The truth about sleep trends: What really works for good rest

In our fast-paced and screen-saturated world, getting great shut-eye can seem perpetually evasive. From celebrity endorsements to TikTok trends, the internet is rife with tips, tricks, and buzzwords about sleep. Some of these terms introduce fresh perspectives, while others simply repackage long-standing practices under new names. Nonetheless, ongoing interest in this subject—especially when a new year kicks off—underscores how complicated it can be to get restorative rest.

So what advice should we heed—or ignore?

As a highly sought sleep expert, Professor Emeritus Wendy Hall (MSN’86) of UBC’s School of Nursing is adept at traversing this tricky terrain. Over the past five years, she has given more than 50 media interviews on sleep health. Dr. Hall notes that health professionals have spent decades educating the public about sleep health. But now that apps, phones, and social media are fueling the popularity of tracking sleep, she urges caution about how you interpret your personal data.  

“Your Apple Watch is very useful for maybe telling you what your sleep duration is—it’s not so useful for telling you what sleep states you’re in,” she says. “If you’re only looking at certain sleep cycles, it’s going to look like you’ve got a ton of REM sleep. But that isn’t necessarily the case—it depends on what part of the night you’re looking at.”

When you start “obsessing over your sleep for no good reason,” she warns, “that’s dangerous.”  

Understanding what works best for you is also essential, Dr. Hall emphasizes.

“There is a range of sleep duration recommendations because people vary in the amount of sleep necessary to feel rested and healthy,” she says. In fact, UBC researchers have found that the duration of sleep you need can depend on the norms of your culture or country.

“It’s important to pay attention to how well a person is feeling and functioning during the day,” she says. “If you get too much sleep or not enough sleep, that’s when you push yourself into potential health problems.” 

With that in mind, here’s an overview of recent sleep trends. Although some overlap, each entry has distinct features. Since these terms aren’t formally defined, their meanings and usage can vary. Ultimately, each approach includes elements that can potentially help or hinder efforts to improve sleep.

Sleep reset

Aliases: sleep reboot (usually a one-time attempt)

What it is: This overhaul involves replacing inconsistent sleeping patterns with healthier routines. It often involves implementing behavioural and lifestyle changes, including establishing a sleep schedule, improving sleep hygiene, and incorporating recommendations from sleep experts.  

Benefits: Having a break from bad habits, such as when the new year begins, can provide a fresh start. Those struggling with burnout, insomnia, or changing schedules tend to use this technique. Dr. Hall points out that transitionary periods often require us to do this.

“A perfect example is when there is return to school and we have to reset our late nights and late wake times for what we need to do to meet our demands at school,” she says.

Cautions: Much like New Year’s resolutions, individuals can potentially slip back into previous patterns if this effort is used as a quick fix—supportive lifestyle changes or prolonged commitment may be required to ensure lasting adjustment. Deeper issues, such as stress or mental health challenges, could potentially interfere with sustaining this change and may need to be addressed.    

Sleep syncing

Aliases: circadian synchronization

What it is: Scientists had been recommending circadian synchronization long before the term sleep syncing arose on TikTok. While some people use sleep syncing to describe matching sleep schedules with a partner, it usually refers to gradually aligning your sleep-wake timing with your natural circadian rhythm (your body’s internal clock). It’s often done by maintaining consistent bedtimes, getting daylight exposure (especially in the morning), avoiding eating and exercising close to bedtime, and more.  

Benefits: Because this approach works with your biology, it can offer long-term stability. Aligning yourself with your natural circadian rhythm can help you fall asleep faster, remain asleep longer, and experience more restorative and REM sleep. Accordingly, this regularity can stabilize energy, alertness, and mood during your waking hours.

Cautions: Measuring success can be challenging because alignment is internal, gradual, and prone to misinterpretation. Dr. Hall adds that it can be difficult to determine what your natural cycle is as most people fall somewhere in between the two main types: early risers and night owls. And for those inclined toward later bedtimes, keeping a very late schedule despite having to get up early can lead to chronic sleep loss.

In addition, unexpected events can make it difficult to stay on track. For many people—including parents, shift workers, or those facing constant changes—maintaining consistency can be challenging or unsustainable.

“Given the demands of our lives, it is pretty difficult to align a sleeping and waking schedule for very late nights and late-rising to work and family life,” Dr. Hall says.

