For so long, sleep was the one thing many of us thought we could skip. Late nights, early mornings, a glass of wine, scroll on the phone, up again at six. Most of us have lived this rhythm for years without realising how much it was quietly costing us. The more I have learned about what actually happens while we are unconscious, and the more I have watched it transform the people I work with through Eat Nourish Love, the more I have come to think of sleep as the single most powerful piece of self care any of us.
According to recent data, 91 percent of UK adults regularly get less than the recommended eight hours of sleep a night. Three in ten get under six hours. Around one third of UK adults report symptoms of insomnia every single week. One in six has been struggling with poor sleep for more than ten years. Almost three quarters of UK adults told Nuffield Health that their sleep quality had worsened in the previous twelve months. Direct Line estimated that 7.5 million British people are now sleeping under five hours a night, which is well below the level the body and brain need to function properly.
We are, quite genuinely, in the middle of a quiet national sleep crisis.
The reason that matters is because sleep is your body’s nightly reset. While you are unconscious, your brain is sorting through everything you have absorbed during the day, consolidating learning, flushing toxins, and converting short-term memories into long-term ones. Your body releases the hormones that repair muscle, build bone, and rebuild damaged tissue. Your immune system produces infection-fighting proteins called cytokines. Your blood pressure and heart rate drop. Your appetite hormones, ghrelin and leptin, rebalance, which is one of the reasons that under-slept people tend to crave sugar and reach for second helpings the next day.
Skip a few nights and almost all of this stops working properly. Chronic sleep loss is linked to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, weight gain, depression, anxiety and reduced immunity. It also blunts mood, decision-making and emotional regulation, which is why a bad night can make everything feel impossibly heavy.
And there is one group that has been told far too little about how big this issue is for them. Women in perimenopause and menopause.
Recent research shows that 39 to 47 percent of perimenopausal women experience sleep disorders, and that figure rises to between 35 and 60 percent in postmenopausal women. Up to 61 percent of menopausal women report difficulty sleeping at least several nights a week. Hormonal changes, particularly the drop in oestrogen, disrupt the body’s ability to regulate temperature, mood, anxiety, and one of the very minerals that sleep depends on. Magnesium.
Which brings me to the second half of this conversation.
Magnesium is one of the most underused, underestimated supplements for sleep. It plays a role in over 300 enzyme reactions in the body. It calms the nervous system. It supports the release of GABA, one of our key relaxation neurotransmitters. And it helps regulate melatonin, the hormone that signals to the body that it is time to sleep.
A randomised, placebo-controlled trial published in 2025 looked at 155 adults with self-reported poor sleep. The group taking 250 milligrams of elemental magnesium bisglycinate 30 to 60 minutes before bed showed significantly improved Insomnia Severity Index scores after four to eight weeks, compared to those taking a placebo. Other research, including a meta-analysis of 18 studies, has shown that magnesium intake correlates directly with lower anxiety, lower stress hormones, improved mood, and better overall sleep quality.
A few practical notes on magnesium, because most people I speak with do not realise this.
Not all magnesium is the same. Magnesium citrate is most often used for digestion because it has a mild laxative effect, which is not ideal at bedtime. Magnesium glycinate and bisglycinate are gentle, very well absorbed and the forms most associated with sleep, calm and stress recovery. A daily dose of 200 to 400 milligrams of elemental magnesium is the range used in research, and the studies generally recommend not exceeding 350 milligrams of supplemental magnesium per day. Taken in the hour before bed it can help quieten the nervous system, reduce racing thoughts and ease the body into a deeper sleep. As always, anyone on medication or with a health condition should check with their GP first.
This is also where I want to mention Sleeple, whose work I have been following with real interest. They are a UK brand entirely focused on better sleep through carefully formulated, well-sourced supplementation. If you are looking for a sleep-specific product made by people who take the science seriously, they are well worth a look at sleeple.life.
But magnesium alone does not fix sleep. It works best as part of a wider bedtime rhythm that gives your body permission to wind down.
The things that have made the biggest difference for me are not glamorous, and they are not complicated. Get outside in natural light within an hour of waking, because that single act resets the body clock more effectively than almost anything else. Stop drinking caffeine after midday. Eat your last meal earlier rather than later. Lower the lights in the house from around eight o’clock onwards. Keep your bedroom cool, dark and uncluttered. Get into bed at roughly the same time each night, even if it feels boring. Read a book rather than your phone in the last twenty minutes. And take a small dose of well-sourced magnesium glycinate around the same time each evening.
Sleep is not a luxury. It is the foundation everything else sits on. Your skin, your mood, your hormones, your weight, your immune system, your relationships, your work and your patience with the people you love are all far better on the back of a good night.
If there is one form of self care to take seriously this year, please make it this one. The more of us who reclaim our sleep, the better the rest of life feels.
“Sleep is the best meditation.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama
What is the smallest change you could make tonight that would let you fall asleep ten minutes earlier?
Sources: Hillarys UK Sleep Statistics 2025; Bailey Sleep UK Sleep Crisis data; Direct Line Group on Britons sleeping under five hours; Nuffield Health Healthier Nation Index; randomised placebo-controlled trial on magnesium bisglycinate and Insomnia Severity Index (2025); Sleep Foundation on magnesium for sleep; Metagenics UK on magnesium, stress and anxiety; published research on perimenopausal and postmenopausal sleep disorders.
