Channel your inner Gwyneth Paltrow: Here’s everything you need to know about clean sleeping

You may be more familiar with the term 'clean eating', the buzz phrase of last year; being the process of eating whole foods, clean and unrefined or processed. It’s essentially about eating the best to feel the best we can. Relating directly to this theory, 'clean sleeping' is simply about doing all we can to achieve the best restorative night's sleep.

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Silentnight’s sleep expert, Dr Nerina Ramalakhan, gives us her take on this latest trend.  'Everything we do during the day, every choice we make, affects the cleanness and purity of our sleep. Clean sleep is simply sleep that is ‘unmuddied’ by the noise of the day. When we get this kind of clean sleep, we wake up feeling refreshed, invigorated and looking forward to the day ahead.'

Nerina claims it’s not the hours of shut eye but the quality of our sleep that matters, ‘The key issue is that the sleep is pure and hits those rejuvenating depths that enable complete restoration of the body and mind. After getting clean sleep for 7-10 days you can expect to feel different – your sleep will be deeper, you will feel more energised and, most importantly, happier and more positive when you wake each morning.’

Dr Nerina shares her top tips to improve the quality of your sleep:

1. Drink alkaline water
If you’re already drinking the recommended two litres of water a day and you want to take it to the next level, try adding a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of sea salt to alkalise the water. Hydrating with alkaline water helps our body to work properly; transmitting messages and enabling our physiological processes including getting good restorative sleep.

2. Think about the half-life of caffeine
The half-life of caffeine is five hours which means if you have a drink at 5pm you will still have half that amount in your blood supply by 10pm. You won’t feel energised but the caffeine is still in your system and it’s enough to stop you getting deep, clean sleep.

3. Stop aimlessly looking at your phone 
When we get an alert on our phone the brain mentally responds,  waking our brain up even more. It might be a tough habit to break but if you’re serious about getting clean sleep you need to stop looking at your phone an hour before you go to sleep.

4. Have four early nights a week 
The hours before midnight are a really important part of clean sleeping; these deeply restorative hours heal the body and provide sought after anti-ageing benefits. Even if you get a good amount of sleep, going to bed late is likely to leave a large amount of your sleep being highly inefficient. Try to get to bed around 10.30pm four nights a week to allow your body to access that vital 90 minute window of sleep before midnight.

Try these top buys for helping to achieve clean sleeping:

Invest in the best bedding

First and foremost ensure you have good quality bedding; the best mattress and thoughtfully considered pillow and duvet choices.

Create the perfect ambience

Nightlights aren't just for children. Withings, leaders in the connected home and health revolution, offer the ultimate sleep experience with the Aura sleep system. Cedric Hutchings from Withings says, “by combining environmental sensors, light therapy and now thanks to our partnership with Spotify, the most personal of musical choices, we can help get a sound night’s sleep.” As you ready for bed the room is gently illuminate by the red light scattered by the Aura, the only light not inhibiting melatonin secretion, to help you drift off gradually and peacefully. To enhance the mood further you simply chose a soothing playlist or nature sounds to gentle hum you to sleep.

Aura Connected Alarm Clock, £149.95, Withings.

Be a sleeping beauty

A good night's sleep is imperative for our well-being, inside and out. Our skin cells renew while we snooze blissfully unaware, so why not aid them in any way we can. Silk is often thought to be the best material for our skin when it comes to slumber but the lesser know copper also has fantastic mineral skin enhancing properties too. This copper-infused pillow supports our skin's natural self-renewal mechanism and help to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles – we’d take an anti-aging textile over an expensive face cream any day.

Iluminage Skin Rejuvenating Pillowcase with Copper Oxide, £50, Amazon.

Rise and shine

Waking with the sun, as nature intended, is a great way to set yourself up for the day ahead; a good start is a head start! Be roused from your slumber gradually and peacefully with a little help from this wake-up lamp. This clever gadget uses a gradual light, mimicking the effect of sunrise, that increases within 30 minutes from soft morning red through orange until the room is filled with a bright beaming sunny-yellow light.

Philips Wake-Up Light Alarm Clock, £120.96, Amazon.

Monitor your progress

Keeping a diary can help to monitor the quality of your sleep – you may be snoozing for eight hours with only two being good ‘clean sleeping’ quality. Resmed analyses your sleep to help you understand patterns; it monitors light, sound and temperature to see what’s affecting your sleep. Once its identified what might be keeping you awake at night this clever device pings a personalised daily feedback straight to your smart phone or tablet, awarding a sleep score and suggestions on how to improve it in order to get the best night's sleep, every night. Unlike other sleep monitors this is contactless, so you don’t have to wear anything – simply sinc it up to your device and pop it on the bedside table.

S+ By Resmed non-contact Sleep Monitor, £129.95, John Lewis.

Sometimes we take sleep for granted, it's just something we do everyday without thinking about it right?! Wrong, there's always room for improvement as Gwyneth has taught us - never underestimate the power of a good night's sleep.