Social media, perimenopause and poor diet are just some of the obstacles to getting good shut-eye. That’s according to the 2025 Body+Soul Sleep Report.

Luckily, there are workarounds to help you sleep like a baby (well, maybe not a baby, but almost). So we have tracked down the expert-backed solutions to a better night’s slumber

Dreaming of better sleep? So is half the country. Despite all the calming apps we download, sleepy tisanes we brew and ‘rules’ we follow (you know the ones – don’t drink alcohol close to bedtime, keep your bedroom at 21 degrees Celsius etc etc) an alarming number of Aussies report having poor or inadequate sleep.

According to Body+Soul’s 2025 Sleep Report, more than one in three of us clock six hours of sleep or less per night, while two in three of the people we surveyed admit that a lack of quality sleep affects their focus or performance at work at least once a week, every week. 

Despite regularly being affected by poor shut-eye, responses to our indepth survey revealed that one in four of us aren’t doing anything to improve our sleep quality. So all in the name of better slumber, here's what we found is keeping the nation up at night — and what the experts say we can do about it. Ready? Then let’s begin.

Sleep saboteur #1: THE 8 HOUR MYTH 

We’ve all been there: knowing you have a huge day tomorrow and hoping for a textbook eight hours’ sleep, only to be staring at the ceiling at 2am like the finance dad in Season 3 of The White Lotus. That we need eight hours of sleep is, “more of a cultural myth” than anything supported by science, according to Dr Amelia Scott, a clinical psychologist at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research. It might even be contributing to ‘orthosomnia’, she suggests: an unhealthy obsession with measuring and perfecting sleep. 

“The idea of eight uninterrupted hours stems from the early 19th century, when labour reform determined that 24 hours should be split into three chunks of eight,” explains Scott. “Eight hours each for work, leisure and sleep. However, the average for a healthy adult is about seven hours’ sleep; we don't worry until they’re consistently getting considerably less than five or six.” 

Many people expect sleep to feel like “oblivion,” she adds. They want to climb between the sheets, close their eyes and see and hear nothing until the morning. Healthy sleep, however, involves waking at least four or five times a night, plus more ‘arousals’ — very brief awakenings you can’t remember. This could be evolutionary. “Ancient humans probably lay awake more than we did,” writes sleep therapist Merijn van de Laar in ‘How to Sleep Like a Caveman’ (Harper Collins). “It likely made sense to be awake longer and more often if there was a nocturnal threat from predators or hostile tribes… you and your tribe could respond more quickly and get to safety.”

‘Good-enough’ sleep also looks like “regularity,” offers Scott. “Going to bed and waking up at around the same time each day, give or take an hour.” This, she says, is a sign of a sound circadian rhythm: the 24-hour ‘body clock’ in the brain that regulates alertness and sleepiness according to hormones and changes in the environment, such as light. Unsurprisingly, Body+Soul’s Sleep Report found that 34 per cent of ‘good’ sleepers maintain a regular sleep schedule, compared to just 21 per cent of those who struggle with it.

“The best way to tell whether you’re getting enough sleep is by how you feel during the day,” says Professor Bei Bei, a researcher at the Monash University Healthy Sleep Clinic. Walking on sunshine most days? Great. Feel like the walking dead, all the time? That’s a problem. “But if you lose sleep occasionally, say, one or two nights when something stressful is happening, don't stress over it,” assures Bei. “When you next sleep, your brain usually makes up by engaging in more deep ‘slow wave’ sleep.” No need to lose sleep over sleep, so to speak.

“For most of us, aiming for eight hours of oblivion every night can cause us to wake feeling dissatisfied,” says Scott. Because it’s just not realistic. “This dissatisfaction can create anxiety, which truly interferes with good quality sleep.” Ergo, Scott discourages people from monitoring their sleep using apps or wearable health trackers. “They stimulate the body's stress response and most of them aren’t particularly accurate. Evidence shows that how people perceive their sleep in the morning dictates how they go about their day. If someone slept well but you tell them they slept poorly, they will feel worse than if you told them they slept well.” Fascinating, and potentially life-changing.

Sleep saboteur #2: THE IMPACT OF PERI

Want to hear something truly shocking? One in three women in perimenopause or menopause say they’re affected by a lack of quality ZZZs, according to our report data. And, unsurprisingly, this can impact their partner or family, too. “It's incredibly common for women to have sleep disturbance during perimenopause,” confirms Dr Kelly Teagle, GP and founder of menopause telehealth service, WellFemme. “Poor sleep can, in reverse, worsen peri symptoms, such as hot flushes, mood disturbance, brain fog and cognitive difficulties.” 

So, what’s going on? During peri, declining and fluctuating oestrogen can disrupt levels of the ‘happy’ neurotransmitter serotonin, which helps make melatonin — the hormone that induces sleepiness. “At the same time, you can lose the calming and sedating effect of progesterone, which also declines in perimenopause,” says Dr Fatima Khan, a menopause and perimenopause specialist. “As these hormones go down, cortisol can also rise.” Cortisol is the stress hormone that evokes the fight or flight response, which is useful when you’re running for the bus but not when you’re in bed. At the end of the day (literally), cortisol is supposed to decrease as melatonin increases — signalling to the body it’s time to zonk out. Instead, you can be left feeling agitated, wired and yeah, tired.

