is up. The idea is to resist the temptation to drift back into slumber when you feel a bit sleepy, but to allow a good, strong sleep impulse to build.

6 – You should be prepared initially to make repeated trips to your ‘wake zone’ throughout the night. If you stick with the plan, it won’t take long for your brain to adjust and you should soon find the number of trips diminishes as your insomnia recedes.

But if you return to bed after one break and find that sleep is just not going to happen for you, don’t lie there. Get up and go to your ‘wake zone’, and wait it out for another 30 or 45 minutes.

7 – On a bad night, if you find yourself in your ‘wake zone’ shortly before your morning alarm, it is still important to follow the process to the letter. Stick out your allotted 30 to 45 minutes, then go back to bed and sleep — even if there are just a few minutes left before you need to be getting up.

It may seem cruel, and it is often tempting just to stay up, but you should stick to your guns.

You will have built a very strong urge to sleep, and this creates powerfully positive associations every time you get into bed and fall straight to sleep.

 Want more sleep? Ban the snooze button 

Banning the snooze button can help nudge your body clock into a regular rhythm which will help it combat insomnia

When you go to your GP to ask for advice or support about insomnia, there is every chance you’ll be given information about sleep hygiene.

This is the term doctors and sleep specialists use to describe good habits and the sleep environment conducive to having an optimal night’s sleep.

Some of the principles of sleep hygiene might seem a little obvious — don’t try to sleep with the lights on, make sure you’re not too hot and not too cold.

But you’d be surprised how many people allow their pets to sleep on or even in bed with them, then wonder why they are having broken nights and feel tired in the morning.

Anyone, regardless of how well or badly they sleep, should take heed of my sleep hygiene advice.

Think of it like good dietary advice — the fundamental foundation on which to build good sleep. If you follow the rules, then you will reduce your vulnerability to insomnia.

And if you do suffer from insomnia, running through the list of sleep saboteurs below will provide you with a ‘sense check’ before embarking on the rest of my plan.

By the time people with insomnia decide to consult a sleep specialist like me, there is every chance they will have worked tirelessly to improve their sleep hygiene, but to no avail.

In fact, most of my patients tell me sleep hygiene didn’t work — and if your insomnia is bad and has been going on for many years, you are probably right.

But when you have worked through my course and you have fixed your sleep, you are likely to see better, longer-lasting results if you practise good sleep hygiene.

It offers you the best possible chance of good sleep in the future.

Always set an alarm

Many people with insomnia have a bizarre assortment of bedtimes. Sometimes people slope off to bed straight after their evening meal in an attempt to catch up on lost sleep.

Others stay up until the early hours because they know they will have trouble falling asleep anyway.

To fix it, set a sensible fixed time for going to bed and waking up, and stick to it — even at weekends.

We have all evolved to keep a regular ‘sleep-wake cycle’, which ensures we sleep during the hours of the night and remain awake during the day.

This is governed by an internal clock (or circadian rhythm), which ensures we feel tired at the end of the day and (hopefully) refreshed in the morning.

However, if you have had insomnia for a long time, there’s every chance your drive to sleep is out of sync with your circadian rhythm.

Being more disciplined about going to bed at the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning will help nudge your body clock back into a regular rhythm, which might make falling asleep and waking at convenient times more likely.

Are you a morning lark or a night owl? 

You might not be able to change if you’re a morning lark or a night owl but you can soften the edges

 You might not be able to change whether you are a morning person (a lark) or an evening person (an owl), but you can soften the edges to bring you closer to a loving compromise with your partner when it comes to sleep.

LARKS

• SPEND more time outside in the early afternoon to expose yourself to light later in the day. This will trigger chemical reactions in your body and brain that might help you stay up later in the evening — and even sleep later in the morning, too.

• MAKE sure that your bedroom is totally dark at night, so you don’t wake up too early in the morning.

OWLS

• SET your alarm for the same time every day, including weekends and holidays (even if you go to bed late), to anchor your biological clock at the desired time.

•  CONSIDER getting an alarm that lights up to wake you, rather than a bell or music.

• GO OUTSIDE as soon as possible after waking to flood yourself with light and trigger the body’s natural wake-up mechanisms. At very least, have your morning coffee by the sunniest window in your house.

•  GET ready for your morning the night before — select the next day’s clothes and prepare your breakfast. An organised morning routine helps owls function smoothly.

• KEEP evenings quiet to aid your wind-down. Exercise earlier in the day and don’t start new projects in the late afternoon or evening.

