{"id":6978,"date":"2026-07-28T11:27:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.landofbeds.co.uk\/help-and-advice\/?p=6978"},"modified":"2026-07-28T11:27:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:27:04","slug":"sleeptok-tiktok-sleep-hacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.landofbeds.co.uk\/help-and-advice\/lifestyle\/sleeptok-tiktok-sleep-hacks\/","title":{"rendered":"SleepTok: Which Viral TikTok Sleep Hacks Actually Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Insights from <\/em>Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/em><\/a>, Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\nSleep has become one of TikTok’s biggest wellness obsessions. #Sleep has over 5.3 million posts, with a further 31 million hashtags on Instagram. As a result, millions of people are trying everything, from sleepy girl mocktails to weighted blankets and coloured noise, in the hope of finally getting a good night’s sleep. And, most are doing it without knowing whether any of it actually works. As a result, we put SleepTok’s biggest trends to Dr Katrina O’Donnell, a retired GP with three decades of clinical experience, to find out which ones hold up.\n\n<\/p>\n\n

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\n\nWhy SleepTok Has Taken Off\n\n<\/h2>\n\n

\n\nIt’s worth saying upfront how ordinary this problem actually is. The NHS advises adults to get seven to nine hours of sleep a night, and yet around one in three people in the UK are thought to experience insomnia at some point.\n\n<\/p>\n\n

\n\nMeanwhile, The Sleep Charity puts the number living with an undiagnosed sleep disorder at more than 14 million. Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that so many of us have gone looking for answers on TikTok, rather than waiting weeks for a GP appointment.\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Why People Turn to TikTok for Sleep Advice\n\n <\/h2>\n\n

\n\n The British Medical Journal has made the same point: TikTok now sits within the wider health-advice ecosystem, precisely because it’s immediate, relatable and accessible, in a way the traditional route to medical advice often isn’t. With so many individuals impacted, this isn’t a niche wellness topic, it’s an ordinary problem that TikTok has simply made more visible, and more shareable.\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Getting a same-week GP appointment for something non-urgent is hard. However, finding someone on TikTok who’ll answer your exact question in thirty seconds isn’t.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell’s Perspective\n\n <\/h2>\n\n

\n\n \u201cIt’s not hard to understand. Healthcare is stretched, appointments are short, and if you’re in your twenties and not sleeping well, waiting three weeks for a five-ten-minute GP appointment doesn’t feel like an appealing option. Someone on TikTok who seems warm and relatable (and is clearly sleeping fine) will answer your question immediately. The appeal is obvious.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Dr O’Donnell’s view of sleepfluencers themselves is more generous than you’d expect. Some are doing proper research and making sleep health feel accessible rather than clinical, which she thinks is broadly a good thing. After all, anything that gets people treating sleep as a serious health behaviour, rather than something that just happens is beneficial. Her concern is what sits next to that content.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n Dr O’Donnell’s Perspective\n\n <\/h2>\n\n

\n\n \u201cUnfortunately, a lot of sleepfluencer content is commercially driven or oversimplified in ways that cause harm. For example, the sleepmaxxing content that pushes people to obsess over biometric data worries me. The supplement market has latched onto sleep in a big way, and most of those claims don’t stand up. And, there’s content that actively discourages people from seeking medical help because the creator found a natural fix that worked for them.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n She recommends that individuals use those platforms as a starting point rather than as an endpoint.\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Sleepmaxxing: Healthy Habit Or Harmful Obsession?\n\n <\/h2>\n\n