Besides talking to your GP about menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), which is proven to improve sleep, Khan suggests “active relaxation” before bed. “Many of us currently do passive relaxation, such as consuming social media or watching TV, which is too stimulating.” Of course, doomscrolling (trawling distressing news until you reach the end of the internet) can boost cortisol and adrenaline, exacerbating stress and anxiety. (More on that later.)

“Active relaxation helps you decompress from your day. It looks like breath work, stretching, yin yoga, a warm bath or reading a book,” says Khan. Better still, get a low-fi hobby. Anything that activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which calms you down after stress or danger, slows your heart rate and focuses on essential bodily functions like digestion. That’s good wellness advice for all of us.  

Sleep saboteur #3: WHAT WE’RE EATING

Sometimes, it’s not coffee or stress keeping you awake. In intriguing news, it could actually be what’s on your plate. Countless research studies link poor nutrition and gut health with mid sleep, and healthy diets with top-shelf shut-eye. A review published in the journal Nutrients, for example, associated the Mediterranean diet with longer, better quality sleep. In a French study of more than 38,500 participants, those who consumed more ultra processed foods (UPFs) were significantly more likely to have insomnia. 

According to the Body+Soul Sleep Report, 37 per cent of bad sleepers experience things like bloating, gas and constipation, compared with 11 per cent of those who sleep soundly. Eating more veggies could be the ticket. “A high-fibre, plant-rich diet naturally feeds our beneficial gut microbes,” explains Dr Megan Rossi, The Gut Health Doctor and a research fellow at King’s College London. “When our gut microbes ferment fibre, they produce compounds called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These support gut health and may have a role in supporting our circadian rhythm, too.”

Foods containing tryptophan, such as cow’s milk, might help you sleep like a Disney princess (or prince), as well. This essential amino acid makes serotonin, and serotonin goes on to make melatonin, explains Dr Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of South Australia. “Sources of tryptophan include chicken, fish, dairy, berries, kiwifruit, walnuts and tart cherries,” she says. Tart cherries, also known as Montmorency cherries, also boast decent levels of melatonin itself. Several small studies have shown that tart cherry juice, in particular, aids sleep duration and quality. 

In case you were wondering, big meals and spicy food close to bedtime can certainly stuff up your slumber. This is partly due to reflux. “When we lie down with a full stomach, the pressure can force open the lower oesophageal sphincter, the ‘trapdoor’ between your stomach and oesophagus, allowing acid to escape upwards,” explains Rossi. “Triggering symptoms like heartburn, coughing and disrupted sleep.” Eat your last main meal three to four hours before bed, she advises, which gives your gut time to kick off the digestive process. “Try sleeping on your left side. This helps keep stomach acid where it belongs, in the stomach, reducing nighttime reflux and encouraging more restful sleep.”

Sleep saboteur #4: SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE

In news that will shock no one, good sleepers spend less time on social media, as per the Body+Soul Sleep Report. Bad and disrupted sleepers, on the other hand, are twice as likely to be heavier social media users, with 20 per cent spending more than five hours a day scrolling. When it comes to doing it in bed, it’s not just the platforms that are detrimental. In a Norwegian study of more than 45,000 people, a one-hour increase in any kind of screen time — even Duolingo! — after hitting the hay was associated with a 59 per cent higher chance of insomnia. 

Why? Technology, and artificial light, can mess with our still-kind-of-ancient circadian clock. (Also, doomscrolling is plain stressful.) Homo sapiens (humans) have existed for up to 300,000 years but only started living in cities less than 10,000 years ago, writes van de Laar. We’ve only used incandescent light bulbs since the 19th century and home computers since the late 1970s. “Our brains have had to adapt… to these developments in a relatively short time. Our living conditions have changed dramatically, but the evolution of our bodies and minds are not moving as fast,” he says. We’re still wired to hunt and gather outdoors and doze off by a flickering campfire. 

For this reason, charging your phone in the kitchen overnight mightn’t be enough for a gold star. “We hear a lot of, ‘Stop getting blue light at night’, but it's equally — if not more — important to get plenty of sunlight,” reveals Scott. “Getting light during the day tells our brain, ‘Hey, it's time to be awake, alert and our cleverest, strongest, smartest selves’. Also, we're getting too much light at night, when our brains should be making more melatonin.” Scott has an analogy for people who dutifully restrict screen time at night, but spend all day indoors, stationary and on devices. “It’s like scoffing Mars bars all day and then having a salad before bed,” she quips. “You've got to be healthy round the clock.” 

Luckily, it’s not hard to catch sufficient rays. Work in an office? Spend your lunch hour outside, suggests Scott. Dim your lamps at home at night to evoke that cosy, prehistoric cave vibe and elicit melatonin production. And remember, a problem is only a problem if it’s a problem for you. “For some people, watching videos on their phone is a way to wind down — and to not think about sleep,” says Bei. “If your phone is not taking time away from sleep, and you are sleeping well, I wouldn't worry too much about it.”

But if you live a healthy lifestyle and have tried everything under the sun (including getting some sun) and good-enough sleep still confounds you, seek help from a GP or sleep-savvy psychologist. In short, don’t take it lying down, since just a few simple, science-backed tweaks really could transform your slumber, forever.  

Find more insights about the nation's state of snooze, in our 2025 Body+Soul Sleep Report.