HOW TO SLEEP BETTER, FROM BEDTIMES TO REGULARITY – WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS

Sleep research has come a long way in the last decade. Here's what you need to know to help make your slumber better

Only a decade ago, sleep was a relatively overlooked pillar of health. Most of us treated it as simple downtime - a period of inactivity in which we "recharged our batteries". Medical advice at the time was quite basic: get eight hours or so a night and you would be fine.

That mindset shifted dramatically in 2017 when British neuroscientist Matthew Walker published the bestseller, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. It was a wake-up call that brought the science of slumber to the masses, popularising the idea that sleep is not a passive state.

During deep sleep, the glymphatic system kicks in, acting like a waste-clearance service to flush out metabolic debris and proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease.

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Sleep was also crucial to memory consolidation and learning, Walker showed - and it suddenly became a new frontier in health and wellness.

A shift from quantity to quality

As sleep took centre stage, the wellness-minded started to take "sleep hygiene" seriously - such as creating the perfect dark, cool sanctuary and sticking to strict bedtime rituals. Trackers helped people chase the "perfect" sleep score. The "eight-hour rule" got more flexible, with experts recalibrating the goal to anywhere between seven and nine hours.

The focus has shifted again, from just counting hours to assessing the quality of the time between the sheets. A new buzzword is "multidimensional": to get the most out of sleep, several different factors have to click at the same time.

The journal Sleep describes true sleep health as a "pattern of sleep/wakefulness, adapted to individual, social and environmental demands, that promotes physical and mental well-being." In plain English? You have to look beyond the clock. Getting the requisite hours of sleep will not deliver all the benefits if your schedule varies a lot or if you toss and turn. In fact, erratic sleep may heighten the risk of heart problems and mental health struggles.

The American Heart Association echoes this, noting: "Conceptualising sleep as multidimensional emphasises that sleep is not a unitary physiologic experience, and multiple sleep dimensions affect functioning in various ways."

Put simply, sleep is a series of biological functions that all need to mesh for you to feel your best. As Walker discussed in a series of podcasts with fellow neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, to master sleep requires managing three main factors: regularity, timing and continuity.

The power of regularity

Consistency is king. Sleep regularity means getting roughly the same amount of shut-eye every night.

Many of us are guilty of "sleep bingeing" - not getting enough during a frantic work week and trying to make up for it by sleeping late on the weekend.

It is not that simple. Getting the same number of hours every night is much healthier than to fluctuate. Some data even suggests that a consistent sleep window could be more vital for long-term health than the total number of hours you clock. You want both, but if you have to choose, stop the weekend catch-up cycle.

Mastering the clock

Then there is timing. It is not just about how much you sleep, but when you do it.

Walker stresses that your "sleep window" is critical. He recommends being strict with your schedule - not to let your sleep or wake times fluctuate by more than 30 minutes, even on weekends.

The reason is your circadian rhythm: the 24-hour internal clock that tells your body when to be alert and when to release melatonin. This rhythm is hard-wired into your "chronotype", which is essentially your genetic DNA for sleep.

We are not all built the same way. There are so-called "larks" who are lifting weights at the gym at 6am, and "night owls" who do not feel truly energised until the sun goes down.

The differences are not just due to personality, but to evolution. In our hunter-gatherer days, having different sleep schedules was key to survival. If everyone slept at once, the campfire would go out and predators would have an easy target. Sleeping at staggered times ensured someone was always awake to stay on the alert.

Walker narrowed down these chronotypes into five main sleep windows:

• Extreme morning types, who sleep from around 8pm to 4.30am

• Morning types (9.30pm to 5.30am)

• Neutral types (11pm to 7.30am)

• Evening types (12.30am to 9am)

• Extreme evening types (2.30am to mid-morning)

The trick is to figure out which one you are and stop fighting it. Working against your genetics is a recipe for poor health. Of course, modern life makes this hard - a "3am owl" may still need to be at their desk by 9am - but acknowledging that your body is not broken, just biologically different, is a first step.

The quest for continuity

Staying asleep once you have drifted off - continuity - is essential. A truly restorative night should be one of smooth, continuous slumber, without a snoring partner, hungry pet or trip to the bathroom waking you up.

Experts measure this by "sleep efficiency". If you are in bed for eight hours but only actually asleep for six, your efficiency is low. You should be aiming for a score of 85 per cent or higher.

This becomes harder as we age and sleep naturally becomes more fragmented.

Recently, there has been a trend of people trying to "hack" their deep sleep, using tech to chase that specific stage while ignoring all else. This is a mistake, Walker warns: you cannot pick your sleep stages.

REM sleep, in which dreaming occurs, is as vital for your emotional health and brain function as deep, restorative sleep. They work in tandem; if you break the transition between them through fragmented sleep, you will not wake up feeling refreshed, even if your "deep sleep" numbers look good on your watch.

Getting your sleep health in order can be a challenge, but the payoff is worth the effort. In Walker's words, sleep is "the greatest insurance policy available - and it's free".

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

Copyright (c) 2026. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

2026-05-02T23:33:34Z