Prioritise bedtime

With so much to do, sleep for some people can become a mild inconvenience that has to be squeezed into the shortest possible time. But if you don’t give yourself a chance to unwind at the end of the day, you may find it difficult to fall asleep.

Instead, create a relaxing bedtime routine that allows enough time for your brain to wind down and gives you familiar cues that it is time to sleep.

A warm bath (not a shower) about two hours before bed can be a helpful habit as it raises your body temperature. Then, as your body temperature drops back down, you should start to feel sleepy.

Block out bad light

Street lamps shining through a window or light from the hall creeping around your bedroom door can confuse your body and brain, making you think it is time to be awake.

To conquer this, install blackout curtains or a blind. Or wear a cheap, soft, in-flight eye mask.

You can keep a dim light or plug-in night light outside your bedroom if you are concerned about falling if you get up in the night.

Turn off tech

We all know the blue light emitted from electronic devices such as a laptop, phone or tablet can send signals to the brain that it’s time to be awake and stop the production of the brain chemical melatonin. Checking emails, using social media and writing reports in the hours before bed can get your mind racing at a time when it should be winding down for sleep.

There’s a pressing immediacy about social media that compels you to respond quickly and this can be highly disruptive for sleep.

So ban computers in the bedroom and set an electronics cut-off time, one to two hours before bedtime.

Tell friends and family about your new rule so they don’t expect an immediate response if they text or email you at night, and keep lights dimmed until you get into bed.

Avoid the heat

The ideal bedroom temperature is between 18c and 22c. If you get hot flushes, invest in an electric fan.

No tech in the bedroom! The blue light from electronic devices sends signals to your brain that it’s still time to be awake

Shut out noise

If you are a sensitive sleeper, noises can wake you in the night without you realising.

Eliminate as much interference as you can — double glazing masks noise from the outside and consider using soft sponge earplugs if necessary.

Some people find it easier to fall asleep if there is ‘white noise’ in the background, but the hum of an electric fan usually does the trick.

Ban pillow talk

Heated night-time discussions can stimulate a stress response and make it difficult to fall asleep.

Remember to use your bed for sleep and sex only. Watch TV, read, eat and discuss emotional issues elsewhere.

Stop clock watching

Anyone with a sleep problem may find it tempting to glance at the clock during the night and involuntarily start mental calculations about how little sleep you’ve had and how little more time you’ve got left in bed.

Not surprisingly, this can escalate worry and stress.

Try to stop this by hiding all clock faces in the bedroom. If you use your phone as an alarm, turn it face down on your bedside table to stop you looking at it during the night.

No more naps

Napping at any point during the day will dilute the body’s natural drive to sleep. It’s like snacking between meals: it means you are less likely to be hungry for dinner.

So from now on, if you can, enforce a rule: no napping after 4pm and never longer than 30 minutes

Napping might be fine for normal sleepers, but it can be really bad if you have insomnia and use it to catch up on sleep.

Long or late-in-the-day naps can reduce the drive to sleep at night and can make it more difficult to get off to sleep.

Check your sleep diary: in many cases, when you compare days with naps against days without naps, you will see an association between long late afternoon naps and issues getting off to sleep at night.

If you can’t stop yourself napping, see your GP for investigations.

Shut out your pets

Pets have become a common feature of our bedrooms, but animals have different biological sleep rhythms to us and many are nocturnal. This means they will be moving throughout the night and so increase your vulnerability for disturbed sleep.

If you haven’t already done so, start tonight with a no pets in the bedroom rule and certainly do not let your dog or cat in the bed.

No coffee after 1pm

Caffeine in the day will increase alertness, but not reduce your sleepiness. Though a cup of tea contains roughly half the caffeine of coffee (20mg a cup compared to 40mg), it can make dropping off to sleep tricky if you are sensitive.

The trick is to avoid caffeine after lunch. Opt for herbal or decaffeinated drinks in the afternoons instead. And don’t binge on chocolate in the evenings — it also contains caffeine.

Change meal times

A heavy dinner within two hours of bedtime will force your body to attempt two opposing biological processes at the same time — digestion and sleep. This can leave you with indigestion and a night of restless sleep.

From now on, leave a two-hour digestion window between eating a meal and going to bed.

• Adapted by Louise Atkinson from The One-Week Insomnia Cure by Professor Jason Ellis published by Vermilion on February 16, priced £12.99. To order a copy for £9.09 (30 per cent discount), visit mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640. PP is free on orders over £15. Offer valid until February 24, 2017.