If someone had told Priyanka Vandersman how easy it would be to cure her sleep issues, after struggling for more than a decade, she would not have believed them.
The mother-of-one developed insomnia after working nights as a nurse while studying for a PhD.
At the time she thought being able to survive on very little sleep was a "superpower".
"I could do a full shift, or night duty, come back home, sleep for a couple hours, and then still work on my research. Or do a day shift as a nurse and then at night, come back home and knock off a couple of paragraphs," she told SBS News.
But after taking a nine-to-five job and giving birth to her daughter two years ago, Priyanka began to struggle with her insomnia.
She was unable to develop a new sleep routine nor sleep a set number of hours each night.
"I would go to bed at 10 o'clock and toss and turn and not be able to sleep till two o'clock or three o'clock until my body was just super exhausted and just gave up," she said.
Priyanka is one of the estimated four in 10 Australians who don't get enough sleep, according to the 2017 Deloitte Access Economics report Asleep on the Job: Costs of Inadequate Sleep in Australia.
I would go to bed at 10 o'clock and toss and turn and not be able to sleep till two o'clock or three o'clock until my body was just super exhausted and just gave upPriyanka Vandersman
Poor sleepers risk developing diabetes and high blood pressure and increase their risk of premature death.
Insufficient sleep is also linked to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.
In 2022, the 35-year-old decided to join a clinical trial as part of a world-first research project developed by the Flinders University Sleep Institute and filmed for a three-part series: Australia’s Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley, which is screening on SBS from Wednesday.
Across eight weeks, Priyanka's sleep was monitored by a group of experts including sleep scientists, doctors, psychologists and even a dentist.
Flinders University Associate Professor Dr Sutapa Mukherjee said 80 per cent of the 30 participants in the trial had resolved their sleep issues after the eight-week program.
"These were people that had had sleep problems, many of them for 10, 15, 20 years. And we were able to fix them in eight to 10 weeks," she said.
Fixing sleep problems is not as hard as some may think
The simplicity of the treatments was surprising to some of the participants.
After monitoring their sleep, scientists were able to target specific issues for each person.
Flinders University Associate Professor Sutapa Mukherjee and Dr Michael Mosley appear in the three-part series Australia’s Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley to be screened on SBS. Source: SBS News / Australia’s Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley
Priyanka said scientists realised she had a 25-hour circadian rhythm, which meant her body was constantly trying to stay up later.
Researchers also found her core temperature was at its lowest at 6am, instead of 4am, which meant she was often not ready to wake up at 7am or 8am as the body naturally starts to wake up two to three hours after its temperature dips.
Priyanka Vandersman wears light therapy glasses that helped to cure her insomnia. Source: Supplied / Australia's Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley/SBS
Over a long weekend, they allowed Priyanka to wake naturally at 8.30am on the first day, before pushing her wake time one hour earlier each day.
Once she was waking at 6.30am, they started sleep restriction therapy — reducing her time in bed to six hours at first, which meant she was going to bed at 12.30am — something she believes "rebooted my whole system".
For the first time, she naturally started to feel sleepy around 9.30pm to 10pm.
Almost a year later, Priyanka has maintained her sleeping pattern. Like many others, she now realises she was probably in denial about the impact her lack of sleep was having on her life.
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The secret to a better night's sleep
"For basic functioning that doesn't need massive brain power, I could actually do it with four hours of sleep," she said.
"(But) lack of sleep permeates across almost every aspect of your awake life, and it makes it difficult. Your concentration, your focus, it makes you ratty and irritable."
'I didn't think there was a huge issue until I started actually sleeping'
The study has also changed the life of another Adelaide participant, Kate Hill, who had been suffering from insomnia for more than 20 years and only slept two to four hours a night.
The mother-of-two thought her sleepless nights were genetic, as she had watched her mother struggle with her sleep too.
"I remember being 18, 19 and struggling to go to sleep. I was just anxious or something, and then it just sort of escalated from there and I eventually just accepted it," the 42-year-old told SBS News.
Like many of the other participants, Kate had tried many things to improve her sleep including meditation and sleeping tablets but nothing had worked.
In the end, Kate was cured of her issues through sleep restriction along with other sleep hygiene tips including not having coffee in the afternoons, leaving bed after 15 minutes if she didn't fall asleep, avoiding TV for an hour and a half before bed, and not using her phone in bed.
Importantly, researchers established that unlike most adults, who need seven to nine hours of sleep a night, Kate only needed 6-and-a-half hours each night.
"I was going to bed too early, I was staying in bed too long while awake," she said.
Tips for getting a better night's sleep Source: SBS News
"I didn't think there was a huge issue until I started actually sleeping properly and realising that, although I was functioning, I was far from functioning at my maximum potential," she said.
Kate has started working as a nurse and is required to work some evenings, something she feels capable of managing now that she understands what she needs in order to sleep.
Calls for sleep to be made a national priority
Following a parliamentary inquiry in 2018 about sleep health awareness in Australia, experts recommended that sleep health should be a national priority and that the regulations around shift workers in particular should be revised and updated.
The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said the Australian Government acknowledged the negative impacts inadequate sleep and sleep disorders had on work performance, safety and health.
"Updated guidelines are being developed by Safe Work Australia, through a model code of practice on fatigue," a spokesman said.
"These guidelines will provide authoritative information on how to manage the workplace health and safety risks associated with fatigue in the workplace, and better support compliance and enforcement activities."
Safe Work Australia told SBS News it had commissioned a systematic literature review on managing the health and safety risks of fatigue at work.
Kate Hill (left) is a nurse and has been able to cure her insomnia after participating in a clinical trial led by Dr Sutapa Mukherjee (right). Source: SBS News / Australia’s Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley
During the experiment, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce experienced a jump in his blood pressure from high to dangerously high. Senator Jacqui Lambie realised she had sleep apnoea, something that is undiagnosed in about 80 per cent of sufferers.
A Deloitte Access Economics report commissioned by the Sleep Health Foundation found almost 1,000 deaths in 2019-20 were attributed to sleep disorders, due to increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, mental health conditions and reduced mental health.
Inadequate sleep was estimated to cost the Australian economy around $75.5 billion in 2019/20.
Associate Professor Mukherjee said she hoped the program would put sleep health back on the national agenda.
'There's a clear link between how you feel ... and how much sleep you're getting'
Mukherjee said the best way to gauge whether you were having enough sleep is to reflect on whether you are feeling tired. The use of electronic devices to track sleep and other health measures may also help.
"Most of us know that, 'If I go to sleep at this time, and then I wake up at this time, I'm going to feel pretty good,'" she said.
While one late night may not derail someone's sleep, Mukherjee said if someone's bedtime is constantly changing, this could disrupt their circadian rhythm over time.
Common sleep issues broken down by age Source: SBS News
Better sleep can have many benefits, including for those suffering from depression or anxiety, she said.
"We all know that when you haven't had a lot of sleep, you are more emotional, and it is harder to keep an even keel when everyday things happen in life.
"So there is a very clear link between how you feel, how you engage with the world, and how much sleep you're getting."
Australia's Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley premieres Wednesday 6 March on and airs at 7.30pm the same day on SBS, with episodes following weekly.
Episodes will be available at SBS On Demand with subtitled versions available in Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean.
Stream free On Demand
Australia's Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley
