Rise And Shine

The latest stats about sleep are cause for alarm, because they show that modern life is negatively affecting our wellbeing. Here's what you need to know about how to use your time in bed to get fitter, healthier and happier.

- Jon Lipsey

If someone invented a pill that was guaranteed to make you leaner and make you live longer, the biggest headache they’d face in life would be finding ports around the globe with the capacity to accommodate their super-yachts. The bad news for pill salesmen and the good news for the rest of us, however, is that this elixir already exists. Even better, it’s free. But it’s not in pill form.

The way you access it is to lie down in a dark room and nod off. And if you have any ambition to be healthier and fitter then the science is clear – you need to pay more attention to the quantity, quality and consistency of your sleep. “If you want to lose weight and get fit, the first thing you should focus on is getting your sleep right,” says performance coach and sleep expert Dr Jonathan Bloomfield, who works with elite sportsmen and blue-chip executives (support2perform.co.uk). “There are clear links between sleep and weight gain, and sleep and testosterone levels. So if you fail on your sleep you’re never going to achieve your fitness or weight loss goals.”

That may not come as a surprise. We all know that sleep is important. The problem is, we’re not getting enough of it and we're also developing increasingly unhelpful lifestyles and bedtime habits. According to a recent insurance company report, 20million people in Britain aren’t getting enough sleep and those in the 35-44 age bracket are worst affected, with 51% of people saying that they’re not spending enough time in the land of nod.