How to improve your sleep podcast with Rob Hobson

Find out how to enjoy a more restful night’s sleep with tips from Rob Hobson, author of The Art of Sleeping.

In this episode, we cover nutrition tips to help you to improve your sleep, practical changes you can make to feel more rested and bust a few sleep myths.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast and most major podcast apps, or online below.

So why is sleep so important for our health? Rob says: "In the UK, we're recommended to get about eight hours sleep, but people get on average about seven. And there's a there's a significant amount of people that get less than five. So you need your sleep to help the body to repair in the day, it helps to keep you sort of your concentration levels up and your your your creativity. But if you don't get enough sleep research shows that you could be at greater risk of diabetes, you could be at greater risk of heart disease and could even be linked to obesity and weight gain."

Rob believes that it's helpful to look at our lifestyle overall to address some of the common causes of insomnia, from better nutrition to improving our sleeping environment.

One area he thinks it's a good idea to address is our use of technology. Keeping a smartphone in your bedroom or using a screen late at night can disrupt your sleep cycle. "You're exposing yourself to blue light, which can affect melatonin production, which is the hormone that controls your sleep cycle," Rob explains. "So forcing a digital detox about an hour before bed is probably quite a good idea if you want to get some sleep."

He also recommends looking at your sleeping environment. Is your room too warm? Is it cluttered? Are you fighting over the duvet with your other half? These are all things which can lead to sleepless nights.

What's Rob's top piece of advice? "One of the things I struggled with, because I had quite quite bad insomnia, and that's why I wrote the book. And one of the things I always struggled with was going to bed. You need to sit there and even if you're tired, sometimes you force yourself to stay up or you get into a book or you get into the TV and before you know it's one two in the morning. So I think that is it's probably a tricky one for people."

Listen to the episode to discover more great advice to improve your sleep.

The Art of Sleeping is published by HQ priced £9.99.