Stop Chasing Eight Hours: Your Sleep Routine Matters Too

Yesterday I suggested that feeling better doesn’t necessarily require reinventing yourself.

So naturally, today I’m going to suggest something enormously ambitious.

Go to bed.

I realise this is groundbreaking stuff.

Sleep is one of those subjects where almost everybody knows the basic advice, yet an extraordinary number of us seem determined to negotiate with it.

“I’ll just watch one more episode.”

“I’ll just check my phone.”

“I’ll go to bed early tomorrow.”

Then suddenly it’s 12:47am and you’re watching a video explaining how medieval people cleaned their teeth.

Or perhaps that’s just me.

We obsess over the number

Ask somebody how much sleep we’re supposed to get and they’ll probably say eight hours.

The NHS actually gives a broader figure: adults need around seven to nine hours on average, although individual needs vary.

But something interesting has been happening in sleep research.

Scientists are increasingly looking beyond how long we sleep and asking another question:

How regular is it?

A systematic review involving 41 studies and 92,340 adults across 14 countries found that later and more variable sleep patterns were generally associated with poorer health outcomes. The researchers concluded that consistent bedtimes and waking times should be encouraged.

More recent research has strengthened the case.

A 2025 systematic review examined 59 studies and found fairly consistent associations between irregular sleep timing and outcomes including depressive and anxiety symptoms, higher BMI, insulin resistance, hypertension and cardiovascular events.

That doesn’t mean going to bed at 10:03pm instead of 10:00pm is going to finish you off.

Bodies aren’t railway timetables.

It does suggest, however, that rhythm matters.

Your body rather likes knowing what’s happening

We have an internal body clock — our circadian rhythm — coordinating sleep and wakefulness with numerous biological processes.

Giving it wildly different instructions every night isn’t particularly helpful.

The NHS therefore recommends trying to go to bed and get up at roughly the same time each day. It also suggests building in time to wind down beforehand and making the bedroom dark, quiet and comfortably cool.

Notice what’s missing from that advice.

An expensive mattress endorsed by somebody famous.

A £190 sunrise lamp.

Magnesium-infused moon water.

I’m exaggerating with the last one.

Probably.

Naturists might already understand part of this

In my first article, I talked about spending twenty minutes outside without trying to achieve anything.

There’s a connection between that and sleep.

Our bodies evolved around environmental rhythms: daylight and darkness, activity and rest, warmth and cooling. Modern life gives us the remarkable ability to ignore most of them.

We can sit under artificial light at midnight, staring into a bright rectangle while telling ourselves we’re “winding down”.

Naturism can’t cure insomnia, and I would be extremely suspicious of anybody claiming that it could.

But the wider philosophy can encourage something useful: paying attention to the body rather than constantly overriding it.

Feeling tired isn’t a personal failing.

Rest isn’t laziness.

Sometimes your body is simply asking you to stop.

Tonight’s experiment

So I’m not going to give you seventeen rules for perfect sleep.

Try one thing instead.

Pick a realistic time to start winding down tonight.

Not necessarily bedtime — wind-down time.

Put the phone somewhere slightly inconvenient. Lower the lights. Make a drink if that’s part of your routine. Read something. Sit quietly. Open the bedroom window for a while.

If sleeping naked is comfortable for you, sleep naked. If it isn’t, don’t.

There will be no naturist inspector arriving at 11pm to check.

Then, rather than judging tonight’s sleep as “good” or “bad”, try doing roughly the same thing tomorrow.

That’s the important bit.

Because wellbeing rarely comes from doing something perfectly once.

It usually comes from doing something reasonably well, often enough that your body begins to recognise the pattern.

Yesterday we started with going outside.

Tonight, we’re going to bed.

I did promise this wellbeing business wouldn’t be complicated.

How good are you at actually switching off at night — and what usually keeps you awake?

Dave Thomas writes about wellness, wellbeing and living well for Naturism Wales.

Further reading: NHS: How to fall asleep faster and sleep better⁠ · PubMed: Sleep regularity systematic review⁠