Personal leadership · Every phase
Sleeping better
You know how much sleep you need, what disturbs it most, and what you'll do differently tonight.
Worth reading first: Where do you start with working healthily?
Does this sound familiar?
- Six hours is enough for me, I'm used to it.
- I just about get by during the week, and catch up at the weekend.
- I send the last email from bed, and then lie awake for another hour, mind racing.
- Around three in the afternoon I grab another coffee to get through the day.
- A glass of wine helps me drop off, but I'm awake at four.
Who it's for, and when
For anyone who sleeps less than they'd like during the week, has a lie-in at the weekend, or is still in their inbox in the evening. It plays a part in every phase. In Searching and Proving the temptation to cut back on sleep is at its strongest, and that's when it costs you most: it's exactly then that you make the decisions that count.
Self-test
Four questions about the last two weeks. Pick what's closest to the truth, not what you'd like it to be. The result tells you whether sleep is the thing to work on, and what your first step is.
How many hours did you sleep on a normal work night over the last two weeks? Actual sleep, not time in bed.
How much does the time you get up differ between work days and days off?
When do you have your last coffee, energy drink or cola?
What does the last hour before you sleep look like, and your bedroom?
The model
An adult needs at least seven hours of sleep a night. If you regularly sleep six hours or less, you're not sleeping enough. The tricky part is that you don't notice it yourself. In one experiment, people slept six hours a night for two weeks. On attention tasks they then did about as badly as after staying up all night, yet they felt only slightly sleepier.
How much you sleep is one side of it. The other is when. Your body clock runs on light and regularity: daylight in the morning, dim light in the evening, and roughly the same wake-up time every day. A weekend lie-in takes away some of the sleepiness, but it shifts your clock, and you start Monday with jet lag.
What disturbs your sleep most often is what you do yourself in the evening: coffee in the afternoon, alcohol, and work or a screen until just before bed. After about five hours, only half the caffeine has left your body. Alcohol can help you fall asleep faster, but it makes the second half of the night more restless. With a screen, it's mostly what you're doing on it that keeps you awake; the blue light itself does less than people often say.
Have you been lying awake three nights a week or more for months, and does it affect you during the day? Then a sleeping pill isn't the first step. Your GP starts with cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), which you can also do online. And if you snore loudly, your partner notices you stop breathing, or you fall asleep during the day without meaning to, get it checked. Sleep apnoea is very treatable.
Watson et al., consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society (Sleep, 2015). Van Dongen et al. (Sleep, 2003). Gardiner et al. on caffeine (Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2023) and alcohol (2025). The Dutch GP guideline on sleep problems (NHG-Standaard Slaapproblemen, 2024). Cochrane review on blue-light filtering lenses (Singh et al., 2023).
Long enough
At least seven hours actually asleep, not just in bed. If you're not getting there, the first step is going to bed earlier, not getting up later.
At set times
The same wake-up time, weekends included, with an hour's difference at most. Go outside into the daylight as soon as you're up. That sets your clock.
A calm evening
No coffee after lunch. Ideally no alcohol, and definitely no nightcap. No work in the last hour, and the lights dimmed.
A dark, cool room
Dark, quiet and cool, with your phone outside the room. A warm shower one to two hours before bed helps you fall asleep faster.
Pitfalls
Slept badly, so you stay in bed longer
It feels logical, but it makes the next night worse. Get up at your usual time. If you've been lying awake for more than about twenty minutes, get up and only go back when you feel sleepy.
Going by the score on your watch
A sleep tracker estimates, it doesn't measure precisely. Fixating on the score can actually make your sleep worse. Pay attention to how you feel during the day.
Watch and read
Russell Foster researches the body clock at Oxford. He explains why sleep isn't wasted time and what light has to do with it.
Watch on YouTubeIn Dutch. Sleep researcher Merijn van de Laar on how you sleep, not just how long. The title (roughly "Why you don't need eight hours of sleep at all") sounds like it contradicts this lesson, but he says the same thing: around seven hours, and the quality counts too.
Watch on YouTubeIn Dutch. Karin Smolders (Eindhoven University of Technology) on light: daylight during the day, less light in the evening, and why blue light matters less than you think.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Slapen als een oermens
Merijn van de Laar · 2025 · ISBN 9789000395811
In Dutch, 199 pages, by a sleep researcher who also treats insomnia. Down to earth, with the CBT-I techniques you can use yourself.
View the bookApply it
- 1
1. Pick your wake-up time, and count back
Pick one wake-up time for all seven days. Your bedtime is seven and a half hours earlier: that gives you time to fall asleep and leaves seven hours.
- 2
2. Set a finishing time for work
An hour before bed you stop work and email. Write down what needs doing tomorrow, so you don't have to remember it in bed.
- 3
3. Move your last coffee
Caffeine-free after lunch. It's the cheapest improvement there is, and you'll notice it within a week.
- 4
4. Make the room dark
Closed curtains or a sleep mask, the heating down, and your phone on the charger in another room. An ordinary alarm clock costs a few euros.
Examples
An evening, written out
Wake-up time 6.45am, so bedtime 11.15pm. 2pm last coffee, then water or caffeine-free tea. 9.30pm work done, three things for tomorrow on paper. 10.15pm phone on the charger in the hall, lights dimmed. 10.30pm shower, read. 11.15pm lights out.
A founder who always sent 'just one more' email
Every evening at eleven, one more round of email, then bed at midnight with a head full of clients. He set himself a fixed finishing time of half past nine, and wrote a note with three points for the morning. After two weeks he was sleeping half an hour longer, and the eleven o'clock email could just as well go at eight the next morning.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.A colleague says: 'I've slept six hours for years, I'm used to it.' What's true?
2.You sleep six hours during the week and ten at the weekend. What do you do first?
3.You have a coffee at four in the afternoon and still fall asleep easily at eleven. Is that coffee a problem, then?
4.Someone has one or two glasses of wine every evening, 'because then I sleep better'. What's true?
5.You spend another hour on your phone in bed. What helps most?
6.Someone has been lying awake a few nights a week for three months and is tired during the day. What's the first step at the GP?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Stress and recovery · You know the difference between stress that comes with the job and stress that won't go away, and you build recovery into your day.
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