Circadian hacking

Aliases and associated terms: sleep hacking, short-sleep hacks, chronotherapy (sleep schedule adjustment)   

What it is: Some sources use circadian hacking to mean circadian synchronization. But it’s also used for the opposite: using tools or interventions (light therapy, supplements, fasting periods, and more) to actively manipulate or override your circadian rhythm for new schedules or boosting performance.  

Benefits: This shift can help those needing immediate change, such as frequent travellers, performers, athletes, or workers with irregular hours.

Cautions: As this approach forces the body out of everyday patterns, it may be unsustainable or disrupt bodily processes. Dr. Hall has serious concerns about the uncertainties and potential pitfalls of circadian hacking because the complexities of internal clocks still aren’t fully understood.

“There’s more and more research indicating that hormone secretion variability affects our circadian rhythms,” she says. “If people are relying on their technology to think that they know their circadian rhythms, that’s a problem. The technology isn’t designed to give that level of insight.”

Sleepmaxxing

Aliases: sleep optimization

What it is: Similar to online slang like looksmaxxing (enhancing physical attractiveness) or lifemaxxing (living life to the fullest), sleepmaxxing refers to optimizing sleep quantity and quality. This effort can involve: physical sleep aids (weighted blankets, cooling sheets), tech devices (white noise machines, sunrise or sunset simulation lamps), sensory elements (aromatherapy, calming music), and supplements (melatonin, magnesium).

Benefits: Focusing on improving rest can help to prioritize overall wellbeing. The objective of this approach is to obtain the benefits associated with experiencing high-quality sleep, such as sharper cognitive performance, stronger physical health, and enhanced mood or emotional resilience.

Cautions: A perfectionist pursuit of maximizing sleep can backfire by heightening a need for control. As Dr. Hall explains, sleep is ultimately about letting go.

“You’re basically going into a state of altered consciousness,” she says, “and to do that, you need to feel safe, and you need to feel like you can trust your environment—that you can go to sleep and you’re going to wake up in the morning.”

Consequently, obsessing over sleep scores from tracking devices and micromanaging physical arrangements can turn sleep into a performance. In fact, researchers coined the term orthosomnia to identify an unhealthy preoccupation with achieving ideal sleep, which can inadvertently amplify stress and anxiety. 

Dr. Hall is particularly troubled by how sleepmaxxing can involve practices like “mouth taping,” a purported method to stop snoring by forcing you to breathe through the nose. She points out that there’s no evidence proving that taping your mouth improves sleep, and it can be risky for those with acid reflux, sinus problems, or airway obstruction issues.

While sleeping aids can help, they can encourage dependence upon external elements or conditions. In contrast, practices like stretching, breathwork, meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation are self-reliant and can be done anywhere.

Sleep vacations

Aliases: sleep tourism, sleepcation, napcation

What it is: People have long often talked about getting some “R&R” (rest and relaxation) or heading to the cottage to unwind. Today, however, hotels and resorts are now marketing vacations specifically built around rest by featuring special sleep-oriented accommodations and activities, including enhanced bedding, soothing music, meditation, yoga, and more.

Benefits: By removing everyday distractions and stressors, a sleep vacation can offer a much-needed respite. It can specifically allocate time and attention towards improving sleep. Such travellers may be able to delve into deeper sleep, establish better routines, and return home with renewed energy.

Cautions: Dr. Hall remains skeptical about how the travel industry has embraced this trend. “They’re packaging that as a really expensive holiday for people,” she says.

In addition, the temporary relief of such a vacation can’t compensate for chronic sleep debt (sleep deprivation). Without addressing ongoing issues, habits, or lifestyles, vacationers risk succumbing to pre-existing problematic patterns after going home.

Sleep divorce

Aliases: Sleeping separately

What it is: To improve sleeping conditions by reducing disruptions, some couples choose to sleep in separate rooms rather than sharing a bed. Although practiced in upper-class households in the 19th and 20th centuries, this arrangement was prone to being misinterpreted as a sign of relationship woes. More recently, some celebrity couples—such as Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden or David and Victoria Beckham—have helped normalize this idea.

Benefits: This arrangement can eliminate disturbances caused by a partner’s snoring, restlessness, body heat, insomnia, or differing schedules. Relationships can potentially benefit from reduced irritations, greater personal space, and improved mood.

Cautions: Sleeping apart may not be feasible for everyone as extra accommodations are required. Some individuals may feel less relaxed or secure without their partner nearby, making it harder to fall asleep. Separate beds can also affect physical and emotional intimacy between partners. Dr. Hall warns that the negative connotation of the term can potentially impact relationships—which can ultimately affect sleep. “It can kind of end up escalating,” she says.  

