Sleep
The wind-down hour is doing more work than your bedtime
Most sleep advice fixes the moment you get into bed. The hour before it is where the actual problem usually lives.
Jonah Fielding
Sleep writer, Care Pebble
Jonah writes about sleep, shift work and the gap between sleep science and a real bedroom.
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18 articles
Sleep
Shift work and sleep: what actually helps when the schedule cannot change
Most sleep advice assumes you choose your hours. For a large share of people that is not true, and the useful advice is different.
Quiet Spaces
Making a rented flat feel like somewhere you live
Almost everything that changes how a home feels is removable, and almost none of it needs permission.
Sleep
Light in the morning does more for sleep than anything at night
The body clock is set primarily by light timing, and the morning signal is the strongest one available.
Sleep
Sleeping badly for a few nights is not insomnia
The clinical definition involves duration, frequency and daytime consequence, and the distinction changes what helps.
Sleep
Bedrooms that are too warm, and the temperature drop that starts sleep
Core body temperature falls to initiate sleep, and a warm room makes that harder than any other environmental factor.
Sleep
What to do with a night you know will be short
Sometimes the sleep is not available. The question is how to lose it with the least cost.
Quiet Spaces
Bedrooms that are for sleeping
The room accumulates functions until it is a study, a laundry and a screening room, and sleep is the thing that suffers.
Quiet Spaces
Plants indoors, and the claims that do not hold up
Houseplants have real benefits and do not measurably purify the air in an ordinary room.
Quiet Spaces
Bathrooms, mornings and the small frictions that set the tone
The first ten minutes of a day happen in one small room, and its irritations are cheap to remove.
Sleep
Sleep and the menopause transition
Sleep disruption is one of the most commonly reported symptoms, and it has several distinct mechanisms.
Sleep
Dreams, nightmares and what they are not evidence of
Dream content is poorly understood, and the confident interpretations on offer are considerably more certain than the science.
Sleep
Sharing a bed with someone whose sleep is nothing like yours
Two people in one bed run two sets of conditions from one thermostat, one duvet and one light switch. Most of the friction turns…
Sleep
The weekend lie-in and the Monday it charges you for
Sleeping late on Saturday repays part of a week-long deficit and quietly resets your body clock at the same time. The second effect…
Sleep
Mattresses, pillows and the claims that come attached
Bedding is sold with the confidence of medical equipment and tested with nothing like the rigour. What the evidence supports is…
Sleep
How much sleep you need, and why the answer is a range
The number quoted at you is a population average with a wide spread around it. Finding your own figure is a matter of observation…
Quiet Spaces
Outdoor space, even a very small one
A balcony, a doorstep or a shared patch does more than its size suggests, mostly by making going outside require no plan at all.
Quiet Spaces
Small rooms, and the difference between cramped and compact
Two rooms of identical size can feel completely different. Most of the gap comes from circulation, sightlines and light rather than…