The Sleep Report: 3 Myths about sleep

Every night – or almost every night – we go to bed in the hopes of getting a good night’s sleep that will help us get through the next day. Small gestures help ensure an inevitably good rest. We give you some tips, and bust all the old clichés…

1) The hours before midnight count double. wrong!
The early hours of sleep are certainly more restorative because phases of deep sleep last longer during the first few cycles. Following this, they shorten to allow more room for REM sleep. But this phenomenon occurs irrespective of the time when we go to bed.

2) Alcohol is a sleeping pill

After several drinks, one can collapse quickly enough, but the sleep is of poor quality because alcohol dries and has a stimulating effect to delay action. Sleep cycles are therefore incomplete and result in frequent awakenings.

3) An orange juice at night prevents sleep. WRONG!

This belief has its origin in the warning on vitamin C packages: “Do not take late in the day because of its stimulant effect.” This advice, however, comes from the fact that vitamin C is involved in the synthesis of dopamine, a brain chemical messenger involved in arousal and alertness. But studies have shown that it has no effect, even at high doses, on the duration and quality of sleep.

Read more from our ‘Sleep Report’:

I have trouble falling asleep 

I sleep but I wake up feeling tired 

My nights are hacked up

Sylvia Vaisman