Sleep revenge

Aliases: bedtime procrastination, bàofùxìng áoyè (报复性熬夜—a Mandarin phrase for “retaliatory staying up late”) 

What it is: Derived from the above Chinese expression that arose on social media in the 2010s, this term refers to delaying going to bed to make free time, particularly amid demanding schedules.

Benefits: For some, this might be one of the few ways to carve out personal time and regain a sense of autonomy or identity. If done occasionally, it may be relatively harmless.

Cautions: Dr. Hall understands that people do this because they’re “trying to cope with very complex lives,” which can include everything from multiple jobs to endless chores to family responsibilities. Yet partners or even entire households can be affected—“bedtime refusal” or “bedtime resistance” from children, she points out, can drag out bedtime routines for hours.

“When children have sleep problems…it’s the parents who have the sleep problems too,” she explains.

Delaying sleep can go beyond time-management challenges—it can be a coping mechanism for issues such as feeling a lack of control in your life or unmet emotional needs. Inevitably, repeated bedtime procrastination can be self-sabotaging as sleep deprivation impairs health and cognition.

Strategies to reduce sleep revenge include scheduling breaks throughout the day, improving your work-life balance, or working with a personal coach or therapist to explore underlying challenges.

Bed rotting

Aliases: Netflix and bed days, do nothing day, hurkle-durkle (Scotland)   

What it is: In the past, this term was casually used to refer to staying in bed due to feeling lazy, depressed, or sick. But on social media, bed rotting came to mean lying in bed for long periods while scrolling, reading, watching videos, snacking, or doing nothing.

Benefits: For some, this self-imposed isolation can be a form of self-care by prioritizing mental health, resisting hustle culture, or reducing overstimulation and stress.

Cautions: Done sporadically, this might be less of a concern than if it becomes habitual. Yet Dr. Hall warns that this behaviour, which may be a coping mechanism, may not be as innocuous as it sounds.

“This idea of bed rotting worries me,” she says. “It makes it sound like there’s no consequences to spending the whole day in bed.”

Doing so reduces movement and exposure to natural light, potentially affecting circadian rhythms, mental health, and overall wellbeing. It also goes against sleep hygiene guidelines, which recommend reserving beds solely for sleep to avoid psychological associations with wakefulness. Other hazards include rumination, inertia, and oversleeping (if dozing or napping becomes involved). Deeper issues—such as avoidance, burnout, or a lack of boundaries—may also need to be addressed.

“You have to ask yourself the question, ‘Well, what else is happening?’” Dr. Hall says. “Is there some kind of metabolic problem going on? Is there some kind of mood disorder happening?”

How to get good sleep

An alternative to following sleep trends is getting back to basics. For instance, rather than monitoring your sleep data, Dr. Hall recommends closely observing how you’re spending your days and nights to understand how that might be impacting your rest.  

“It is best to stick with regular routines, pay attention to what we’re doing before bed, and try to make our sleep environments as friendly as possible for sleep,” she says.

Consider the following questions based upon tried-and-true sleep hygiene guidelines:

• How consistent are your daily waking and sleeping times, including weekends?

• Are you experiencing sunlight exposure for at least 20 to 30 minutes (especially in the morning) to help maintain daily rhythms?

• Are you napping for more than 20 minutes during the day? If so, can you have short “power naps,” especially earlier in the day?

• How close to bedtime are you eating or drinking (including alcohol)? Late-night eating is associated with unpleasant dreams and poor sleep, as well as potential acid reflux. Aim for a buffer of one to two hours prior to bed and end caffeine consumption (including from supplements, medications, or energy drinks) at least six hours beforehand.

• Are you minimizing screen time before bed to help calm your nervous system? Try setting a digital curfew by shutting off electronic devices 30 to 60 minutes (or earlier) before bedtime. 

• Do you follow a wind-down routine involving relaxing activities (stretching, meditating, breathwork, etc.) about 30 to 60 minutes before getting into bed to prepare for sleep?

• Are you noticing what works best for your body, mind, and lifestyle—and addressing any anxiety, stress, or worry that might be affecting your sleep?

For individuals from BC and the Yukon who are experiencing serious sleep problems (such as insomnia, chronic fatigue, narcolepsy, or sleep apnea), the UBC Sleep Disorder Program at UBC Hospital can conduct a sleep study to help diagnose and address your condition. To access this service, you need to obtain a referral from a physician, nurse practitioner, or specialist.