Sleep Maxxing: does it work? And what really helps you get a better night’s sleep
Sleep: When it’s good, life is good. But when it’s bad… life can seem a lot harder.
It’s not surprising that a fair chunk of social media wellness content is given over to advice about sleep: how to get more of it; how to improve it; how to measure whether you’re getting quality sleep and many, many pitches for (sometimes expensive) sleep aids. There’s a name for the trend: sleep maxxing.
Sleep maxxers are doing all sorts of things to promote better sleep, from concocting ‘sleep mocktails’ to taping their mouths shut at bedtime. So how much of this is backed up by the experts – and the evidence?
I talked to sleep expert Dr Michael Hlavac, who’s got a PhD in sleep medicine and is Clinical Director of Sleep Services at Christchurch Hospital.
Sleep requirements are variable from person to person and sleep changes over time.
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He’s not surprised by the sleep maxxing trend; by the time people come to see him, they’ve usually tried lots of things to help their sleep. “I come across it every day”, he reports.
Hlavac says it’s useful to adjust our expectations when it comes to sleep. We might have absorbed the idea that it’s normal or ideal to have eight hours of tranquil, undisturbed sleep and that if we don’t, we’re wrecking our health. But that is not realistic. Sleep requirements vary from person to person, he stresses, and sleep changes over time.
“What a a toddler or a teenager needs in terms of their sleep is quite different to an adult”, he says.
“Although once you hit 30 and above, your sleep requirements generally remain pretty consistent for the rest of your lifespan.”
But it’s a myth that our sleep should be unbroken.
“It's actually really quite uncommon”, Hlavac says.
“We are physiologically programmed to wake several times overnight as we go through various sleep stages and sleep cycles. Waking is an entirely normal part of sleep.”
An abnormal thing, though, is waking and not being able to get back to sleep at all. And as we get older, that can start to happen more.
Dr Michael Hlavac
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“We tend to get less deep sleep and less REM sleep, and more of the other types of sleep. And also as you get older, there are more things which can intrude on your sleep. You get more sleep disorders or more medical problems, which can impact on sleep quality; be it pain or anxiety or other things like medication side effects.”
Sleep apnoea – where the airway is restricted, causing people to stop breathing momentarily and wake up many times through the night – is more common as we age, and in all genders.
Women tend to catch up to men in sleep apnoea by the time they are in post menopause. Anxiety and restless legs syndrome can also adversely affect sleep. Hlavac’s advice is that if your sleep suddenly changes, get checked out.
“If your sleep has changed - if you're now finding that your sleep is not refreshing or you are more tired during the day than you used to be or other things have changed for no apparent reason, don't just assume it's because you're getting older… you need to think that you may have a treatable sleep disorder.”
And what about sleep maxxing for otherwise healthy people? Here’s the expert advice on some popular sleep hacks.
Monitoring your sleep
Tracking your sleep with a wearable or app has become popular. Hlavac says it can be useful, to a point. “Often patients are reluctant to admit that they use a tracking device or a wearable, but I'm very engaged with it. I like seeing people taking interest in their sleep and there's always something you can learn from it.”
Don’t get overly obsessed with tracking your sleep, though, or it might have the opposite effect, and cause sleep anxiety. And understand that most sleep trackers have limitations; most only track movement and position, which isn’t giving a full picture of your sleep quality.
Mouth taping
A favourite practice of Tiktok sleep maxxers, the evidence for mouth taping helping with sleep is, says Hlavac, “not strong. I would not recommend my patients to do it.”
Hlavac says that in theory, it is ideal to breathe through our noses, including when we sleep. “That's the way that we are designed… breathing through your nose humidifies and warms air when it comes in, so it's more efficient at gas exchange and getting oxygen into your lungs.”
The evidence for mouth taping helping with sleep is not strong.
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But that doesn’t mean forcing yourself to breathe through your nose is a good idea. There could be other underlying issues that make this dangerous.
“There is a significant risk attached to it. If you’ve got nasal obstruction for instance, you've got big adenoids or you've got something going on in the back of your nose, and you tape your mouth; then you may not breathe very well at night. If you've got really bad sleep apnoea and you tape your mouth and it's the only place that air’s getting through, then you might have much more prolonged apnoea or stop breathing or develop significant hypoventilation at night.”
Sleep supplements and mocktails
Though there’s a thriving market for them, sleep supplements suffer from a lack of evidence in most cases. Hlavac says he hears from patients anecdotally that magnesium helps with restless leg syndrome and muscle cramps, so some sleep specialists recommend it based on that.
Melatonin (which is the sleep hormone the body makes) is available as a sleep treatment, though for people under 55 it’s only available on prescription. For those over 55, it’s available at pharmacies following a consultation with a pharmacist.
“We prescribe melatonin for people who have problems with their circadian rhythms - so problems with their sleep-wake cycle - or people who travel and get jet lag and they need to reacclimatize to a new time zone. Melatonin in those situations is very effective”, Hlavac says.
Blocking out blue light
You might have seen biohacker influencers wearing orange-tinged glasses to block out blue light and maximise sleep. Hlavac says there is “some very weak evidence” to say that excluding blue light at night helps with sleep. The theory is that the photoreceptors in the back of our eyes rely on blue-green light to suppress melatonin secretion, so if you exclude blue-green light at night, you're likely to sleep better.
“In theory it sounds plausible… but I don't think there's any really strong evidence to say that it makes a substantial difference to falling asleep or your ability to stay asleep.”
The idea that screens at night stop us falling asleep has some evidence, though it’s not really known if it’s the blue light from the screen or the stimulation of our interaction with it that causes sleep issues.
What does work?
Hlavac says when he’s speaking about this, “this is when everyone just gets up and walks out… because basically it's boring. Your brain and your sleep routine and your circadian rhythm- your body loves routine, and it tries to do the same thing at the same time every day.”
So being consistent about going to sleep and waking at the same time programmes your brain and body to get to sleep easily and without fuss.
It works the other way, too: staying up late and sleeping in at the weekend can delay your sleep pattern – and your body clock – and make it harder to get to sleep on time on Monday.
Going to bed in a dark, quiet and comfortable room with an even temperature helps, and so does trying to keep the bedroom a calm place so we don’t condition our brains to associate it with being alert. “Your bedroom should be for sex and sleep only”, Hlavac advises.
He also wants us to know that an occasional ‘bad’ sleep isn’t damaging.
“One night's poor sleep is neither here nor there in terms of impact. It's not going to harm you. But, but if it's a sustained pattern over time, then that’s worth investigating.”