\n\n In O\u2019Donnell\u2019s eyes, sleepmaxxing mixes some of the best sleep advice around with one of the internet’s worst habits, obsessing over getting it perfect.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n \u201cSleepmaxxing is one of those trends where you’ve got genuinely good advice sitting right next to stuff that’ll make things worse if you take it seriously. The habits that are actually backed by evidence? Consistent wake times every day (including weekends), morning daylight exposure, a cool bedroom, and cutting screen time before bed. None of that is new, instead, the science supporting these practices has just gotten stronger over time.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n That lines up with NHS guidance almost exactly: a regular wake time, no caffeine after around 4pm, daylight during the day, and no screens in the hour before bed.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Where it turns darker is the obsessive edge. There’s a real, recognised phenomenon called orthosomnia, where fixating on your sleep tracker score starts to wreck the very sleep it’s meant to be measuring.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n \u201cIf you’re lying awake worrying about whether your deep sleep percentage was high enough, you’ve already missed the point. The goal is good sleep, not a perfect graph.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n The same trap catches out people trying too hard to fall asleep in general. The harder you chase it, Dr O’Donnell explains, the more alert your brain gets. This is because sleep isn’t something you force, rather, it’s something you allow. Once your bedroom becomes a place of performance anxiety, the problem grows. Her actual fixes are unglamorous and include slow breathing (in for four, hold for four, out for six to eight), a body scan starting at the feet, getting up after twenty minutes rather than lying there stewing in your thoughts, a room at 16-18\u00b0C , and covering the clock.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Most of sleepmaxxing is just well-known sleep hygiene with a new name. The habits are sound. It’s the scoreboard mentality that isn’t.\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\n Sleep Syncing: Does Resetting Your Body Clock Actually Work?\n\n <\/h2>\n\n

\n\n Sleep syncing is the most well-intentioned trend, as it’s built around how your circadian rhythm actually functions.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n \u201cYour circadian rhythm is a biological clock which runs on roughly a 24-hour cycle and is mainly driven by light signals reaching your brain. It responds well to the right inputs. However, it takes time, and you can’t rush it.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n The factor that matters most isn’t your bedtime, which is where most people focus. Instead, it’s your wake time.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n \u201cThe single most powerful thing you can do is anchor your wake time. Pick a time and get up at that same time every day – regardless of how you slept. You should also get outside into daylight within the first hour of waking. That light signal is what resets the clock. Everything else, such as your sleep pressure and melatonin timing, adjusts around that anchor.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n YouGov found that 71% of Britons already go to bed at roughly the same time every night. This means that most of us are halfway to sleep syncing without ever calling it that.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n However, shifting your schedule – rather than just steadying it – takes longer than TikTok tends to suggest. Dr O’Donnell recommends moving in fifteen to thirty minute steps every few days, rather than trying to leap from a 2am bedtime to a 10pm one overnight.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Two smaller habits do most of the supporting work. Firstly, cutting caffeine by early afternoon, since it has a half-life of five to seven hours, meaning a 3pm coffee is still in your system at bedtime. Secondly, dimming screens in the evening, because your brain reads blue-rich light as daylight and suppresses melatonin accordingly.\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n\n White Noise, Pink Noise And Brown Noise: Which Is Best For Sleep?\n\n <\/h2>\n\n

\n\n The difference between the colours of noise comes down to physics (not anything mystical!) and each one has settled into its own niche online for good reason.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n White Noise\n\n <\/h3>\n\n

\n\n White noise has equal energy across every frequency. It sounds harsh, like static or an untuned television, but works precisely because it masks everything, including sudden noises, a car outside, a partner shifting in bed, or anything that would otherwise wake you. It tends to suit people sleeping somewhere noisy, such as near a busy road or in a shared house.\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n\n Pink Noise\n\n <\/h3>\n\n

\n\n Pink noise softens the higher frequencies into something closer to rain or wind through leaves. It carries the most emerging research for sleep quality and memory consolidation, though the studies are still small. It’s also generally the gentler option for people who find white noise a bit abrasive to fall asleep to.\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n\n Brown Noise\n\n <\/h3>\n\n

\n\n Brown noise, sometimes called red noise, goes deeper still, and is more of a rumble than a hiss, meaning it resembles the sound of being below deck on a boat. It’s currently the trendiest of the three on TikTok, but has less sleep-specific evidence, especially than pink noise. It’s mostly favoured by people who simply find a lower, heavier sound easier to relax into.\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n However, none of them are secretly superior, nor will they make you sleepier on their own. What they all do is reduce the chance that outside noise wakes you up.\n\n <\/p>\n\n

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\n\n \u201cAll three forms of noise work primarily through auditory masking. They cover up sudden changes in your sound environment that would otherwise cause micro-awakenings. The one that best suits you is personal preference, so experiment with them and see.\u201d\n\n <\/p>\n\n

\n\n Dr Katrina O’Donnell<\/strong>
\n Retired GP & Sleep Health Advisor\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n\n This means that the honest answer to \u2018which is best\u2019 is whichever one you fall asleep to, or don’t notice yourself being annoyed by.\n\n <\/p>\n\n<\/section>\n\n