Sleep hygiene for the darker months

Has it hit for you yet? That creeping shift where 9 PM suddenly feels like midnight, where peeling yourself off the sofa requires a level of motivation beyond your sluggish means, and where that same morning alarm you’ve had all year suddenly feels offensive to the point of aggression. You're not imagining it, and you're definitely not alone. As the days get shorter and the light disappears earlier, our bodies genuinely struggle. The good news? Understanding why it happens is the first step to doing something about it.

Why do we feel more tired in winter?

Winter disrupts our sleep because the lack of natural daylight throws off our 24-hour internal clock, known as the circadian rhythm. In summer, bright mornings and long evenings keep everything ticking along nicely. Come autumn and winter, that system gets thrown off. The sun sets earlier, melatonin (the hormone that tells your body it's time to sleep) kicks in sooner, and before you know it you're nodding off on the sofa at 8 PM but then getting a mysterious second wind at 11 PM that pushes your actual bedtime. The result? You wake up groggy, spend the morning in a delirious fog, and reach for coffee after coffee.

“Light is the strongest synchroniser that we have,” explains Dr. Naheed Ali, MD, PhD. “So if you're controlling what your light exposure is, you're exerting a huge amount of control over your internal rhythms.” The problem in winter, is that most of us aren't controlling it at all, we're just reacting to it.

Work with your body clock, not against it

The single most effective thing you can do in winter is very simple: let daylight in early, and darkness late. Richard Prasad, sleep expert and Founder of Sleep 365, puts it simply: "Get outside within an hour of waking up and be outside for at least 10 to 20 minutes. Even if it's cloudy, outdoor light is still much brighter than indoor lighting." If you can’t get outside the house first thing, even being next to a window with sunlight coming through has a similar effect.

This matters more than most people realise. Your body clock revolves more around when you wake up than when you fall asleep, so keeping your morning alarm consistent (yes, even on weekends) is one of the most powerful tools in your belt for keeping a stable rhythm when the seasons shift. If you exercise, walk or run errands, try, if you can, to move these earlier in the day too. Morning movement supports your body's natural cortisol peak, which is what drives alertness and energy, something that can tend to feel in short supply during winter.

The importance of light carries through to the evening too. "Dim the lights one to two hours before bed, keep screens further away from your face, and use warmer, lower brightness settings," says Prasad. "Make your bedroom genuinely dark, cool, and quiet." In winter, artificial light can easily become the main signal for our body, which means your phone, your TV, and your overhead lights are all sending a message to your brain that it’s still daytime, long after the sun has actually gone down so try and keep these to the minimum.

The power of a consistent sleep schedule

It sounds almost too simple, but the research is clear: going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day is one of the most effective things you can do for sleep quality, particularly when we’re lacking natural light cues. Without the sun to anchor your rhythm, your body needs something else to latch onto, and a consistent schedule can be exactly that. Think of it as giving your body a reliable timetable when the natural one has gone a bit off piste.

Build a wind-down routine that actually works

Your evening routine matters even more in winter, because without the natural dimming of daylight to cue your body into sleep mode, you need to create that transition yourself.

Start by dimming artificial lights an hour or two before bed and put away your screens for something that genuinely helps you decompress, like reading with a gentle lamp, some light stretching, or a warm bath. The bath trick is actually backed by science. Soaking in warm water raises your core body temperature, and the subsequent drop as you cool down mimics the natural temperature dip your body makes as it prepares for sleep, making you feel genuinely drowsy rather than just tired.

Prasad also recommends carrying the consistency of your wake-up times to meal times too. Eating at different times in the evening can send the wrong signals to your body's internal clock, making it harder to maintain a regular sleep schedule. The same goes for exercise: intense workouts within an hour or two of bed keep your body in high gear, elevating core temperature, cortisol, and heart rate at the wrong moment. Light movement like stretching or an evening walk is fine, but save the HIIT sessions for earlier in the day. Basically, the more predictable your evening, the easier your body will find the transition to sleep.

What should you eat before bed for better sleep?

Food is one of the more underrated factors when it comes to sleep, and winter (with its tendency for comfort eating and festive drinking) makes this worth paying attention to.

Caffeine stays in your system much longer than most people assume. Research suggests it can disrupt sleep even when consumed up to six hours before bedtime, so that late-afternoon flat white might not be as innocent as it feels.

Alcohol has the biggest impact, though. As women's health nutritionist Zoe Hill explains, "although alcohol may initially feel relaxing, it can reduce REM sleep and increase night-time awakenings".

When it comes to food, Zoe explains, "very heavy or high-fat meals can disrupt sleep as the body has to work harder to digest them, so they are best avoided late in the evening." Your digestion also slows significantly during your time sleep, so a big meal close to bedtime keeps your body working when it should be resting. "Cheese is worth limiting before bed,” explains Zoe, and no, it’s not because of nightmares. “It contains tyramine, an amino acid that can trigger the release of stimulating compounds in the body." If you do want something before bed, complex carbohydrates, oatmeal or wholegrain toast are your best bet for a gentle, steady release without a blood sugar spike.

The bottom line

If you’re struggling to sleep in the darker months, it’s not a personal failing, it’s a biological response to a very real shift in your environment that most of us feel. Luckily, your circadian rhythm is surprisingly responsive to the right cues. Get outside in the morning, keep your wake time consistent, protect your evenings from bright artificial light, and be a little more strategic about what you're eating and drinking after dark, and these little adjustments (done consistently) can have a big impact.