I fall asleep in about five minutes. That has never been my problem. The trouble starts roughly four hours later, when I wake and then drift in and out every 30 to 45 minutes until morning.
It was at its worst this year, during months of training for the Bowral Classic. My fitness peaked. My sleep fell apart. And night after night, my watch flagged the same thing: my body temperature was raised.
Most people blame a 3am wake-up on stress, or age. Often, the real culprit is heat.
To fall asleep, your core body temperature needs to drop by about one degree. That drop is one of the signals that helps trigger melatonin, the hormone that tells the brain it is time to sleep.
The problem comes later. Cortisol rises naturally in the second half of the night, to prepare you for the day. Heat, meanwhile, makes sleep lighter and more broken. Olivia Arezzolo, who joined me on The Second Half, believes overheating pushes cortisol higher still. Put together, it is a recipe for the 3am wake-up.
Some of us are more likely to overheat at night than others. Find the one that sounds most like you.
Falling oestrogen disrupts temperature control, which is why hot flushes are so common. Falling progesterone makes it harder to feel calm. A routine that worked for years can suddenly stop working.
- A frozen gel pack under your pillow
- Bamboo sheets, around 200 thread count
- Dinner three hours before bed
- Ask your doctor whether HRT is right for you
Olivia had a set of practical suggestions I had not heard before. None of them involve turning the air con down to arctic. Where a tip comes from our conversation rather than published research, I have marked it.
- 16–19°CThe cool range commonly recommended for sleep
- 18°COlivia's suggested setting for the air conPodcast
Temperature is only one part of it, and most of the rest costs little or nothing.
Even with all of this in place, some nights you will still wake. What you do in the next 20 minutes matters more than most people realise.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
The gel pack is the $10 version of the idea. If heat wakes you most nights, or you and your partner never agree on the temperature, the next step is to take the job off your hands entirely.
I've only been using the Eight Sleep Pod 6 for a few days, but I'm already surprised by how much better I've been sleeping.
It fits over your existing mattress and adjusts the temperature on each side of the bed throughout the night.
I'll share my sleep data and a proper review in a future issue, but my first impression? An absolute game changer.
A thin cover fits over your existing mattress and cools or warms each side of the bed independently, making small adjustments through the night as you sleep. Each morning, the app summarises your night, so you can see the difference rather than guess.
These tips are only part of it. In the full episode, Olivia shares a bedtime routine she had never shared on a podcast before.
Frequent night waking has many causes, from sleep apnoea and reflux to anxiety and hormonal change. If yours persists despite these changes, it is worth a proper assessment rather than more guesswork.
The goal is not simply to sleep longer, but to wake rested, night after night. Few things matter more for how well we age.
Book a consultation to look at your sleep →2. Haghayegh S, Khoshnevis S, Smolensky MH, et al. Before-bedtime passive body heating by warm shower or bath to improve sleep: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2019;46:124-135.
3. Scullin MK, Krueger ML, Ballard HK, et al. The effects of bedtime writing on difficulty falling asleep: a polysomnographic study comparing to-do lists and completed activity lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 2018;147(1):139-146.
4. Bootzin RR. Stimulus control treatment for insomnia. Proceedings of the American Psychological Association. 1972;7:395-396.
5. Olivia Arezzolo in conversation with Dr Adam Brown. The Second Half, forthcoming episode, 2026.
6. Eight Sleep. Pod 6 product information, eightsleep.com.
This article is general information only and is not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
