Brits miss out on two and a half hours of sleep per night due to stress

Brits feel stressed due to lack of sleep

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The study, conducted by the UK’s most trusted sleep brand, Silentnight, was commissioned to lay bare the true impact stress is having on the nation’s sleep.

It reveals UK adults miss out on three full days of sleep per month due to stress, which adds up to a shocking thirty six entire days per year.

The average Brit only gets six hours and twenty four minutes of sleep per night, considerably less than the seven to nine hours recommended by sleep experts.

More than four in five people (82%) report feeling stressed, according to the data, with 18% revealing they are feeling ‘very stressed’.

Hannah Shore, Sleep Knowledge and Researcher manager at Silentnight said: “Sleep and stress are very closely linked.

“While everyone’s circumstances are different, the good news is that there are several tips and tricks that you can employ in your own life in order to help alleviate the problem.”

Hannah’s top three tips for de-stressing at bedtime…

Stop scrolling

We’ve all heard about blue light being bad for you in the evenings, but it might not be as bad as the content we are scrolling through on our phones. Looking through the news and scrolling through social media can all produce ‘wake-promoting’ hormones when we are trying to get to sleep. Put your phone down an hour before bed to reduce this.

Get up

It may come as a surprise, but if you can’t get to sleep, the worst place for you to be is lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Doing this will only make you more stressed about not being able to sleep. Instead get up and read a book, listen to a podcast or do something else calming. Eventually you’ll get sleepy and return to bed to drop off.

Routine, routine, routine

Create a successful wind down down routine. This can be anything that will help you switch off from the day, such as reading, listening music - or even watching TV. Yes, that’s right. Most people advise against this but if watching TV is how you disconnect from your day then that’s fine. Just don’t binge watch Netflix all night long!