Staddon & Sons

Sleep is often seen as a slight mystery. We spend around one third of our lives asleep without really understanding much about what happens to our bodies during this time. But with reports that  30 percent of people are sleep-deprived , and also scientifically proven associations between  sleep patterns and health , it is clear that how we sleep can influence our overall well-being. Learning more about an individual’s sleep pattern can provide many insights into their health. On an personal level, we often ask several revealing questions such as: Do you typically sleep 7-9 hours each night? Are you comfortable through the night? Do you usually wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day? Do you fall asleep easily within 30 minutes? Do you typically remain asleep throughout the night? Are you able to clear your mind of any worries before going to bed? Are you free from any night time perspiration? Do you have an evening routine to help wind down before going to...

Want to sleep better? For an ever-increasing number of people, the answer is "yes". There is certainly a lot of advice out there about how to achieve a good night’s rest: evict the TV from your room, source the perfect bed and power down your tech an hour or two before retiring. But what are the sleep-hacking secrets which have helped some of the world’s top footballers? In  Don’t Tell Me The Score , Simon Mundie sits down with elite sports sleep coach Nick Littlehales, whose focus is to maximise athletes' recovery by putting them in touch with the way they are designed to sleep. Here are Nick’s tips for how to sleep like a Premier League footballer... 1. Think in cycles, not hours Needing eight hours a night is a myth, says Nick. Our sleep follows a natural 90-minute cycle as we move between deep NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement) and REM sleep. The important thing, he says, is not to interrupt one of these phases, so structure your sleep in multiples of 90 minu...