Can’t sleep at Christmas when you’re staying away? It’s the first night, not you

I get quite stressy sleeping at other people’s houses. Even my own family’s. I love seeing everyone, and then bedtime comes and I’m lying there wide awake in a bed that isn’t mine.

I always thought it was just me. It turns out it’s an actual thing.

So if you sleep badly when you stay at someone else’s house for Christmas, it isn’t you being fussy. On the first night in a new place, part of your brain stays half awake, listening out. Researchers have measured it. The good news is it usually settles by the second night, so a rough first night doesn’t mean a rough week.

Here’s why it happens, and the small things that help.

Why the first night away is the worst

In a 2016 study at Brown University, published in Current Biology, researchers watched 35 people sleep in a lab. On the first night, a network in the left side of the brain stayed more alert than the right during deep sleep. When they played odd sounds into the ear linked to that side, people were more likely to wake, and woke faster.

On the second night, the difference had gone.

The researchers think it’s a kind of night watch: in a strange place, your brain keeps one ear open. Useful in a cave. Less useful in your sister’s box room with a radiator that clanks.

Make the room yours for the night

The NHS advice for sleeping badly works anywhere, and most of it fits in a wash bag:

• Dark. Curtains in spare rooms are often thin. The NHS suggests an eye mask if you need one.
• Quiet. Other people’s houses have other people’s noises: the dog, the boiler, someone up for the loo. Earplugs, or something soft playing in your ears.
• Comfortable. The NHS lists comfortable pillows and covers. If the spare pillow is a brick, it’s fine to bring your own.

Take a bit of home with you

If your brain is on watch because everything is new, give it a few things that aren’t. The room is someone else’s, but your bedtime doesn’t have to be.

• Your own pillowcase. It smells like home, and it takes up no room in the bag.
• Your usual pyjamas and your usual book. Small, but they tell you it’s bedtime the way they do every other night.
• Your usual wind-down. If you listen to something at home, listen to the same thing here. Same voice, same words, same point where you usually drift off.

This is where I’d pack my Unwind & Sleep Kit. The band is soft enough to lie on, so I can sleep on my side in a bed I don’t know, with someone kind talking in my ears instead of listening out for the creaky floorboard. I don’t take the cards away with me: any session you own also plays straight from the Clementine app. And if I wake at 3am in the spare room, Wide Awake At 3am? is already in the band. One press of the middle button, no phone, no rummaging in the dark.

It doesn’t have to be our kit. A favourite podcast or audiobook on your own headphones does the same job. The point is that the last thing you hear at night is the same as at home.

Keep your mornings the same

The NHS advice is to wake up and get out of bed at the same time every day, and not to sleep in after a bad night. That’s hard on holiday, so don’t be strict about it. But if the first night was rough, getting up near your usual time helps the second night go better than a long lie-in.

Go easy on the late drinks

It’s Christmas. Nobody is telling you not to have a drink. Just know what it does at night. Drinkaware says alcohol means less of the deeper REM sleep, more trips to the toilet in the night, and waking up less refreshed. The NHS suggests no alcohol, tea or coffee in the six hours before bed. Swapping the last glass for water is the easy middle ground.

Give your head somewhere to put things

Staying with family can be lovely and a lot at the same time. Lying awake replaying a conversation from dinner is very normal. Two things help:

1. Do 5 finger breathing in bed. Trace your hand, breathe in and out. It takes about a minute and nobody can see you doing it.
2. If you’re still awake after about 20 minutes, get up. The NHS says to get up and sit somewhere comfortable. Do something calm until you feel sleepy, even if “somewhere” is the bathroom with a book.

A note from our data. In The 3am Report, Christmas Day was 48% quieter than a normal night for women in the UK. With nothing to get up for, more of us slept. So if the night you’re dreading is the first one away, it’s likely to get easier from there.

When it’s more than one night

If you were sleeping badly before you went away, the spare room isn’t the cause. Read why you’re waking up at 3am. If poor sleep has lasted months, or is affecting your days, the NHS says to see your GP.